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Zuckerberg and Chan aim to tackle all disease by 2100

bbc.com

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Re: Zuckerberg and Chan aim to tackle all disease by 2100

#151

Post by agentdrtran »

asp_hornet wrote: post #144
calsy wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eat less, exercise more? Easy to say right, but the simple message isn't working obviously. Obesity levels have doubled over the last 40 years. Its not sporadic either, it's affecting the entire population now. Why is this happening?

people believing there is some mystical cause to their obesity is the problem. People like to blame some magical undiscovered illness when they are just eating too much, eating too many bad foods, not exercising enough or a combination of those. there is no mystery to obesity but I do believe we can do more to educate people on better / healthier lifestyle habits.

every single fat person I know is very aware they're fat, but they just don't give enough of a shit to change all their habits.

Re: Zuckerberg and Chan aim to tackle all disease by 2100

#152

Post by ams6110 »

hsod wrote: post #51
metaphorm wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe you should hold off on the praise until there's some results to show for it. making a press statement is not the same thing as curing a disease.

I'm comfortable praising someone for giving away 3 billion dollars to fight disease, even before the results are in.

Indeed. In fact most of the wealthy people I know are quite charitable, in contrast to the way "the rich" are portrayed in the media and politics. And a high profile commitment like this from a high profile person could encourage that.

Re: Zuckerberg and Chan aim to tackle all disease by 2100

#153

Post by fnl »

gmarx wrote: post #114
joe_the_user wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One would roll one's eyes if someone promised to fix every single bug in a vast, buggy, fifty-year old software project. But just ending cancer would essentially be a project for externally ameliorating, not even fixing, the bugs of 4 billion years of (genetic) code, code that "just happened" with "bugs" that survived because they weren't selected against.

That's doesn't even account for the probably larger number of bugs that develop over the lifetime of the system. Then, once a cancer develops it evolves further mutations over time. You probably cannot defeat cancer merely by genetic engineering every new birth

Epigenetics is the word you're looking for here. And probably some healthy dose of metabolomics. Cancer is way more complex than "just" changes in the genetic code.

Re: Zuckerberg and Chan aim to tackle all disease by 2100

#154

Post by johncolanduoni »

user731955373 wrote: post #90
kendallpark wrote: post #75

I'm glad they're putting money into medical research, but I kinda roll my eyes when people make big claims about curing X, especially when X is something incredibly broad like "cancer" or in this case, "all diseases." AI/ML has barely scratched the surface of its potential in medicine, however, I find it naive to think that you can throw AI/ML at any random disease and always get a cure. Even after a century. Will we…

"yes we can!" built the atomic bomb.

How did we miss this universal cure sitting right under our nose!

Re: Zuckerberg and Chan aim to tackle all disease by 2100

#155

Post by rayiner »

iaw wrote: post #124
nixos wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is _much_ (orders of magnitude) easier than curing Cancer

Arguable. We can only compare difficulty after the fact, if Einstein hadn't rolled along with relativity and 3 decade gap for research, the atomic bomb wouldn't have been possible. There may be a 'relativity' level discovery in biology/aging/cancer that will change the historic perspective. We can't know until after the fact.

The difference between "yes we can!" re: the atomic bomb and Zuckerberg's post is that the former happened after the fundamental discoveries in physics that made the atomic bomb possible. By the time someone said "yes we can!" a theoretical analysis of how the bomb would work already existed.

That fundamental advancement in biology hasn't happened yet. That's the difference between rational optimism and irrational and mindless optimism.

Re: Zuckerberg and Chan aim to tackle all disease by 2100

#156

Post by dhbradshaw »

kendallpark wrote: post #75

I'm glad they're putting money into medical research, but I kinda roll my eyes when people make big claims about curing X, especially when X is something incredibly broad like "cancer" or in this case, "all diseases." AI/ML has barely scratched the surface of its potential in medicine, however, I find it naive to think that you can throw AI/ML at any random disease and always get a cure. Even after a century. Will we…

Here's my best prediction for how it's could happen: when the all human immune systems are able to learn from each other, we'll be most of the way there. The immune system is at the center of most human diseases. Cancer? It's the best solution. Infection? Best solution. Autoimmune disease?Fixing the immune system would be the best solution to autoimmune disease. Right now, if you want your body to be immune to something, you're immune system has to learn that particular immunity. If we can form an artificial immune system "culture" then it seems like learning could be much, much faster.

Re: Zuckerberg and Chan aim to tackle all disease by 2100

#157

Post by andrewmcwatters »

calsy wrote: post #139
roadnottaken wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, I know a solution to the obesity crisis....

Eat less, exercise more? Easy to say right, but the simple message isn't working obviously. Obesity levels have doubled over the last 40 years. Its not sporadic either, it's affecting the entire population now. Why is this happening?

Because people consume more calories than they need. We know this, we've known this for a very long time.

Re: Zuckerberg and Chan aim to tackle all disease by 2100

#158

Post by MisterBastahrd »

hmate9 wrote: post #74

Not sure why there is a lot of negativity here. It doesn't seem that ridiculous of a goal. I think by 2100 we will have extremely powerful AI that will make fighting diseases extremely easy compared to methods available today. To be honest, it seems like an achievable goal. I wish Zuckerberg and Chan the best in this.

"All diseases" is not only ridiculous, it's impossible.

Re: Zuckerberg and Chan aim to tackle all disease by 2100

#159

Post by EGreg »

goatlover wrote: post #100
kendallpark wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is a remarkable scientific achievement, independent of its use.

Remarkable in the same way a future gray goo invention would be. And it was a military initiative, developed for military reasons.

So was the internet.

You never know if we will need that arsenal against asteroids.

Re: Zuckerberg and Chan aim to tackle all disease by 2100

#160

Post by forgetsusername »

tschellenbach wrote: post #36

This is great. Great achievements as a startup founder and now philanthropy. For those comparing this to pharma companies. Pharma companies invest in drugs that they can make money with. It sounds as though this $3 billion is aiming at more general research and making it publicly available.

>Pharma companies invest in drugs that they can make money with

And they also do a lot of philanthropic work:

http://www.forbes.com/2007/01/16/leadership-philanthropy-cha...

The idea the "Pharma companies" act any one specific way is only something you'd read on HackerNews. This is great of Mr. Zuckerberg, but it doesn't require us to downplay the charitable work of other people, or in this case other industries.

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