Shoutbox

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Originally posted by Jaffacake
(Yes, I do realise im about to be hated by the whole Messenger Plus! community...)

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Not at all... nothing wrong in stating your opinions...

but...

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Originally posted by Jaffacake
But I do have my (personal) reservations. Athough projects like these are intended for saving lives, the amount of money pumped into them can be so great compared to the relative benefits. There are more important ways (in my view) that can save more lives, and cheaper in both the short- and long-term.

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I don't know what exact money is pumped into such projects, but the fact remains that this amount of money is far less than what is needed for other stuff. This is because the technology used in such projects exists for a long time and it takes only a very small amount of setup to adapt such technology for new and other means (like this cancer research project).

Also, it is not a "this-or-that" situation; It is a "this and also that" situation. I mean, it is not because this project exists that other research stuff isn't done.

And, most importantly, this project allows people who can't (or wont) help in other ways to help a small bit whenever they can.

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Originally posted by Jaffacake
Although cancer is a big killer, and its prevalence makes it a factor in many families, it is actually curable in most cases. Even breast cancer, a scourge amongst young and middle-aged females, can be simply teated with good prognostic indicators.

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The reasons why most cancers are cureable (or many other deseases for that matter) is because of the research done. The project talked about in this thread is a project to help such research....

Without research you wouldn't even have the means to prevent something, let alone to cure something.

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Originally posted by Jaffacake
If the money that is used in this project was instead used in public heath and educational projects, the number of lives saved would be, frankly, phenomenal.

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Not true in any way.

Not only does such projects as this cost an (relative) extremely low amount of money, putting that money in public heath and educational projects wouldn't help one bit if the research needed for public health and educational projects isn't there to begin with.

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Originally posted by Jaffacake
Theres a couple of ethical issues about these projects too. Firstly, the idea of treating cancer rather than preventing it promotes a lifestyle/culture that doesnt consider the consequences of its actions.

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This has got nothing todo with ethics at all. Again, you confuse (or don't get) the purpose of such projects as this.
You would stand nowhere at all if such research isn't done in the first place. The only reason why you could state "rather prevent it than cure it" is because reasearch has already done.

If you can help research to be done quicker (with projects like this), you automatically help in not only curing deseases, but also to find ways to prevent them quicker.

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Originally posted by Jaffacake
but if there was more insight into cancer, people would (for example) see the warning signs earlier, or reduce their risks of getting the cancer in the first place.

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The main purpose of the project talked about in this thread (and other similar projects) is not about informing people how to prevent cancers and what not! The purpose is to help research, the very first step into preventing, curing and informing people.

You can't compare this project with other project which emphasize on informing people. Those two things are totally different things. Hence, you can't compare the two either...

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Originally posted by Jaffacake
Although I appreciate that the project will help to understand the mechanics of cancer better (and so help in cancer prevention), this is not where the money is, and so it would be unprofitible for the institutions to follow that route too far.

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I totally disagree.

Everything depends on the research. If a company has an answer to disease X, because of its research it has done, be sure that companies around the world would wanna hear about it (and would pay for it if it indeed saves lives).

Also, such research projects aren't actually about the "big" money. They aren't done to make big money, they are in the first place done to help further studies to cure and prevent deseases.

If only big money is the thing behind all this, I wouldn't want to live in this world at all, not to mention that exactly such a situation would be unethical; If it is only by means of big amounts of money that company X could buy information from research done by company Y, information needed to save lives, only then it would be an unethical world.

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Originally posted by Jaffacake
Another problem is that these projects do indirectly, and invariably, divert resourses away from arguably more beneficial projects.

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such as?

Again, such projects, as talked about in this thread, do not divert anything away from other projects in any way.

Projects as this only use some of your free computer system resources. System resources which would otherwise not be used. The people who participate in such projects actually don't need to do anything to participate (except letting their computer run). Hence why such projects also do not divert anything at all in any way. If people want to participate in other projects then they can.

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Originally posted by Jaffacake
The political impact that can be gained by having thousands of members of the public can be quite great: noone would dare stop a project that has great public support, regardless of viability.

(...)

Another point argues by some at present is the idea of preventing cell mutations in the body. Mutations are what drives evolution, and what makes you and me different. The idea of being able to control this ourselves worry some, as it would be another indicator for preventing further variety in humans, and also a continuation of the "designer baby" field of thought.

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You're very seriously drifting away from the main purpose of this specific project with all this...

Politics has got nothing todo with all this.... Also to put the discussion of "designer babies" (GM) into this is seriously overreacting and/or putting totally different things all together. Also, There are very huge differences between researching a specific gene and abusing/altering it.

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Originally posted by Jaffacake
Anyway, im not trying to flame what is a well-meaning project. Its just I wish we could prioritise our efforts more. I just feel we could save more lives in other ways.

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And you can.

Again, this specific project does not divert, prevent, alter any other ways there might be to help save more lives. In fact, it is additional, not an alternative.

In fact, it is even so additional that it uses otherwise lost resources; resources which wouldn't be used otherwise.

Therefor I really don't understand what this "prioritise our efforts more" comes from as there is nothing to prioritise with such online computing projects.
This is not a "I first do this and then I go help in the shelter next door" project. This is a "while I help in the shelter next door I leave my computer on so it can help as an online calculator for the research companies" project.

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Originally posted by Jaffacake
Im just probably bitter because I work in a "non-fashionable" field of medicine (mental health), which causes just as much grief and mortality as cancer does, but doesnt get these revolutionary projects.

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Does that mean such projects are, as you frankly put it, not worth it or even bad???

The field of mental health might not need a super computer or something to crunch numbers (as that is exactly and the only thing what such projects as this are used for), hence why that field in medicine doesn't have such projects.

The only reason why this project exists is because there is a demand for huge computing power in that specific field of research and that huge computing power exists in the form of combined smaller computers in a network.

If such combined computer power wouldn't exist, they had to do the number crunching on small computers or by hand, which will take them hundreds of years (literally!!!) to do.

Each field of medicine has its own needs. And if people can help such a specific field (without doing anything extra!), why should they feel bad or why is that not good, unethical or not prioritizing stuff?

I'm sure the field of mental health has other needs, needs which wouldn't be usefull to the field of researching molecules. And I don't see anybody complaining about that.

Again, this project (and other projects like this) are only about crunching the huge amount of numbers and numerical data; helping to compute possible results. In other words, the researchers can actually put their precious time into actually researching instead of calculating boring numbers.


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I really don't understand where all this you've said is comming from. Unless you totally missed the point of such online calculating projects or don't know what they are or how they work....

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Originally posted by Jaffacake
Similarly I see so many cancer institutions built (with pharmaceutical sponsership), and I have to fight to keep our decaying psychiatric hospital from being closed down.

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...Or, after reading that last bit of your post, I maybe could understand where it all comes from: The hospital you work in may not have enough money anymore or there are too little patients (which again boils down to no money as no patients means no income for the institue). But this has absolutely nothing to do with projects as talked about in this thread. To put everything together and to go from there to what you've posted is one huge generalization and making absolute wrong conclussions.

Even if projects like this wouldn't exist, it wouldn't make any difference towards to financial situation of the hospital. Don't seek possible causes for the (near) closing down of the hospital in projects such as this; They do not replace anything which would have could prevented the lack in money for the hospital.

(In fact, it is the other way around, hospitals wouldn't even exist if there wasn't research in the first place)

Instead of "complaining" (or to put in a milder way: asking some questions) about such projects, why don't you organize a benefit or something so the hospital can stay open. And while people donate money or do other stuff to help the hospital, they can run a project like this on their computer at home, unattended.

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EDIT: Oh, and if a doctor in the hospital needs a massive list of data to analyze, ask him what he rather wants to do: visting his patients and helping them out, or sitting behind his desk with a caluclator for days to get the data calculated while his patients are dying.

With projects such as this, he actually can effort to visit his patients, while his data is being analyzed by a (huge) computer.

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sorry for this opinion...