Browsing Sacrifices

If you could only save lives through two ways

prevent World War II and all the war related deaths that went along with it, Holocaust included.

cure all forms of cancer and STDs, AIDS included.

You get recognition for neither. You come back from the past to present day if you prevent World War II. The cures are invented present day and are cheap and easily distributed.

Between A Hard Place and A Rock

Jul 24, 2012

VintageHistorical Sacrifices

Community arguments

prevent World War II and all the war related deaths that went along with it, Holocaust included.

World War II caused roughly 60 million deaths in six years, including the systematic extermination of millions — a scale no disease has matched in a comparable period
Preventing WWII also prevents the nuclear arms race, removing the ongoing existential risk that nuclear weapons pose to civilization
Diseases can be partially avoided through personal choices and are actively being treated; wartime victims had no such agency

cure all forms of cancer and STDs, AIDS included.

World War II is over — cancer and AIDS continue killing millions every year, and their ongoing cumulative toll will eventually dwarf wartime losses
Changing the past risks losing the scientific advances and international institutions that emerged from WWII
Curing cancer alone would save roughly one in five people who would otherwise die of any cause, fundamentally transforming human life expectancy

Last generated Jun 29, 2026.

Comments

If you could only save lives through two ways

prevent World War II and all the war related deaths that went along with it, Holocaust included.

cure all forms of cancer and STDs, AIDS included.

not be able to talk

not be able to walk