I'd like to see their efforts in stopping the spread of the most rapidly increasing disease to challenge humanity in any man's lifetime.
It's called Facebook.
Zuckerberg and Chan aim to tackle all disease by 2100
171–180 of 344 posts
Re: Zuckerberg and Chan aim to tackle all disease by 2100
#172Earlier 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?
Because people consume more calories than they need. We know this, we've known this for a very long time.
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Re: Zuckerberg and Chan aim to tackle all disease by 2100
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 an…
Respectfully, I disagree.
The fundamental discoveries necessary for the nuclear bomb weren't discover until after Leo Szilard [0] proposed the weapon. Given that none of us were alive between 1906 and 1945 it's hard to fully grasp how the scientific understanding evolved over those 39 years.
Einstein's work paved the way for Leo Szilard's vision but that vision was in no way a given. If it weren't for WWII, and Einstein's support, Leo would not have been able to garner the $2 Billion (1940's money) in support that was necessary to build the bomb.
Even then, there was a coin-toss level certainty that it would do anything.
Similar to Einstein's work preceding the discovery of Fission and the Atomic bomb. We have a great deal of work in biology around aging, telomere's, transcription errors, and more that hasn't been leveraged by the medical industry for varying reasons.
I'm not ready to be a naysayer on this topic, historically as a species we've had remarkable success in accomplishing things that were considered impossible before we did them.
Re: Zuckerberg and Chan aim to tackle all disease by 2100
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, I know that. The point of the new effort is trying to cure diseases. That's a completely different type of effort. Getting people together to travel to different parts of the world to make sure people are vaccinated, for example, requires a different group of people than scientists researching cures for diseases. Both groups are needed, of course. But you giving the example of "curing" polio as an example of wh…
Ah I see the semantics of your argument and you're right. I just think other than the prestige argument (which is likely what this is) they could actually do more work working with someone who literally spends more on this than the entire USG.
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Re: Zuckerberg and Chan aim to tackle all disease by 2100
#175I know it's more of a western problem, but it would be good if someone could find some real solutions to the obesity crisis. If you ask many GPs in the west they will tell you that a majority of illnesses they address are related to weight and diet. With an aging, increasingly overweight adult population alongside a sharp rise in child obesity come big consequences for health care over the next half century. Im not s…
Um, I know a solution to the obesity crisis....
Ayup. Basic income and universal health care. That way people can concentrate on their health, first, without having to worry about their daily salary to keep themselves housed, clothed, and fed.
Oh, wait, that wasn't what you meant? :)
As for your snide solution:
There is research coming in that your body will reduce your metabolism in order to conserve fat. Fat cells "remember" the environment when they were created, and take between 3-5 years to be replaced. So, you are fighting the fact that you were fat 3 years ago even if you weigh correctly right now.
I can also tell you from personal experience that stress us a HUGE factor. I haven't changed anything obvious in my life, but I'm down almost 15 pounds since my life became a lot less stressful (external factors went away). Am I magically more virtuous all of a sudden? Doubtful. So, what changed? Am I feeling fuller? Am I sleeping better? Is my survival system not being so wound up? Who knows?
So, from my point of view, if you want to cut down on obesity, cut down on people's stress. And that translates to fewer hours at work, help with young/old family members, healthcare improvements, etc.
Re: Zuckerberg and Chan aim to tackle all disease by 2100
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry to see you got downvoted for voicing your opinion. Remember, Stockholm Syndrome is a disease.
That opinion adds nothing to the current discussion. This isn't just an open "tell us any random opinion you might have!" forum; the idea is to contribute thoughts relevant to the topic.
I think the OP here was hinting along these lines perhaps:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/245251.php
Facebook is by some considered an addiction, so in some regards a disease that should be tackled along with others.
Re: Zuckerberg and Chan aim to tackle all disease by 2100
#177Re: Zuckerberg and Chan aim to tackle all disease by 2100
#178I'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 someth…
I'm struggling to see how that can be done without in vivo genetic engineering (to ensure immune compatibility), constant blood surveillance of the population (to detect pathogens), chemical infusions deployed en masse like a firmware update, and giant cube-shaped space ships.
Re: Zuckerberg and Chan aim to tackle all disease by 2100
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the current medical research system is badly broken in several ways, and it's possible that a few billions spent on alternative approaches would bear a lot of fruit. It might also not, but I'm very glad if someone tries.
What approaches do you mean? In which ways do you think it's broken?
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-is-ou...
He quotes Eliezer Yudkowsky:
Parapsychologists are constantly protesting that they are playing by all the standard scientific rules, and yet their results are being ignored – that they are unfairly being held to higher standards than everyone else. I’m willing to believe that. It just means that the standard statistical methods of science are so weak and flawed as to permit a field of study to sustain itself in the complete absence of any subject matter.
This general topic sometimes comes up on HN (most recently, yesterday†). Here's a good starting point:
https://hn.algolia.com/?query=http:%2F%2Fwww.phdcomics.com%2...
Re: Zuckerberg and Chan aim to tackle all disease by 2100
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 an…
Respectfully, I disagree. The fundamental discoveries necessary for the nuclear bomb weren't discover until after Leo Szilard [0] proposed the weapon. Given that none of us were alive between 1906 and 1945 it's hard to fully grasp how the scientific understanding evolved over those 39 years. Einstein's work paved the way for Leo Szilard's vision but that vision was in no way a given. If it weren't for WWII, and Einst…
The discovery of fission was not the product of the Manhattan Project but a continuation of research into the atomic nucleus that had been proceeding for decades. Once that happened, Einstein's theory told you that the process would release a large amount of energy, and a bomb became simply an engineering task. By the time someone wrote a check, the basic mechanism of the runaway fission reaction was understood.
That's totally different than the current situation with say cancer. In the world of physics and engineering, a "coin-toss" shot at working is actually a pretty well-developed idea. There is no ready-to-go idea you can point to and say "if we spent $20 billion building this it's have a coin-toss's chance of curing cancer."