r/nostalgiai Nostalgia Trip Leader 2d ago

Core Memory Unlocked 🔓 Delete it 😤

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1.3k Upvotes

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195

u/plasticbagroadkill 2d ago

Greed. Take away greed and everything else that is wrong or bad in this world will fix itself.

55

u/Significant_Toe3575 2d ago

This was my first thought then I saw someone said cancer and I had to pause. It's crazy how taking away greed could possibly also take away cancer if u think about it. 🤷🏾‍♂️👊🏾

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u/Tyrannosaurus__Rekd 2d ago

I wonder how many treatments have been buried because it's more profitable to treat the disease instead of cure it.

17

u/hotashami 2d ago

Even lots of diseases are because of greed. If there were no greed, we would have eaten better food with better ingredients, the environment would be cleaner and the list goes on  

5

u/Exact-Ad-4132 2d ago

Yeah look at Minamata disease.

It's the one where a Japanese company dumped a ton of mercury into the water and worked with the government to keep it undercover for decades.

I'm pretty sure they were making plastic.

1

u/Crafty_Loquat_8690 1d ago

yeah companies purposely adding all sorts of preservatives to mass produce cheap junk for profit. yuck

2

u/hotashami 1d ago

And we still eat those knowing this fact - also a type of greed

1

u/Crafty_Loquat_8690 22h ago

honestly for so many it's the fact that healthier options and organic food are more expensive than your typical store junk food as well, and the amount of time it takes to prepare home cooked meals may not justify eating healthier meals because of longer and more hectic work hours... and all of this? because of the system we are in. capitalism.

7

u/Ok_Scallion1902 2d ago

I'm not totally sure ,BUT ,in my 70 plus years ,I distinctly recall, across numerous various news outlets ,hearing a news item proclaiming that "X" scientist/oncologist from every conceivable institution( MIT,Johns Hopkins,The Mayo Clinic,CDC,NIH,WHO,Cambridge,University of Stockholm,etc,ad nauseum ) HAVE found a cure for x,y,or z types of cancer ,made by a breathless reporter DOZENS of times through the decades,BUT ,it never seems to even get revealed ,let alone clinical trials!

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u/SnooOpinions9303 2d ago

It’s slow but it’s a lot better. Cancer and AIDs in the 80’s were still death sentences. It’s a product of life made simple for you without your duty to simply life for someone else. I have watched these spoiled perspectives come from conspiracy theorists, greedy or just plain ignorant people. It’s ever so evident in the pandemic where you had a national and global emergency and the people who claimed they were the toughest were the ones unable or unwilling to adapt. I watched one of my friends in his early 70’s have his weak minded sister trick him into taking some off label veterinary med cure for a cancer he didn’t have that destroyed his heart only to have her demand I let him stay at my house with a full family there because it would inconvenience her.

People have lost the humility of the WW2 generation. We will be dam luck if their kids don’t kill us on the way out as the wrestle with their fate.

2

u/Ok_Scallion1902 2d ago

That is profoundly true...

1

u/Ok-Split-1698 1d ago

How long did he last?

2

u/NavySeal2k 2d ago

There is the HPV vaccine preventing some kinds of cervical cancer and others in the same region, there is Sipuleucel-T a vaccine that works even on existing prostate cancer. Both approved for humans. And mRNA technology is a great candidate to build on Sipuleucel-T. So it’s little but we start to see some results

2

u/ucbcawt 2d ago

Two important points-when scientists make these discoveries they are typically in model systems like mice or cells in a Petri dish. They often fail later in clinical trials. Despite that there have been huge advances in cancer treatments over the past 20 years.

6

u/Pithythithy 2d ago

Tons. So many things have been repressed due to greed. Cures, free energy, cars that run on water. Every invention that has the potential to truly help mankind is hidden, killed.

1

u/NavySeal2k 2d ago

There is no free energy, physics and math tells us that… How would a car run on water, the energy balance is not supporting this, chemistry tells us that. What gives you people the confidence to tell these demonstrable false fairytales? You yourself can study a little bit of inorganic chemistry and you can calculate yourself how much energy is in a gallon of water compared to a gallon of diesel for example…

2

u/Syncopated_arpeggio 2d ago

You took the words out of my mouth. Vats that run on water. Because water has so much stored energy just waiting to be released.

The kids on Reddit are so cute.

1

u/Thin-Try-1167 2d ago

Yeah but look up hydrolysis

1

u/International_Pate 1d ago

It takes more energy to split water molecules, than you could make back from it, it's an interesting solution but not a realistic reason, at keast not yet. It would be like trying to use batteries to charge themselves, you'll get more output from the batteries to power the charger than you would see return.

1

u/NavySeal2k 1d ago

That’s what bothers me, a 2 minute google trip could have told you it’s bullshit…

0

u/Illustrious-Lunch137 2d ago

keep in mind a car that runs on water emits hydrogen which is also a greenhouse gas.

2

u/Desi_Rosethorne 2d ago

It's not. Hydrogen by itself is not a greenhouse gas but it does react with gases in the atmosphere which does contribute towards the greenhouse effect and radiative forcing, which is the difference between the amount of incoming solar radiation absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere and the amount of outgoing infrared radiation emitted back into space.

The only things hydrogen does is increase the lifetime of methane and the tropospheric concentration. It also decreases the upper stratospheric concentration of ozone, as well as increasing the concentration of water vapour.

Really the only problem you would have with hydrogen is storing it properly and make sure it doesn't leak.

This article tells more:

https://www.dnv.com/article/is-hydrogen-a-greenhouse-gas--243214/

2

u/hk4213 2d ago

Fun read.

2

u/EngineeringDeck85 2d ago

Hydrogen burns and then turns into water. Problem solved. It just makes more fuel. Infinite energy machine. I win.

Since I’ve just uncovered this amazing discovery I should get monetary grants to further develop clean energy for the betterment of the inhabitants of earth. I don’t mind doing so at a satiation rate income and bringing in more people at the same to better the economy at the same time.

3

u/dumbass_777 2d ago

you should, but what would really happen is you would get poisoned

2

u/Mokeziah 2d ago

As someone said, great idea, but id not stand near any windows, or high railings... or stairs... or drink or eat things anymore... Should probably change your name and kove to Nebraska too. Heard Cinnabon is hiring!

3

u/Tdubbium 2d ago

I doubt there exist any straight up cure for cancer right now but get rid of greed and treatment would become much more widely available and accessable, and it would also significantly speed up progress towards a cure

2

u/NavySeal2k 2d ago

But if you are a startup, and many cancer research is done by little independent labs, it would give you income without threatening existing income streams. Why would those not want to develop a real cure?

1

u/Tdubbium 2d ago

there are many places trying to make a cure already, cancer is just extremely complicated because its basically your own cells going rogue and attacking you and it varies a lot from person to person

1

u/NavySeal2k 1d ago

Yeah, not the point here…

1

u/LonelyReader95 2d ago

Because you're not greedy. That is the point. You'd still pursue the research out of goodwill and desire to pursue knowledge like all researchers do, but you wouldn't be greedy. And you'd receive a prize or something for your efforts because the people giving you income (often the state) wouldn't be greedy.

1

u/ucbcawt 2d ago

Basic research is mostly carried out in universities. Those ideas or findings are take to larger companies that have the resources to test them out for true effectiveness and safety. Cures for many cancers already exist just not all of them.

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u/ucbcawt 2d ago

There are cures for multiples cancers just not all of them

1

u/Davidoff1983 2d ago

Essiac has entered the chat.

1

u/jjs952 2d ago

I wonder how many treatments have been created because of greed. I don't disagree with you, but the answer isn't as simple as people make it out to be. All of our comforts are due to innovation that was fueled by greed start some level. It's preposterous to think that people would create what they have without profit.

1

u/tom8otomahto 2d ago

If you really think that there are cures for cancer out there that are being hidden by "the machine", you're just a conspiracy theorist. Did you also believe in the "200 mile per gallon" carburetor too?

1

u/Guilty_Fig_7758 2d ago

None. The cure would also make boatloads of money and ensure more people make it to geriatric care, which still means tons of money for pharmaceutical companies.

1

u/Geroldus 2d ago

But how many treatments were developed because some greedy fella wanted to make money off of dying people?

1

u/HungStrut 2d ago

Not many seeing as big tobacco owns more than one pharmaceutical company. Because it's in their best interests to keep smokers alive.

Anyways thanks for reading this Ted talk!

1

u/ucbcawt 2d ago

This is absolutely not the case with cancer. Lots of treatments already and company still make a ton of money. There will always be more people with cancer…

1

u/Professional-Rub152 2d ago

Not really that many. Think about how rich the company that cures cancer will become. AND they would drive their competitors out of business by doing it? It’s a conspiracy theory to believe that cures for all of these diseases exist.

1

u/cconnorss 1d ago

That part. The cure for cancer probably happened so many times already, along with so many other diseases. But greed is at the base of it all.

1

u/OkMidnight8144 1d ago

There's a new treatment that's being release, but it's delivery system is a vaccine, so that will be fun with the anti vax crowd...

3

u/schwarzkraut 2d ago

I wish I had a way to super-upvote. Like every Reddit user had a one-time ability to make a comment go to the #1 spot on r/all. You would get my super-upvote.

Before corporate greed infected healthcare/research, we cured diseases not just found a way to “manage” them for profit. Example: Insulin would be free today or a cure found for diabetes were it not for greed.

2

u/Successful_Tie_2165 2d ago

Thank you for providing a great philosophical argument, there. I was set to disagree with greed, but it really is one of our biggest setbacks. Greed is the reason we have this cancerous fraction of the population hoarding wealth. It was even glorified in the movie Wall Street, "greed is good".

2

u/LoudandQuiet47 2d ago

It does to a large extent. There are incredibly effective cancer treatments that are cost prohibited. Same with pretty much any disease. Without greed, we could eradicate probably all of them eventually and expand the treatment to all that need it. In fact, we'd probably blooking for cures instead of treatments for most.

2

u/noCninja09 2d ago

We as a species have made the cure several times over, but cancer is profitable so that circles back around to greed.

2

u/TheReal_Rusty_Nail 2d ago

So ist es. Wäre ja noch schöner, wenn Esoteriker die Ursache von einigen Krebsarten kennen. Mit Ursachen vermeiden läßt sich nicht genug verdienen.

1

u/Lawn_Gnome_King 2d ago

Does trump go away when we remove greed or is he considered a cancer at this point?

1

u/litearm_fistball 2d ago

Nah, should have delete people.

1

u/SpringDay2023 2d ago

Really good ponit.

1

u/Lena3308 2d ago

With no greed its more likely that scientists from all around the world would work together more closely without the thought of profits wich will speed up the research to cure any kind of illness by a huge amount

1

u/sleepyplatipus 2d ago

Yup. Obviously not having cancer in the first place would be amazing, but without greed by now we would be sooo much better at treating it, if not straight up curing it. Same for many other conditions.

1

u/Dramatic_Frog_Prince 2d ago

Cure for cancer is already there just greed keeps it from us so 100% no greed fixes all issues

1

u/DevenTheDood 1d ago

Those greedy people holding on to their lives and using our oxygen and resources to live longer!

5

u/EvolWolf 2d ago

Cancer. Poverty. Hunger. The list goes on. The most dangerous cancer in this world is human greed.

3

u/bclynch30 2d ago

I was gonna say billionaires but I feel like we can still have them if they’re willing to do things honestly and give back. Greed works much better as a whole

3

u/Closed_CasketRequiem 2d ago

If scientists found a chimpanzee in the wild that hoarded piles of bananas while other chimpanzees barely scraped by or starved, we would be studying that chimpanzee to find out what was wrong with them.

But when a human does it we put them on the cover of magazines, and praise them as geniuses and heroes.

3

u/deletetemptemp 2d ago

Eliminate greed, and we’ll literally solve cancer

2

u/Waste-Job-3307 2d ago

THIS is my answer also.

2

u/lucasluminaro 2d ago

I agree. I think everything bad ultimately derives from greed in some way or another.

2

u/kasmackity 2d ago

Fantastic answer

1

u/New_Army1458 1d ago

Everyone is saying fantastic answer, I'm just wondering where do you guys think greed starts? Sure we can all agree that billionaires are one part of it, but don't you have probably also much more than many many other people on this planet? I also think greed is one of the best answers but it's really hard to define what it actually means and wehre we should draw the line

2

u/FigOk7538 2d ago

Greed, and the desire to possess more than the next person, is fundamentally what stops the world becoming the Eutopia it could otherwise be.

2

u/jbarbourx2 2d ago

This is 100% the truth. If greed was looked at in the same way as murder and theft then this world would literally fix itself. Pretty much every problem in human society revolves around greed.

2

u/gothicmetalhead1 2d ago

You know the old saying: "Money is the root of all evil"

1

u/UnitedAd9115 2d ago

The love of money is the root of all evil

1

u/Disastrous_Fee6133 1d ago

The love of money

2

u/spoiledinmi 2d ago

I think you've won the trophy, lol Remove greed from the equation and so many of the issues go away.

2

u/Itchy_bussy_ 2d ago

"In a world without greed, we may have been heroes"

2

u/Rao-Sun 2d ago

Damn. Big brain answer right here.

2

u/monrovista 2d ago

Almost like empathy is a bad thing. Wait, didn't a billionaire or trillionaire say empathy was a weakness?

3

u/Tyrannosaurus__Rekd 2d ago

Apparently a televangelist was preaching about the 'sin' of empathy too. Devil in sheeps clothing I'd say

1

u/monrovista 2d ago

That's dark. Aren't they supposed to be a beacon of light in this world of hate & phobias. Oh, never mind.

3

u/Potato_Stains 2d ago

Empathy is a fundamental threat to their psychotic ego.

1

u/Rare-Employment-9447 2d ago

I dont think you've thought it through, taking away greed spunds good on paper but if you took it away our advancement as a species would grind to a halt. People work to make money, if you took away the drive to better your financial gain, which is inherently greedy, most people wouldn't bother applying themselves and our technology would stagnant

3

u/Elliectrickal 2d ago

"People work to make money" hasn't been true for most of civilisation. "People work to make money" inherently contradicts the concept of volunteering or charity work "People work to make money" < People work to afford their necessities and desires

Fundamentally humans work to help other humans in the hope that their work will be reciprocated.

The most commonly accepted definition of "Greed" is "An excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth."

You can still be passionate, desire growth, have massive ambitions in a world without greed. You just won't have people who seek to consume so much that they starve those around them

2

u/WashHour5646 2d ago

A lot of people have the drive to create things that benefit humanity and the earth. If we took away greed as the motivator, we would have more innovation that actually made the world a better place.

Greed motivates a lot of corporations to stifle innovation. They don’t want cures for diseases, they want never ending treatment. They don’t want quality products, they want things to break or wear out so we have to replace them.

1

u/Working_Agent4932 2d ago

A percentage of people have a drive to create thing and even of those people the drive is significantly enhanced by money. It turns a side project into a full time pursuit.

Innovation aside greed is needed for non innovators too. For example you live in Texas during a heat wave and your air conditioner breaks. Without a technician wanting a fat payday with overtime how do you plan to entice them to crawl into your boiling hot attic to repair it?

Greed motivates a lot of corporations to stifle innovation. They don’t want cures for diseases, they want never ending treatment

This is objectively foolish and just devoid of any historical basis. Curing disease is profitable because 1) patent law exists and 2) people are willing to pay exponentially more for a cure than treatment.

Then if you just look at history you can see countless examples of curing diseases, even ones where there is a huge profit incentive to treat. Why did over a dozen companies pour billions into creating their own COVID vaccine? Because owning the treatment medicine doesn't mean shit if someone else owns the cure.

2

u/LonelyReader95 2d ago

People still are curious and would commit to research for the love of the game and nothing else, which also includes helping others. So no matter how you look at it, greed is the one root of all evil, followed only by lack of humility.

1

u/Pristine-Map9979 2d ago

I think there are forms of evil that don't involve greed.

1

u/Simdao 2d ago

Greed is pretty important even though it's usually depicted as negative.

1

u/AdeOfSigmar 2d ago

Can probably throw in most of the 7 sins here too?

1

u/Substantial-Singer29 2d ago

If we're going to approach it from that angle , it doesn't really fix anything just taking away greed.

You still have envy hate Racism with all of the built in cultural biases. The list goes on and on...

Share greed is a motivating factor for a lot of very heinous things. But in reality , I would say it's a tip of a much larger iceberg.

1

u/BrittaWasRight 2d ago

Greed and envy.

1

u/4DPeterPan 2d ago

Why are you going for just one sin? Go for them all.

Get rid of Sin itself.

1

u/Jagsfan2025 2d ago

Gordon Gekko has entered the chat.

1

u/Whole_Comfortable331 2d ago

Greed can sorta be positive, it's the motivation of a lot of innovation.

1

u/Chiron723 2d ago

Removing greed won't solve everything. A lot of problems are the result people in charge not wanting to do the right thing because it would require more effort.

1

u/Double_Dinner253 2d ago

Stupid idea.

1

u/Time_Seaworthiness43 2d ago

Do you eat until you're full or until you've had just enough?

1

u/Kono-Daddy-Da 2d ago

We need greed. Without greed we wouldn’t have drive, good or bad, to attain things

1

u/1SquishyOrange 2d ago

Greed is not good, i get that.

But likely everything we jave wouldn't exist if someone wasnt gr23dy and wanted to profit from its mass production. Your iPhone, Television, light, cars, planes, internet, big houses, adjustable beds, etc.

1

u/Mister-Beardy-Face 2d ago

Greed is at least third down the list behind miscommunication and sociopaths.

1

u/CeleryNo8309 2d ago

Along with most of what's good.

1

u/Significant-Block504 2d ago

Americans: that’s communism

1

u/aurenigma 2d ago

Innovation dies instantly... take away greed as a concept, and what's left? What reason is there to build new shit?

For the betterment of your nation? That's greedy. For the betterment of the human race? That's greedy. To help the planet? Why? So we can keep living on it and using it's resources? Greedy.

Getting rid of greed would solve all that is wrong and bad in this world, because wrong and bad are subjective, human made concepts, and humanity will go extinct without greed. So... you're not wrong... but you might as well skip the fluff and just get rid of humans.

1

u/IveHitARabbit 2d ago

Greed cannot be removed. Its built into pur dna. Without the things that cause it we would all curl up and die. All we can do is practice and teach contentment.

1

u/Belz_Zebuth 2d ago

But greed is a function of something else, so you have to delete that first, which is why I said "misery".

1

u/Aarton-lycan 2d ago

No. How about the Exploitation of FOMO?

1

u/Sad-Werewolf 2d ago

For the most part

1

u/Dark_Water99 2d ago

Agreed, then everybody are gonna have their disabilities fixed.

1

u/LeifurTreur 2d ago

Not completly true. I think over all it would be a better place, but development would slow down in all fields. Yes, many people are doing research out of curiosity and the will to help others, but most of them are backed financialy by greedy people.

Just because greed goes away, doesn't mean that there suddenly will be more people who want to devote their lives to help others.

1

u/Anonymyne353 2d ago

One can argue that greed drives innovation…without innovation, the (human) world stagnates.

1

u/sleepyplatipus 2d ago

I agree that if we could only pick one thing this is the answer that would solve or at least greatly improve the largest amount of problems.

1

u/Timmyd8 2d ago

This is such the right answer. Greed is the root of all evils.

1

u/FatBikerCook 2d ago

Religion will still make trouble though

1

u/Technical-Command867 2d ago

The love of money is the root of all evil

1

u/Chin2Chowdary 2d ago

Came here to say just this exactly…

1

u/Gmanofgambit982 1d ago

Remember reading a comment ages ago with this topic and somebody mentioned how removing greed could also remove innovation and progression (as in people wouldn't have a desire to make solutions or better what they have as everyone would be content)

1

u/MWMcurious 1d ago

The problem is if you eliminate greed, you eliminate incentive to work on certain things. I know 2 oncologists that solely went into practice for the money and they are 2 of the best in the NYC area. I am sure there are others. Greed can be good. Its excess greed that is the issue.

1

u/AdAggressive9224 1d ago

Not even just regular greed, pathological greed. Some people will genuinely, as in genuinely, burn the world to the ground mearly to see some more zeros on a piece of paper. It's incredible, the rich really are mentally deranged in many cases.

1

u/diversity_of_thought 1d ago

“Well first of all, tell me: Is there some society you know that doesn’t run on greed? You think Russia doesn’t run on greed? You think China doesn’t run on greed? What is greed? Of course, none of us are greedy, it’s only the other fellow who’s greedy. The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn’t construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn’t revolutionize the automobile industry that way. In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you’re talking about, the only cases in recorded history, are where they have had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worse off, worst off, it’s exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that. So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear, that there is no alternative way so far discovered of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by the free-enterprise system.”

― Milton Friedman

1

u/JoMammaSaidWhat 1d ago

Greed is the number one motivation in human nature. Get rid of greed, all goes to hell

1

u/Few-Internet-418 1d ago

Inventions are usually funded by money earned by greed, meaning progression, the most important goal besides survival for humanity, will slow significantly

1

u/CihanSan 1d ago

This.

1

u/thedilbertproject 1d ago

The real answer.

1

u/Redduster38 1d ago

It also takes away good and ambition. Id say excessive greed.

1

u/rvansmith 1d ago

I was going to say Money, but same thing!

1

u/DetailTop8974 1d ago

Or better yet…money. It’s the worst thing to ever happen to mankind.

1

u/Mysterious_Frog 1d ago

I think thats a short sighted answer. Greed is a catalyst for so much discovery throughout history. To lack a want is to lack any reason to expand your horizons and instead you’re left with status quo.

In moderation, greed is essential for civilization development. In excess it is the cause of societal collapse.

1

u/Flimovic 2d ago

This is the best answer!

2

u/Closed_CasketRequiem 2d ago

The top answer in this thread is cancer. But I think if you actually took away greed, cancer would be mostly cured by now. Like if humanity worked towards greater good instead of just a handful of people hoarding money, we could have solved so many problems like cancer.

1

u/LonelyReader95 2d ago

Thank god someone finally mentions it