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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

#311

Post by notatoad »

julespitt wrote: post #144
notatoad wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

from the Time article[1], although they don't say it explicitly i get the impression that they're going to run it essentially like a charity - just dump money on it, and not expect any financial return. [1] http://business.time.com/2013/09/18/google-extend-human-life...

Peculiar it isn't just set up as a charity then. Although perhaps Larry Page just wants to avoid the strange vagaries of non-profit governance, if I were to guess why.

setting it up as a charity causes trouble if they want to start collecting profits down the road. non-profits don't get to become for-profit as soon as they build something profitable.

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

#312

Post by PhineasRex »

staccatomeasure wrote: post #77
jerf wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, b…

Dying isn't horrible at all. It's a part of the lifecycle.

This is the naturalistic fallacy. Just because something is that way does not mean that it should be that way.

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

#313

Post by ivank »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #289
jpadkins wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? What is the functional difference? Non-profits just funnel profits back to execs, instead of shareholders. Non-profit != lower prices.

Prices? You want medical treatment to have a price ?

Have you thought this through? Doctors have to be compensated, unless you want to enslave them. Even a single-payer system has prices.

On a side note, healthcare costs are high in the US due to artificially limited supply and failed central planning of future demand: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/2005-03-02-doctor...

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

#316

Post by benched »

vectorjohn wrote: post #187
netcan wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People are and always will be free to die whenever they want. If you live a longer youth and then face a longer low quality life, either you want that longer low quality life more than you let on, or you cut it short.

Without access to some humane means of euthanasia, I think your statement is inaccurate.

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

#317

Post by brymaster »

cromwellian wrote: post #178
mrschwabe wrote: post #23

Apparently your internet browsing data is not enough, Google also wants your medical records and DNA. Seriously though, I wouldn't trust any company connected with Google for 'health and well being'. Their total disregard for privacy would imply they are not working in my best interest for health either.

The nutjobs who have to sully each and every Google related piece of news on HN are becoming tiresome.

Sock puppets and people with blinders on are becoming tiresome.

Hey, remember this?

> Should be titled the Banality of Google Strawmen for the often repeated conspiracy theories of Google working with the NSA.

> There's simply no way Googlers would tolerate something like secretly sending user data to the NSA, it would be too hard to prevent internal employees from revolting.

> As an employee, I'd rather Google lose money and stock price and have the government shut them down, than send a firehose feed to the NSA.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5807106

Well, did you lose your Google job yet?

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

#318

Post by ThomPete »

pinaceae wrote: post #266
PeterisP wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An interesting point from one of Calico's announcements is a statement that curing all cancer would only add ~3 years to the expected lifespan. This is thought provoking - if even a perfect solution to such a problem won't give us what we want, then we do need to "make people think differently" and try to focus on a different, bigger problem than the current approach of trying to strike out separate illnesses. By the…

the difference lies in quality of living. dying of cancer is a shitty way to go. having a massive stroke/heart attack/aneurisma? at least you pop and you're gone. going through chemo/radio for months/years to slowly, painfully wither away is bullshit. same is true for all those diseases, parkinsons, alzheimers, etc. fuck them all. they are the bane of our existance, literally. pure evil.

That is exactly the point here.

Its not instant death, but the process of a slow death that is the enemy.

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

#319

Post by dragonwriter »

rodly wrote: post #302

Call me crazy here guys, but what exactly will Calico produce/make/do/etc? The top comment makes me feel like I'm missing a magical paragraph in the OP that details their cure for death, ugliness and stupidity.

> Call me crazy here guys, but what exactly will Calico produce/make/do/etc?

Presumably, its going to do research (probably secondary with an aim to commercialization, rather than basic research) on health problems, particularly on aging and aging-related diseases.

> The top comment makes me feel like I'm missing a magical paragraph in the OP that details their cure for death, ugliness and stupidity.

Its not a startup looking for venture capital that needs to demonstrate an MVP to attract investors in the near term, its a project that's already funded by Google as a small (by comparison to Google's available resources), effort. Efforts like that don't need to have a product on day one, they need a mission.

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

#320

Post by brymaster »

cromwellian wrote: post #175
joering2 wrote: post #165

Disclaimer: I do not hate Google; I use their search and email daily. I hate to be this guy, but... > OK so you’re probably thinking wow! That’s a lot different from what Google does today. Not really. Google is in a business of selling ads. In addition, they do make money on selling/sharing/exchanging information, mostly indirectly. > But as we explained in our first letter to shareholders, there’s tremendous potent…

Guilty-by-association and paranoia. Check. (23andme is not owned by Google and I'm pretty sure their T&S/privacy policy and HIPAA cover what can be done with your personal records) Obligatory and irrelevant Google Reader reference. Check. Right, the world would be better off if Google spent more time investing in yet more social sharing web app features, and not on reducing high way fatalities or increasing health. M…

Googler drunk on company koolaid. Check.
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