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Jake Seliger has died

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Re: Jake Seliger has died

#171

Post by vinnyvichy »

vinnyvichy wrote: post #153
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also: Don't get so enamoured by the idea of incremental progress, of scientific legacy, that you can scarcely imagine the idea that everybody you know might have taken a wrong turn 30, or 50, or 400 years ago. Science is the study of what is _not_ true, of falsification: how _not_ to cure a patient, how _not_ to go to the moon. It says nothing about what _is_. (That's the domain of engineering.) The discovery of germ…

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>can't imagine a situation

https://neurosciencenews.com/knowlege-group-welfare-psycholo...

Re: Jake Seliger has died

#172

Post by [deleted] »

rseliger wrote: post #118

This is Jake’s sister. He was reading and replying to as much as he could up until the end. He loved this community and would in turn be touched by this entire thread. Thank you all who supported him and read and shared his writing. He said it was bittersweet to go out on top.

[deleted]

Re: Jake Seliger has died

#173

Post by ewoodrich »

dredmorbius wrote: post #167
ewoodrich wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad discovered he had a very large solid tumor (a form of soft tissue sarcoma) in 2022 and due to the lack of solid data or population size no oncologist could even give a hunch as to the growth rate. Whether it had been developing slowly for a decade before it finally became symptomatic over a few months, or the terrifying possibility it was extremely fast growing during the year or so he began to notice symptoms…

Having gone through similar exhaustive research myself in the past, and undoubtably in the future as well .... ... one thing that such an exercise does do is to give you some reassurance that you're not letting anything slip by. That you did what you could, and that you found all available best current information. Sometimes all that provides is a negative result, or a neutral result, e.g., "there's nothing more that…

Thanks for that perspective, I now realize in my mind I completely glossed over the fact that my dad ultimately got proton therapy instead of traditional radiation because of my research. I found a paper comparing proton vs gamma radiation for soft tissue sarcomas and went down a rabbit hole. His oncologist at OHSU was very supportive of the idea and it all seemed to perfectly fall in line with my coping strategy believing technology had to have advanced somehow somewhere and we just needed to find it.

No way to know for sure whether that actually improved his quality of life vs gamma or was more effective but I believe it had to have helped and gave him and us more confidence he was getting the most cutting edge treatment modern medicine had to offer.

My dad was an early adopter of basically every technology trend going back to the first handheld sized cell phones and I could tell it gave both him and I some comfort being able to endlessly read about this brand new promising tech. And gave him some new optimism he might not inevitably lose his entire quality of life like his mother’s last few years of miserable chemo before her cancer ultimately killed her. The combination of Keytruda and proton radiation took a toll on him but he was still able to keep up with his routine of jogging and swimming a couple times a week which meant a lot to him.

Looking for proton centers then led my parents to the Fred Hutch Cancer Center in Seattle [1] who both had a proton therapy center and were conducting research on soft tissue sarcomas which led to enrolling him in the Keytruda trial that was desperate for eligible patients almost overnight.

My parents felt so much more trust and confidence there vs his original OHSU oncologist who made of point of emphasizing that my dad’s subtype of cancer wasn’t something they really had experience with or a specific treatment plan beyond the generic cancer treatment checklist.

I guess I ultimately did find something tangible and my medical techno optimism wasn’t purely escapism. So maybe it wasn’t as futile as it felt by the end, re-reading the same research over and over for months on end and still unable to form a mental model of the severity and most likely outcomes/survival odds for my dad.

[1] https://www.fredhutch.org/en/patient-care/treatments/proton-...

Re: Jake Seliger has died

#174

Post by vinnyvichy »

_yb2s wrote: post #77
bena wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a complicated subject. Because those rules are in place for reasons. And some of those reasons are to prevent drug companies from turning the poor into lab rats with no regard to their safety. And I guarantee you, you let "terminal" patients skirt rules, there will be a hell of a lot more "terminal" patients. And I'm sure there are some non-regulation reasons to limit various therapies. They are trying to see…

As someone that works in drug discovery as an academic and has patented drugs, I can tell you that the current process is biased way too far towards safety for optimal life saving outcomes if you look at it in a cold utilitarian way. A lot of lives would be saved by fast-tracking the approval process, despite the fact that there would also be an increase in negative outcomes. However, it is probably not socially or p…

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Re: Jake Seliger has died

#176

Post by ewoodrich »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #166
ewoodrich wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad discovered he had a very large solid tumor (a form of soft tissue sarcoma) in 2022 and due to the lack of solid data or population size no oncologist could even give a hunch as to the growth rate. Whether it had been developing slowly for a decade before it finally became symptomatic over a few months, or the terrifying possibility it was extremely fast growing during the year or so he began to notice symptoms…

It sounds like the reading helped you, though. Maybe it gave you a purpose or it focused your worry into something that felt productive. Either way, you would only be able to conclude that the reading wasn't productive by doing the reading. Basically, I understand and sympathize with why you went down that rabbit hole. I have gone down those rabbit holes for far less compelling reasons. Also, I have similarly conclud…

Thanks! and yes I think you’re right that it did help to occupy my mind at least. By the end when I hit a wall unable to find anything new it just made me look back in a more negative light than was actually true at the time.

Re: Jake Seliger has died

#177

Post by vinnyvichy »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #169
BessS wrote: post #159

Hi everyone, This is Bess, Jake's wife. I just want to say how deeply touched I am to see how much Jake and his writing are appreciated here on HN. The intellectual online community which made up a big piece of his life for so long was important to him, as was having a positive influence on others, and it would have meant so much to him- as it does to me- to see the impact he made. Thank you for the people who reache…

I didn’t know Jake’s work, but I’m going on vacation tomorrow and this thread has moved me to get copies of his books and start reading them while I’m away. I’ll be thinking of your family as I make my way through them. I sincerely wish you and your daughter the best.

https://bessstillman.substack.com/p/the-drugs-killing-dying-...

Re: Jake Seliger has died

#178

Post by dredmorbius »

vinnyvichy wrote: post #160
jpeloquin wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the general spirit is good but the clinical trial stage is the very end of a long process. The clinical trial the most visible part of getting a new cancer treatment to patients, but the bulk of delay in developing a new treatment is waiting for the basic science. More aggressive clinical trials could save ~ years. More aggressive education and fundamental research could save ~ decades. Can't run a trial on a tr…

[flagged]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41175165>

Repeatedly posting the same content, and soliciting upvotes, both go against HN guidelines.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

Re: Jake Seliger has died

#179

Post by tivert »

Jach wrote: post #129
tivert wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I'm sort of afraid to ask since everyone seems to know, but... what is he known for? > Jake joined HN in 2008, and has (had?) 80000 karma and change. Is that all though? I kind of find it hard to believe he'd be getting this much attention because he has a lot of internet points. The OP makes it seem like he was some kind of libertarian activist. It looks like he wrote some kind of 50 Shades of Grey-like novel ten…

You and the GGP author joined in 2018, so maybe you haven't noticed yet, but the black bar has always very much been an "at the whims of the site operator" thing. If you try to apply any other metric (like "tech giant"), you'll be scratching your head at who gets one and who gets left out. (I don't think you're missing anything, the only thing I know about this person is that according to my browser history I visited…

> You and the GGP author joined in 2018, so maybe you haven't noticed yet, but the black bar has always very much been an "at the whims of the site operator" thing.

I'm not questioning that at all. I'm just trying to understand who this person was and why they're getting this attention.

Re: Jake Seliger has died

#180

Post by cromulent »

lupire wrote: post #151
yawboakye wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i’ve come to believe that we’re more terrified of a situation while we’re not in it. once in there, and especially when there’s no way out, our bodies make the necessary adjustments for the new normal. and soon our minds/being follow. it’s often characterized as extraordinary strength by onlookers when in fact the person going through the experience had no way out. in my mother tongue, we have a proverb which roughly…

In my mother tongue we have an expression: "I'm not a coward; I've just never been tested. I'd like to think that if I was I would pass."

That’s a lyric from “The Impression That I Get”, a hit for The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. I guess they got it from your mother tongue.
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