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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

#381

Post by henryaj »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #265
henryaj wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that logic, we should never have eradicated smallpox. Medicine extends lifespan - and a rising tide lifts all boats.

By that logic, we should never have eradicated smallpox. We eradicated smallpox for everyone , without distinction between rulers and ruled. That's the difference! a rising tide lifts all boats. "A witty saying proves nothing." -- Voltaire

>We eradicated smallpox for everyone, without distinction between rulers and ruled.

Notwithstanding the daughter comment that disproves this, try substituting 'smallpox' for 'cancer'. Cancer treatment is by no means available to everyone, or even the majority, yet it extends lifespans (of good people and dictators alike). Should we not have developed treatments for cancer?

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

#382

Post by _pferreir_ »

cookingrobot wrote: post #249
astrodust wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus the one thing Google doesn't have access to at the moment is your medical records. I guess this fixes that.

Calico is a different company, so if some day you decide to give them access to your medical records, that won't automatically give access to google.

Yeah, then I guess they will just show you an annoying pop-up every now and then, basically pushing you to merge your Calico account into you Google account.

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

#384

Post by Florin_Andrei »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #296
VikingCoder wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get ya. From that perspective it's hard to describe exactly what I'm thinking... If you lean towards "capitalism and free markets are good," then I really don't think you have a leg to stand on, in criticizing a corporation for offering luxury services. If you lean towards, "Universal healthcare, and this is health care, so therefore the government should have a monopoly on it, except this should be way down low on…

And what if I lean towards, "Universal healthcare, and this is health care, so therefore the government should have a monopoly on it, and this should be way up high on the list of priorities"?

Then you'd be right. ;)

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

#385

Post by smileysteve »

Bakkot wrote: post #197
malandrew wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generational warfare would definitely be something to consider. Imagine if immortality had been discovered 400 years ago. Are the ethics and morality of the leaders from 400 years ago something you, a person born in the late 20th century, would want to live under? Generations eventually dying off keeps the human race moving forward in many ways.

Imagine if we grew up in a world like the one you posit, where humanity advances only slowly because it's held back by the ideals held by people 400 years old. You propose that the best solution to this is kill everyone over 80. That would make you a psychopath.

> That would make you a psychopath.

If we could have just figured this out 2500 years ago, then we 'd be Spartans instead of PsychoPaths.

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

#386

Post by specialist »

anfedorov wrote: post #128
astrodust wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus the one thing Google doesn't have access to at the moment is your medical records. I guess this fixes that.

They used to have a service for exactly that: http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/health/about/

I worked for a startup in the electronic medical records space. Data interchange.

We had various interactions with both the Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault teams. They were both making patient facing apps, ours was physician (and staff) facing.

We had a patient facing app, because all the hospitals thought it'd drive admissions.

But at the time no doctor would trust patient's data.

To the best of my knowledge, that hasn't changed (five years on).

The "quantified self" movement may change the perception of patient gathered data. When data collection is automatic, standardized. More importantly, when doctors are doing it for themselves, so are familiar with the tools and culture.

So, in short, Google Health and MS HealthVault were just wishful thinking. There was no "there" there.

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

#387

Post by robotresearcher »

coldtea wrote: post #305
robotresearcher wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who's ahead of the [self-driving car] game? I don't know because Google gets all the press and fawning from fanboys--like you. It's Google. They have the right people, the right ideas, the resources, and they started first. Source: I'm a prof in a related field with graduated PhD students at Google. The Google cars get press because they are really very good.

> It's Google. They have the right people, the right ideas, the resources, and they started first. I believe we covered the "fawning from fanboys" part already. > Source: I'm a prof in a related field with graduated PhD students at Google. That's not a "source". That's at best a "full discosure" and at worst a "conflict of interest" in this discussion...

That's what I get for providing a professional opinion on HN? Wow.

For the record, none of my former students work on the Google cars as far as I know.

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

#388

Post by jclos »

anigbrowl wrote: post #233
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…

To me the (potential) benefit is not life extension but healthier lives.

I agree. The goal should be to achieve the best compromise between quality and length. Pushing from 80 to 130 is good and all, but I would prefer the research to be focused on preserving youthfulness rather than life in and for itself, i.e. I would rather die a young 80 year old than a decrepit 130 year old walking corpse. Of course, even better would be to die a young 130 y.o., or not die at all.

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

#389

Post by sAuronas »

dragonwriter wrote: post #380
dekhn wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I hear your complaint from many people, but I spend enough time talking to managers to understand what they mean, and I actually think there's content there.

I spend a lot of time talking to managers, and most what they are saying isn't what people describe as "management speak" (which is, despite the phrase usually used to describe it, more the language of marketing and PR -- which, to be fair, managers frequently necessarily engage in and all too often are also victims of.) There is a jargon of management -- an array of terms with precise meanings in the field that are…

All the talk of jargon while a paradigm has shifted... No doubt, you are all very smart (and literate) but the point was to notice how f^@k1ng big this is.

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

#390

Post by lkbm »

needacig wrote: post #235
natrius wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those things are available to the vast majority of the planet. Clean water, for example, is available to seven of every eight humans[1]. In the places those things aren't available, you'll usually find a corrupt government getting in the way. As you said, these aren't expensive problems to solve, so there's no intrinsic reason they should be limited to the elite. [1] http://thewaterproject.org/water_stats.php

Some more context: 61% lack Internet access [1] 35% lack basic sanitation (e.g., toilets) [4] 26% don't have plumbing (e.g., water they can get from pipes in their house or yard) [2] 23% don't have electricity [2] 14% lack access to clean water [2] 14% lack access to health care [2] 13% suffer from chronic undernourishment [5] 11% can't read [3] 14% is about one billion people. Maybe you look at that and think, hey,…

What were the numbers ten years ago? Twenty?

I look at the 86% and thing we're doing pretty well because we've improved enormously during my lifetime and are continuing to do so.

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