Zuckerberg and Chan aim to tackle all disease by 2100 • Hacker News Board

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

#301

Post by monort » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 11:18 AM UTC

calsy wrote: post #131

I 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…

There is a technical solution to obesity - automatic calorie counter. There are some attempts, but they are not very accurate yet.

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

#302

Post by apatters » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 11:39 AM UTC

estefan wrote: post #297

apatters wrote: post #293

This is difficult to say without sounding snarky, but will 'all disease' include the mental disorders (both discovered and undiscovered) that Facebook inflicts upon its users? Depression from seeing other people's perfect lives, obsessive compulsive dopamine-fueled update checking to maximize Zuck's ad revenue etc. I'm glad he's spending his money this way but how about the way he makes it. Facebook is not a particul…

You're seriously equating looking at someone's photos with catching HIV, Ebola or developing cancer? Pathetic.

No, I'm not.

Do you always assume that people who have differing opinions from yours must be heartless monsters and insult them? That must be a serious impediment to constructive discussion.

To put my point succinctly Zuckerberg hasn't demonstrated a great deal of social responsibility in running his business. There are problems much closer to his influence (literally caused by his product) which he doesn't even discuss in public, let alone try to solve. So when he announces he and his wife are going to effectively end the greatest cause of human suffering, some skepticism about his motives is totally legitimate. For instance, what strings will be attached to the receipt of this money?

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

#303

Post by lunula » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 11:42 AM UTC

bmmayer1 wrote: post #199

ryandrake wrote: post #49

Not to take the wind out of anyone's sails, but there is a concern to be raised about relying more and more on charities to fund the public good. When a democratically elected government funds the public good, at least in theory, the public at large has a small say in choosing what counts as "public good". When you leave it to charity, you're relying on the morals of individual wealthy donors to decide what counts as…

Why do you assume that government politicians and bureaucrats have a higher moral position to decide what counts as public good?

It is pretty hard to ignore the fact that they are elected and meant to serve as representatives of the people. SV billionaires: not so much.

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

#304

Post by bwindels » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 12:23 PM UTC

These self-congratulatory billionaire philanthropists and their tax evasion schemes really irk me. Everything won't be peachy in the future. We're well on our way to warm up the planet by 4 degrees Celsius by 2100, because of the globalized world in which you could gain your fortune. Stop exerting power of money that doesn't belong to you, pay your taxes like everyone else, and maybe governments would have more means to improve issues that were democratically prioritized, with more oversight. These flashy single issues funds with vague goals are mainly there to serve the ego of whoever funded them.

The school of life has a good video on this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTAE5m3ZO2E

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

#305

Post by bwindels » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 12:33 PM UTC

vosper wrote: post #10

nenadg wrote: post #4

Oh that's just great, another billionaire philanthropist curing all diseases. Like Gates did. I don't know whether their passion loses momentum inside 'initiative/fund' or it was doomed to be opposite of it's cause from the start?

What would you rather they do with all that money?

Pay a fair amount of corporate tax for example...

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

#306

Post by dschiptsov » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 12:38 PM UTC

Not bold enough. Let them tackle nondeterminism first.)

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

#307

Post by estefan » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 12:46 PM UTC

apatters wrote: post #302

estefan wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're seriously equating looking at someone's photos with catching HIV, Ebola or developing cancer? Pathetic.

No, I'm not. Do you always assume that people who have differing opinions from yours must be heartless monsters and insult them? That must be a serious impediment to constructive discussion. To put my point succinctly Zuckerberg hasn't demonstrated a great deal of social responsibility in running his business. There are problems much closer to his influence (literally caused by his product) which he doesn't even disc…

The guy's running a business. He has a responsibility to his shareholders to make it as valuable as he can. Sticky apps/web sites lead to more ad impressions and higher prices. His business does not give people cancer or HIV.

You may find life more rewarding to assume people are good and try to see the best in people. As Dale Carnegie says in How to Win Friends and Influence People, if you assume the best in people and encourage them, they're more likely to want to live up to that image.

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

#308

Post by BorisVSchmid » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 12:47 PM UTC

Most infectious diseases in humans are known to have originated from wildlife, so eradicating all current diseases will still leave us with new diseases entering the human population. Current rate at which new diseases establish themselves in the human population is about ~1 per year, moreso under unstable climate [Greger, Woolhouse].

http://czbiohub.org/projects/infectious-disease/

Looks like Chan and Zuckerberg's initiative on infectious diseases is focused on a rapid response once a disease establishes itself in humans. There is certainly a lot to win there, but it is still acting after the fact, rather than prevention. Would have liked part of the effort to be focused on monitoring wildlife to understand which diseases are at risk of jumping over.

Greger, M.Crit. Rev. Microbiol. 33, 243–299 (2007). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18033595

Woolhouse, M .E.J. Trends Microbiol. 10, s3–s7 (2002). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12377561

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

#309

Post by projektir » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 1:06 PM UTC

supercoder wrote: post #283

projektir wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can fix all the bugs in the fifty-year old software project... by writing a new version of it. Sometimes the right solution doesn't deal with existing problems but tries to go somewhere else entirely.

So you're suggesting they're going to just give birth to a super race of people ?

I'm suggesting we build a new one, either through genetic engineering or replacement of parts. In the context of Zuckerberg and Chan, this would involve promoting the funding and research of things like stem cells, artificial organs, test tube babies, etc. Given how much such things are opposed to the public, a lot of things could come out of it.

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

#310

Post by srunni » Thu, Sep 22, 2016, 1:07 PM UTC

wyager wrote: post #268

srunni wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All of the things he mentions are easily approachable engineering challenges. If they are so "easily approachable," feel free to solve them any time. I think you'll find that solving problems in living systems (let alone in the clinic) is much more challenging than it might appear from a CS/physics perspective ( https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-Andy-Grove-fallacy?share=1 ). I'm not saying it's not worth trying (it…

"Easily approachable" doesn't mean I can just go ahead do it. It means I can see how one would start working on it, and in fact many people are. In fact, I am currently working in a nanotech lab, so I am hopefully helping a bit ;) None of the problems you linked to are things that need to take a hundred years to solve. It's probably more accurate to measure development barriers in R&D costs than years. At the very le…

> I can just go ahead do it.

Doing experiments on animals (and especially humans or other vertebrates) is the exact opposite of something you can just go ahead and do. The best way to see that is to give it a go yourself.

> At the very least, we could just reverse engineer biology.

Many people in the past with a CS/physics mindset have made similar claims. If you try to work with living systems, I'm sure you'll see why these problems aren't just a matter of spending R&D dollars.