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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

#321

Post by pluma »

dwighttk wrote: post #201
bsder wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 create…

Huh, I lost a lot of weight when I was under more stress and gained it back when that stress was lessened.

Some people put on weight under stress, some lose weight under stress.

Humans vary more than some people seem to think.

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

#322

Post by wyager »

srunni wrote: post #310
wyager wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 w…

> 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.

Perhaps you can explain it to me, so I can skip becoming a bio researcher.

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

#323

Post by estefan »

therealbobsmoot wrote: post #316
estefan wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

and yet you do the exact opposite - you label the guy pathetic simply because he has a viewpoint that is different to yours.

The opinion, not the OP. I'm sure he/she is a fine individual.

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

#324

Post by kafkaesq »

dwaltrip wrote: post #218
kafkaesq wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think by 2100 we will have extremely powerful AI that will make fighting diseases extremely easy compared to methods available today. Right. Just like the jetpacks and lunar colonies we have easy access to now, as promised in the 1960s.

Would you trade the development of the internet for jetpacks? I wouldn't.

The point is that most predictions of what the future holds for us (based on spike developments in the past 5-10 years)† usually prove to be quite silly.

† And in ML's case, ridiculously successful branding (per the sibling comment of yours).

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

#325

Post by apatters »

estefan wrote: post #307
apatters wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

Capitalism's an economic system, not a moral one. He's got his responsibility to make money at any cost. Civic society has its responsibility to draw a line past which the cost is too high. History makes it clear that "assuming the best" about the actions of the rich and powerful hardly keeps them accountable.

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

#326

Post by whybroke »

projektir wrote: post #250
whybroke wrote: post #141

This is lovely and all. But he is in a much better position to work on the curious problems of ever increasing political polarization in our new Post-Factual world. If I were to guess, over the next century that problem is going to result is a vastly more misery than a slight speed up to medical technology could compensate for.

I am much more concerned about social/ethical/cultural problems in general. I think if those problems were solved, all other issues with effectively evaporate in a very short time, because we waste a tremendous amount of energy on, well, random crap. Sometimes technological/medical/governmental/etc. changes do move the social forward so there's hope there.

I agree entirely. And, looking at a small but easier part, I believe that there is a particular piece that Zuckerberg can work on very effectively.

His company is now a key part of the way people form their view of the world. The algorithm/process that selects what ideas they are exposed to chooses only the most outlandish and memorable ideas that also serve to reinforce the viewers already existing preconceptions. This, after all, makes facebook quite attractive: an echo chamber of stimulating impressions that always reconfirm your world view. Obviously accuracy is irrelevant in this model and evidence is unheard of.

This is a specific problem that is contributing to a completely credulous world view, worsening political gaps based on untruths and, worst of all, creating the belief that fact is just another word for opinion. And this problem is exactly in his area of expertise on a platform he has control of.

At any rate, if not worked on pretty quick, a re-established House Un-American Activities Committee will make it awfully hard later.

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

#327

Post by VOYD »

segmondy wrote: post #226
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…

People would have rolled their eyes, if someone said. I wanted to connect the world. I want to connect virutally everyone, where you can just reach anyone at anyplace at any time for cheap. 30 yrs ago, in a different part of the world. My father had to catch a bus from a village to the city, then catch a plane to a major city to make international phone call to the US to his business partners. Today, people in that s…

But that is creating something, not fixing something.

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

#328

Post by mattwg »

zhemao wrote: post #270
mattwg wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this true of the Gates Foundation? Or Good Ventures? Chan Zuckerberg is specifically aimed at improving equality. Do you have any actual examples of wealthy philanthropists using "the rest of us" as guinea pigs to cure themselves of disease? ryandrake's point is an important one, but I don't think this level of cynicism is justified.

> Do you have any actual examples of wealthy philanthropists using "the rest of us" as guinea pigs to cure themselves of disease? Peter Thiel wants to make himself ageless and immortal by injecting himself with the blood of the young. How's that?

I hadn't heard about that before, thanks for sharing it. The idea makes for a comically evil headline, but it isn't obvious to me that the concept is necessarily nefarious or exploitative. It seems very similar to the blood transfusions we already do today to stop people from dying.

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

#329

Post by mattwg »

lunula wrote: post #274
mattwg wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this true of the Gates Foundation? Or Good Ventures? Chan Zuckerberg is specifically aimed at improving equality. Do you have any actual examples of wealthy philanthropists using "the rest of us" as guinea pigs to cure themselves of disease? ryandrake's point is an important one, but I don't think this level of cynicism is justified.

> Chan Zuckerberg is specifically aimed at improving equality. Do you really believe this? They are doing so using a private company. The Gates foundation, for all their hubris, are at least a foundation and a nonprofit. I hope the pitchforks come out against Chan Zuckerberg. They are doing everything possible to build exactly the opposite kind of world that they claim to promote. I always hope the smart people of HN…

> Do you really believe this? They are doing so using a private company.

Do you have to be a non-profit to do good?

> I hope the pitchforks come out against Chan Zuckerberg. They are doing everything possible to build exactly the opposite kind of world that they claim to promote.

I don't know enough specifics about Chan Zuckerberg to respond to this. Sounds like I need to do some more reading, are there any particular resources you've found useful?

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

#330

Post by nso95 »

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…

It's better to be optimistic and try than pessimistic and do nothing
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