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Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being

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Re: Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being

#111

Post by melling »

throwaway172 wrote: post #47
melling wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many diseases have we cured in the past 20 years? The past 40 years? Medical advances are really, really slow. As for the "self-interest" question (that's why you created a throw away account?), I'm sure as you get a little older, and you notice people dying who are close to your age, you might be wish that people took an interest in being self-serving a couple decades earlier. Steve Jobs, for example, had billio…

For example, polio was cured less than 60 years ago. We know much more about the effects of radiation (sunscreen, anyone?) than we did 40 years ago. Genome sequencing is becoming slightly more affordable (than even 10 years ago) due to tech advances; we can predict hereditary disease in some instances (BRCA mutations, etc). Steve Jobs is actually a terrible example. To quote wikipedia, "Despite his diagnosis, Jobs re…

Great, you pulled out one disease in the past 60 years. Really slow progress. In the next 40, we should see a few more advances, but if we really want to move the needle, we need to be more aggressive.

9 months is not much time. If Steve were just an average person, his condition probably wouldn't have been discovered as early as it was. He simply squandered the little extra time that he had. There's no guarantee that he it wouldn't have killed him in the long run even if he had gone under the knife earlier. Pancreatic cancer, in general, is pretty deadly: http://www.cancer.org/cancer/pancreaticcancer/detailedguide/...

Randy Pausch had pancreatic cancer and died at 47: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Pausch

Sure, it's great that we can predict with a higher accuracy what diseases we might get. Now it would probably be helpful if we could cure most of them.

Re: Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being

#112

Post by astrodust »

bowlofpetunias wrote: post #96

Most of the world suffers from the health problem of never even reaching a ripe old age, and much of the rest from the problem of not being able to afford it, and increasingly so. This is not about making the world a better place. This about allowing the elite that can afford it to live forever.

Plus the one thing Google doesn't have access to at the moment is your medical records.

I guess this fixes that.

Re: Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being

#113

Post by melling »

sp332 wrote: post #101
benihana wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is one of those rare times that powerful people make bold choices that catalyze a shift in the world's thought paradigm. Let's just go ahead and pump the brakes here before we start clapping each other on the back and talking about shifted paradigms. I'll gladly join in the happy-clappy fest once some actual results come through. But saying we've catalyzed a shift in the world's thought paradigm (that is a rea…

Changing the way people around the world think about death is pretty significant, though. It's going to rewrite important aspects of many cultures. Edit: I mean "make people think differently" is underselling it.

Landing on the moon in 1969 rewrote a lot too. I bet if you asked people back then what the future would be like, the space program would look a little different.

All we're doing today is announcing a moon shot.

Re: Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being

#114

Post by natrius »

bowlofpetunias wrote: post #96

Most of the world suffers from the health problem of never even reaching a ripe old age, and much of the rest from the problem of not being able to afford it, and increasingly so. This is not about making the world a better place. This about allowing the elite that can afford it to live forever.

Can you name something that was only for the elites fifty years ago that isn't available to pretty much everyone today? This is what progress always looks like.

Re: Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being

#115

Post by hoilogoi »

melling wrote: post #24
throwaway172 wrote: post #11

To what extent is this guided by the self-interest of aging tech darling CEOs (Larry Page must be in his 40s by now)? As a young person I tend to think "some of these health issues ought to be solved problems by the time I'm older." But I don't have the kind of capital to spend on it that companies like Google, or persons like Larry Page, do. Regardless of motivation, I'm happy to see investment in this domain.

How many diseases have we cured in the past 20 years? The past 40 years? Medical advances are really, really slow. As for the "self-interest" question (that's why you created a throw away account?), I'm sure as you get a little older, and you notice people dying who are close to your age, you might be wish that people took an interest in being self-serving a couple decades earlier. Steve Jobs, for example, had billio…

> How many diseases have we cured in the past 20 years? The past 40 years? Medical advances are really, really slow.

It would be really interesting if we began noticing a medical analogue to Moore's Law in the next few decades (though I don't know how you'd measure it). Supposing conservatively that medicine is 100x better in 2013 than in 1900, one might expect medical knowledge to double between now and 2030. The size of the advances in computing from 1900-40 and 1940-80 differ by several orders of magnitude.

Of course I don't think we have the data to assign a model right now so this might be BS.

Re: Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being

#116

Post by nostromo »

grinich wrote: post #14
jhardcastle wrote: post #5

Interesting is that Art Levinson will remain Chairman at Apple. Apparently the two giants are working together here. > Tim Cook, Chief Executive Officer of Apple, said: “For too many of our friends and family, life has been cut short or the quality of their life is too often lacking. Art is one of the crazy ones who thinks it doesn’t have to be this way. There is no one better suited to lead this mission and I am exc…

I think there's a pretty big misconception about Silicon Valley executives hating each other. (My guess is this comes from our media-driven obsession with the good vs. evil narrative.) In reality, a lot of these companies aren't that different, and the skills+personalities+struggles of CEOs are actually remarkably similar. They might have different opinions or frustration with the competition, but most of what they f…

More evidence of this is the Breakthrough Prize: http://breakthroughprizeinlifesciences.org/sponsors

Sponsored by Sergey Brin and Mark Zuckerberg (and Yuri Milner).

Re: Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being

#117

Post by VikingCoder »

jbooth wrote: post #109
VikingCoder wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You either believe in capitalism, or you don't. Google believes in capitalism. They will offer goods and services to people who can afford them, and they will also work to make their products more accessible to those with limited resources. I personally believe Android will have enormous long-lasting positive impacts on the rest of the world. A $25 smartphone ... A $10 smartphone... A $5 smartphone... Giving access t…

I also disagree with the parent poster but you absolutely do not either "believe in capitalism, or you don't". The only pure capitalist societies are anarchist hellholes. Among nice societies, capitalism is implemented all sorts of different ways with the things capitalism does poorly[1] papered over in different ways. [1] law enforcement, basic standard of living for all, various economic regulations to address mark…

I didn't intend my first statement to be absolutist, and I do not believe I need to resort to some extreme form of free market society, in order to have my vision of reality work.

gdulli was criticizing a corporation for providing goods and services that a relative minority of the wealthy can provide.

I assert that that criticism is only valid, if you have fundamental problems with capitalism itself. The way I stated that was, "you either believe in capitalism, or you don't." I am not aware of a better way to state that. It's a matter of faith / belief / an assumption. If you share in that view, you can correctly engage in one set of logical discussion. If you do not share in that view, you can only engage in another set of logical discussions. Watching someone criticize a corporation for providing luxury goods is ample evidence that they're having the wrong kind of discussion. Their first necessary step would be to convince me that we should abandon capitalism. Period. There's no other first move in that game.

Re: Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being

#118

Post by prlambert »

FD3SA wrote: post #9

Absolutely 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…

Perhaps I missed something... where is Aubrey de Grey linked with Calico? I didn't see any mention of him in Larry's post, the press release, or the time article. Where is this coming from?
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