First concerts, and now blogging, will save the world

Bozo Erectus

Master Baker
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Jan 22, 2003
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Yahoo! and the American Cancer Society are breaking new ground in an effort to connect individuals in the fight against cancer. In a 30-day Blog for Hope event, celebrities and public figures share insights and personal stories of how cancer has affected their lives. Bloggers include Fran Drescher, Hillary Clinton, Deepak Chopra, Tom Green, and many others. Read the blogs and post your thoughts as we unite to raise awareness and bring an end to cancer.
http://blogs.health.yahoo.com/blog-for-hope/

We had the Live 8 concerts, not to mention all the other concerts before that, and wow, look how things have improved in Africa! Its amazing! Its like night and day over there! But the good news just keeps on coming! Now not only can we end hunger by listening to music, we can also cure diseases by blogging! Soon we'll be able to raise the dead with text messaging! Halleluja!
 
You forgot to mention that Internet forums will soon find a cure
for Alzheimer's Disease.
 
Hitro said:
Yeah. Next up, blogging for world peace! :yeah:

Care to join a good group blogging, Bozo?
Sure why not! But lets make sure we listen to music at the same time. Might as well feed people in Africa as we cure cancer! Oh and lets not forget to wear our special Cancer Blog Headbands so everyone knows we're doing our part!
 
Im sure all those starving africans will be pleased that westeners are trying to save the world by telling everyone how they fell (as if nobody's done that before anyway).
Publicity stunt designed to encourage blogging as much as to support those with cancer.
 
If we really cares half as much as we claimed, we would have sold our entertainment computers and sent every available penny to charity.
 
Bozo Erectus said:
http://blogs.health.yahoo.com/blog-for-hope/

We had the Live 8 concerts, not to mention all the other concerts before that, and wow, look how things have improved in Africa! Its amazing! Its like night and day over there! But the good news just keeps on coming! Now not only can we end hunger by listening to music, we can also cure diseases by blogging! Soon we'll be able to raise the dead with text messaging! Halleluja!

As amusing as this is, I've often wondered why people think that throwing money at some cause is going to make it better. There has been AIDS research, cancer research, and Duchenne's muscular dystrophy research for years. These organizations are extremely well funded already. I suspect people just want to make themselves feel better for giving something.
 
Well we can make fun of these people trying to raise awareness or money or whatever on some random forum, that will accomplish alot of things.
 
JtheJackal said:
Well we can make fun of these people trying to raise awareness or money or whatever on some random forum, that will accomplish alot of things.
I´m having fun. It´s accomplishment enough for me.
 
Nanocyborgasm said:
As amusing as this is, I've often wondered why people think that throwing money at some cause is going to make it better. There has been AIDS research, cancer research, and Duchenne's muscular dystrophy research for years. These organizations are extremely well funded already. I suspect people just want to make themselves feel better for giving something.
With more money, researchers can kill more monkeys and sequence more viruses, hopefully arriving at a vaccine quicker.
 
I got a chain letter saying if 400 names got on there some mysterious benefactor would donate 5 cents for every name to Katrina's victims.

Charity has never been so easy!
 
The Last Conformist said:
With more money, researchers can kill more monkeys and sequence more viruses, hopefully arriving at a vaccine quicker.

I don't know if that's true. AIDS research is already incredibly well funded, so that adding another million dollars or so isn't going to do that much more. Some have actually criticized AIDS charities, saying that they collect disproportionately too much money, when there are causes that cause far more prevalent death, such as heart disease and cancer.
 
Want to raise awareness for cancer victims, actually...you want to "help" cancer victims. First, instead of blogging about them, why not head to a hospital and visit them. Trust me, there is no nicer feeling while being in the hospital than knowing someone took the time out of their busy schedule to come and visit with you and talk with you.

Second, why not fund research and medical schools and train better doctors who, in the future, will be capable of alleviating some of the affects of diseases and cancer.
 
I've had this weird idea about getting new researchers and doctors, since we're always a bit short.

I'm sure there are lots of potential doctors and researchers in the Third World, they just don't have the opportunity to get the education. Also, there is a problem because the ones that do get an education come over here, and we drain them of their best and brightest - who often end up flipping burgers and driving taxis because we don't recognize their qualifications.

What we should do is cut a few of the most inefficient foreign aid programs and use the money differently. Set up some big medical schools in the Third World countries, Train doctors who would not otherwise get the education but have "the right stuff", for free (remember we're not losing any money here, this is coming from foreign aid). We train them to Western standards, and instead of paying their way through, they sign a contract to work for us in one of several speficied capacities, depending on their achievement, for a predetermined rate (which will be good but lower than what they would earn in the private sector, because they got a free education and this is how they pay for it). These doctors would take part in our foreign aid schemes, often in their home countries but sometimes they would be deployed for disaster relief, etc - say, two years for every year they spent in the school, if they did not get a doctorate they still work in some capacity (even if it is just menial work) according to however far they did manage to get. At the end of it all, they get automatic acceptance for citizenship if they want to emigrate, and are automatically qualified here (since we already trained them to our standards).

So, out of all this, the host nation would benefit - they'd not only have the medical school which would double as a hospital, but they would have a whole bunch of young doctors working there for awhile that they wouldn't have had otherwise (and in a decade or so, a whole bunch of citizens working in Western countries and sending money home, who wouldn't have been otherwise). We get savings in medical relief aid (because we have a giant pool of doctors working cheap) and a whole pile of doctors coming over here to work without all the red tape of retraining due to different standards (no more doctors from India driving taxis).

Finally, the schools would also act as research centres, just like medical schools do now. Whatever they found would be considered public property that the drug companies couldn't patent, the way penicillin was put into the public domain to prevent the drug companies from patenting and limiting its supply for profit. The medicare savings we get from any of these generic solutions would go right back into more research.
 
Nanocyborgasm said:
As amusing as this is, I've often wondered why people think that throwing money at some cause is going to make it better. There has been AIDS research, cancer research, and Duchenne's muscular dystrophy research for years. These organizations are extremely well funded already. I suspect people just want to make themselves feel better for giving something.
How many miles have been walked since the March of Dimes got started? Probably enough to have walked to Mars and back. How many Jerry Lewis telethons? What do we have to show for it? BUPKISS.
Moss said:
Want to raise awareness for cancer victims, actually...you want to "help" cancer victims. First, instead of blogging about them, why not head to a hospital and visit them. Trust me, there is no nicer feeling while being in the hospital than knowing someone took the time out of their busy schedule to come and visit with you and talk with you.
Really? Id be just the opposite. Id think, "Oh wonderful, just what I need. Im laying here dying of cancer, and now I have to put up with some stupid airhead who's walked in off the street determined to 'cheer me up'" :rolleyes: Id call hospital security and have them removed. If people want to do something to feel good about themselves, they can feed off of someone elses misery, but not mine, no thanks.

@Frekk, indentured servitude for Third World medical professionals? Tsk, tsk, my how racist of you! :p
 
frekk said:
I've had this weird idea about getting new researchers and doctors, since we're always a bit short...

That's a good thought, but I don't think it'll work. These programs already exist and they haven't accomplished much. There are programs (in the US) that, among other things, encourage doctors to move into underserved areas in exchange for forgiveness of a large part, if not all, of their medical school loans. All that has happened is that those who wanted to work in those settings went to do so anyway, while those who didn't just strove to get a job that paid enough to offset the debt forgiveness.

I don't have a solution. I don't even think there has to be one. Research is a slow and painful process. I have been involved in some, and I was very frustrated. Paying more money or hiring more researchers doesn't seem to help any, because there's already a ton of research going on as it is. A lot of breakthroughs come about in bursts, so that one guy could stumble onto something and all of a sudden, everyone else suddenly has an easy time advancing further until the next bottleneck appears.
 
I think it's great that these people are trying to raise cancer awareness, because I for one never knew it was a problem.
 
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