Muzzles tries to make a valid point in the OP, but only by using basic logic.
It would be logical to assume that if you had fewer people, then you'd have more money per person, but this isn't true in practice.
Cancer kills some few millions of people each year.
Those people may be from any number of economical backgrounds. Poor people with no money, Rich people with lots of money, the average person with average money, or people of indigenous African or South American Tribes, who have no use for money.
Let's imagine a poor person dies from cancer. He dies, and the little money he has is inherited by his family, who are also poor. This doesn't spread further, so the spread of wealth does not increase.
A rich person dies from cancer. His money is inherited by his family. They are still just as rich, and the money he had has not been shared around to more people. The spread of wealth does not increase.
A person with no money dies from cancer. No one recieves any money as there was no money to give. The spread of wealth does not increase.
Now, let's focus on what happens when someone dies from cancer. Well, obviously, they die and are no longer a part of society. Everything they could have been or were is no longer.
Any intelligent ideas they had, the likes of which could revolutionise a field of business, or technology or science, is gone. This means that there is no idea or new technology to sell, which would produce lots of money. There isn't a new technology requiring a large workforce to produce it. There are fewer jobs available, and less money being capable of spreading around.
Let's also say that the ideas that these people could have may also revolutionise other areas of life. Perhaps a way to treat disease isn't created. Thousands of people continue to die and all that they could succeed in doesn't happen, and all the money they could have produced and spread around the world doesn't exist.
And Muzzles, your brown townogy of comparing global economy, and the spread of wealth, as to be similar to "spreading a few drops of paint around a room" or "Splitting $100 around one school's student population for lunch".
In these cases, the paint drops and the $100 happen to be a definitive amount.
There is no way to increase them. By your own rule, you can't put the paintbrush in the paint again. The Money argument is a little bit more confusing, as money can be made, but in this example, school children can't make more money.
In the real world however, money can be made. There is no fixed amount of it. A country could print billions of dollars worth of currency. It might not be worth much initially, but the way that economy works means that it would eventually. The currency becomes worth more when the country in posession of it starts to produce things which other people need. Suddenly they exchange their goods. The presence of new goods on the market allows for more "money" to exist.
And with fewer people around, having died from cancer, there are fewer goods being created to allow for more trade.
If your concept were true, then the amount of money in the world now would be equal to that of 2000 years ago, which isn't true.
Now focus on Muzzle's population side of his argument. It is his view that cancer is a limiting factor on population growth of Humans. This is not true, as proven by the still exponential growth of human population.
If cancer were a limiting factor, then population could not increase anymore without cancer treatments being improved.
Cancer is not even a slightly limiting factor. Despite the millions who die annually from cancers, the human population of the Earth still continues to grow, by a massive scale. If cancer were to have such a big effect on population, then the rate of growth wouldn't be as massive as it is. You would either expect there to be no increase in population or a slow increase in population, if cancer were as limiting as you suggest.
Also, when you say that the odds of getting cancer are 1 in 3, that may be true, but those are not the odds of dying from cancer. That is lower.
Also consider the length of time someone can live with cancer.
The moment you develop cancer, you don't suddenly drop down and die.
People can live long lives with cancer. People with cancer can still give birth, increasing the population.
I would now ask you to imagine what it's like when a person goes through cancer. You, Muzzles, have yourself gone through it. I personally have lost two grandparents to cancer (Lung and Stomach). It's not pleasant for the person afflicted, nor is it pleasant for the family and friends.
In many cases it can scar people emotionally to the extent where they are incapable of being as productive in society.
To those who suffer from cancer and are cured, often they are still too sick to be productive.
If Cancer were easily able to be cured or treated, then this effect on people would diminish or be stopped, therefore improving productivity and happiness in the global population, allowing for an increase in economic and cultural structure.
On OP's point about other diseases. It is very awkward to relate Cancer to viral or bacterial diseases.
Cancer is not a disease that is caused via infection.
It is an unfortunate mutation in the DNA of a biological cell, which fails to utilise the procedures that normally stop and limit cell growth and replication.
In otherwords, your cells start to replicate and grow more so than the body can accomodate. They run out of space, yet still grow, and they demand more nutrients from your body, so other parts are starved (Hence people with cancer becoming very skinny).
If it were possible to cure cancer, then this would have absolutely zero effect upon other diseases which come from foreign locations, such as pathogens.
But that doesn't mean that it's pointless to give up on curing/treating cancers, as regardless of whether it can be cured, there will still be additional diseases which can afflict other people. And these will still require attention and research.
In fact, there is more research in pathogenical diseases than there are in cancers. Because cancers, although they can be varied on where they start, are still a small portion of the many afflictions which a human being can suffer from. If cancer research were to end, there wouldn't be a significant increase, particularly instantaneously on other diseases.
Think how many cancer researchers only know how to research cancer. They can hardly leave that and go get a job researching strokes, or flu, or cholera or other such things. They'd be completely untrained. You'd have to wait a generation for any increase in medical research of other diseases.
Let's also focus on how many other diseases have benefited from the existence of cancer and it's research.
Numerous drugs and procedures tested in cancer treatment actually have a particularly good effect on numerous other diseases.
One example is the drug Methotrexate, which is used in Chemotherapy as a drug which helps to stop cell replication.
During it's use in testing on patients, it was also found to improve mobility in those who suffered from diseases like Rheumatoid Arthritis. This led to Methotrexate being used to treat RA, and is now a common treatment for the disease.
Without cancer research other diseases wouldn't be combated as such.
You also claim that the money spent on cancer research could be used to help in other places. Give it to weaker, developing countries. But that's not much good when they get a big population and cancer kills them and you can't help.
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This might be a new record for me?
'Bleh, this is all a mis-match of thoughts.
And it's a bit late for me to be writing loads.
But those are a few places were you're incorect, Muzzles.
Your idea makes sense by a logical sense, but it's not quite true and doesn't operate in the way you currently think. The world is a lot more complex than the way you suggest.
