the google founders' quest to live forever begins
Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being
51–60 of 400 posts
Re: Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Their total disregard for privacy" To the contrary, they have utter regard for your privacy. They advocate for governments to have more respect for your privacy, as well. Alfred knows everything about Bruce Wayne. Google is Alfred, except he doesn't even take a salary - he wants to show you advertising that you would think is high quality, and he promises to never sell your personal information to the advertisers. P…
Oh yeah, then why didn't they shut-down Gmail like the folks at Lavabit did? Instead of doing the right thing, Google let themselves become compromised in secret - only for us to find out after someone was willing to put their life on the line to leak this information.
Google has been publishing transparency reports for years and were the first to get approval for the disclosure of NSL requests.
It's not Google's fault you only started looking for the information after Snowden's stuff.
Re: Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did anyone read the article? This seems to be a biomedical company focused on engineering solutions to aging/illness. It's seemingly not Google Health 2.0.
Sure, but if their plans involve bringing said solutions to the masses - this skepticism applies. Just imagine the millions of hipsters lining up for the Google, er, Calico vaccination.
Hipsters like Google? I thought hipsters liked Apple...or do they just like whatever you dislike?
Re: Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being
#54So now we know what Steve Yegge was talking about, when he said he was moving to some mysterious "making peoples' lives better" project.
Cool.
Re: Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
I for one fear a future where anyone can become immortal. This would result in unimaginable struggles for our ecosystem. I always feel modern medicine should focus on raising life quality for as long as we are alive, rather than extending life itself. But of course this view is painted by the large number of old people living in inhuman conditions we currently have.
Being immortal and having a high quality of life for as long as we are alive are not mutually exclusive. In fact, don't we have longer lives and better quality of life than our ancestors already? This would just be taking it one step further. Also, having a population that never dies has many more benefits than consequences. The amount of knowledge and experience that will not be wasted because of death is extremely…
Regarding quality of our ancestors: Yes, but there are downsides too. We probably have longer periods of lower quality of life. We improved both quality and length. But we improved length more.
I hope for more youth, not just more life.
Re: Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like with anything else, the question isn't whether the rich will be able to afford it, the question is how much progress can we make in making it cheap, how quickly, to get it to how many people? It is a moral imperative to make sure that short-sighted class warfare does not cut off the nose to spite the face by destroying this work under the guise of egalitarianism, because we can not turn on a dime and immediately…
But what about generation warfare? Imagine having to live in a world where all the positions of power are permanently occupied by people from the generation of your great-grandparents.
You mean, that there might be a war between the 150 year olds and the 250 year olds? Sign me up! I don't even care for which side!
The base state of the world that we live in is that everybody dies. Your hypotheticals about how horrible it might be to live in a world where people might not die have to be pretty horrible to compete with what is already true.
(Mind you, this is not an unleapable bar, in my opinion, but it's much higher than you just leapt.)
Re: Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being
#57I for one welcome my immortal transhumanist cyborg overlords. But seriously, the fact that the first thing they do is start a corporation to control the science is not exactly comforting to me. Genentech is known for selling Avastin, their drug that fights cancer for $55k after they received harsh criticism for the proposed cost of $100k+/year. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bevacizumab#Costs I fear a future where "all…
Are you suggesting that I'd be better if the technology is not available to anyone lest some people live longer than others? I am pretty sure that in the beginning the new technologies will be accessible only to the people who can spare some cash, but I am also pretty sure that the cost will go down, as it has for any other technology.
Re: Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being
#58I'd rather see a high quality of life for everyone on earth for 80 years than 150+ year life spans for the first world. Which will just further increase the footprint of the rich and divert resources from the poor. Not to mention, it's a more attainable goal. It doesn't help much to keep the body going for 50 more years if you can't also keep the brain going. I believe these are very different problems. If you can so…
You are assuming resources are limited, but they are infinite. Making the assumption the Universe is infinite.
Re: Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being
#59This is potentially great news. The funny thing is that the first thing that crossed my mind is a book I read many years ago: Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition.
http://www.amazon.com/Great-Mambo-Chicken-Transhuman-Conditi...
Re: Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being
#60Absolutely brilliant. Finally, Aubrey De Grey's unapologetically straightforward logic [1] regarding aging has gained traction with the crowd who has the means to tackle this grand challenge. I am sincerely proud of Page and Brin for their vision and commitment. This is one of those rare times that powerful people make bold choices that catalyze a shift in the world's thought paradigm. Aging will now be seen for what…
catalyze a shift in the world's thought paradigm
Absolutely. The goal should be to enact a vector of a new paradigm, as proactive team players synergize an out-of-the-box strategy of functionality and infotainment, re-engineering the learning curve framework of your dotted-line relationship.