We are close to immortality, but we are also close to self-extinction.
Isn't that fascinating ?
Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being
351–360 of 400 posts
Re: Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being
#352Most 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.
If your opinion were applied in practice universally, modern medicine would have never happened to begin with, for it was first accessible and affordable by the so called elites.
That is how all products first become available. The rich fund the R&D and scaling.
We'd all still be living in primitive civilizations if your approach ruled the day.
Re: Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being
#353Absolutely 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…
Honestly, this just smells like trying to get positioned favorably for the coming geriatric population bubble as the boomers finally reach the point where they aren't able to screw everything up anymore.
Re: Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being
#354Most 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.
Unfortunately this is most of the politics that drives health care in the USA. Most people in the US don't even get close to old age because they don't have access to adequate healthcare. Bill Gates is saving thousands of lives by trying to wipe out diseases that generally affect poor people for very little money per life saved. While in the US millions is spent per person to provide longer lives for a few people.
What a bizarre statement.
Life expectancy is nearly 80 years in the US at this point, even with the explosion of cancer, heart disease and diabetes that has come with obesity in the last 30 years.
You'd have to be defining old age as 140 for your statement to make sense.
Re: Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being
#355Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aubrey's reaction piece is listed on the front page of Time's website, and can be seen here: http://ideas.time.com/2013/09/18/finally-the-war-on-aging-ha...
That whole article is incredibly creepy -- 'War on Aging' -- do we really need more 'War on X' rhetoric? Regarding the fact that we know that we eventually die, he states > So soul-destroying has this knowledge been, for almost everyone, that we have constructed our entire society and world view around ways to put it out of our minds'. Absolutely ridiculous. Besides the fact that I think a 'soul' is a poorly-defined…
"it's also simply part of being a biological organism."
laugh.
Absolutely everything we have built with technology is not simply part of being a biological organism. Who are you to say what being a biological organism is about? For that matter, what's special about biology (nothing, but that's a different discussion)?
Smallpox is simply a part of being a biological organism. Fighting with other organisms to the death is part of being a biological organism. Survival of the fittest is part of being a biological organism. But we're better than that. See, we have pretty powerful brains that allow us to escape the endless cycle of suffering and death that is "being a biological organism". You're not forced to use yours for that purpose, but don't act like there is some bright line between all the other supposed rules we break and curing death. It is all part of the same progression.
Re: Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being
#356Earlier quoted context omitted.
To catalyze something means to speed it up. So catalyzing a paradigm change means to make it happen faster. I don't see the problem with this. Could you be more specific?
> To catalyze something means to speed it up. (...) I don't see the problem with this. Could you be more specific? The problem with this is that "make it happen faster" is already clear and sufficient. People understand it -- including people who don't have an idea what "catalyst" means (for me it's a totally transparent word, as its origin and etymology come from my language. YMMV). If you want to dress it up to mak…
"The problem with this is that "make it happen faster" is already clear and sufficient."
I disagree. Catalyze is more succinct. In addition, to catalyze has the connotation of making change happen via the injection of a catalyst, thus connecting the agent of change with the change it brings. It's a better word.
Catalyst is not a difficult vocabulary word, nor a particularly uncommon word. Compare it's frequency to the words you used: http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=catalyst%2C+pui...
Re: Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being
#357Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Try again. There is still zero evidence Google did anything other than comply with requests for individually reviewed pieces of data, and did not engineer anything to permit firehose dragnets. If the NSA is getting any kind of dragnet data, most likely it is via external network taps, intercepting non-encrypted SMTP traffic, or non-encrypted intra-datacenter fiber traffic the same way they tapped 'dark fiber' underse…
> Google cares very much for user privacy, it is part of the corporate culture.
Try again.
Re: Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being
#358Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your snark is unnecessary and very misplaced. This will result in a significant thought paradigm shift in all things health-related, and it's a great thing that a company with as many resources and as high of a profile as Google is looking into this. Google is a company that is making self-driving cars, providing incredibly fast internet to consumers, providing Internet to suffering areas with a new idea (the Loon),…
what Jrockway said https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6407580 But your comments are factually wrong. None of Google's products you mention are new or really that much better (so far.) >> Google is a company that is making self-driving cars So is every major car manufacturer out there. Who's ahead of the game? I don't know because Google gets all the press and fawning from fanboys--like you. ">>providing incredibly…
Wow... what are you even doing on this site? What's it like hating everything?
Re: Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being
#359Typical of the billionaires. Is the aging funding for society or there own motality. Ellison does stuff like this. I didn't read the article fully but on the surface they would be better doing as Gates is doing, funding suffering. Funding their own future to me is not very honorable and respectful.
Re: Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being
#360Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, shit, that quote right there plus your hostile attitude sure have me impressed. 62 whole miles! They're clearly on the doorstep of releasing a production autonomous car I'm here to impress you sir, that's my mission in life. Now who said that they drove a total of 62 miles vs a 62 mile trip? Did the car crash at mile 62 or they reached the destination? All these are little details that need to be taken in consi…
Well, sorry to say that you're failing pretty hard at your mission then. But do keep ramping up the snarky rhetoric. It looks like I hit a nerve. I didn't say anything about total miles; I was comparing Mercedes' single 62 mile trip against the other car's single 380+ mile trip. But if you want to bring up total miles logged, That Company In Mountain View hit 300k miles last year [1] and there are absolutely no publi…
Okay, I'd say you're both off here. I think you're right that Bsullivan should take Google more seriously - I think he's going to have to eat his hat with the way Google is heading. But you shouldn't dismiss Mercedes - the German car companies are very smart, and have the potential to be top players over the coming decades.