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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

#61

Post by ianstallings »

jerf wrote: post #38
ianstallings wrote: post #20

I 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…

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…

I have no problem with free market capitalism, if it's fair. But some think that companies like Genetech exploit the rules around patents and intellectual property at the expense of people's lives and receive preferential status.

There's a difference between making your money back to cover the cost of research and development while making a profit, and plain old greed. A 20 year lifetime on a patent with a 3-7 year window of exclusivity means you might be dead before you can afford treatment. That's one of the ethical issues that we will hopefully address in a sane and logical way as we move forward. How much money should one be able to make if they are adding days to your life?

I do agree that this type of thing may be helpful to humanity. I just cast a skeptical eye knowing how the drug industry has worked in the past.

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

#62

Post by frozenport »

psbp wrote: post #43
mrschwabe wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Google has a history of opening up its research. I doubt the medical community would accept a "google" vaccine without overwhelming consensus.

The medical community has shown itself time and again to accept treatments with marginal advatnages and meciine with dubous wholistic heatlh effects (trading stroke for cancer). At the end of the day, pharmacueticals are not know for integrity.

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

#63

Post by vasilipupkin »

ginko wrote: post #45
jerf wrote: post #38

Earlier 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.

that would only happen if you have a world that no longer creates new value, but simply redistributes ever diminishing existing size of the pie. I doubt that sort of dystopian society ala Cloud Atlas will ever come to pass, so there will always be room for young people to disrupt existing order

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

#64

Post by csallen »

mrschwabe wrote: post #41
VikingCoder wrote: post #35

Earlier 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.

You're exaggerating your claims and expectations to an extreme degree. For one, Snowden put his life on the line to leak a hell of a lot more than email spygate. Secondly, why didn't Google shut down Gmail? Is that a serious question? Because it quite obviously would've done far more harm than good, to citizens of the world and to Google.

You should calm down a bit and try to adopt more reasonable stances if you actually hope to make a difference.

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

#65

Post by MikeCapone »

epicureanideal wrote: post #31
MikeCapone wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is great if they do take the engineering approach of SENS and Aubrey de Grey. Ideally they would partner with SENS.org since they already have a lot of the infrastructure set up.

Agreed. I love that mainstream companies with lots of money are getting involved though. It's nice to be ahead of the curve but it's even better when the curve catches up.

Absolutely. Right now money is the bottleneck for the things that SENS is doing, so rich companies joining in are very welcome, as is the mainstream coverage that will come with them (hopefully resulting in more donations).

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

#66

Post by enraged_camel »

jerf wrote: post #38
ianstallings wrote: post #20

I 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…

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…

Normally I agree, but the implications of anti-aging treatment need to be considered.

Yes, the rich will get it first. But then think about what will happen: they will start living longer, and as a result, accumulate even more wealth over their lifetimes. While the poor will have 30-35 years of productive work-life, the rich will have much longer. Combined with the already large difference in their earning power, this will lead to a world where the rich not only life much higher quality lives, but also longer lives.

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

#67

Post by rottyguy »

A potential side-effect to this company would be googles technology expertise married to the biotech/pharma? world. We often hear that this drug cost billions to manufacture and therefore we need to recoup our costs through it's sales. Perhaps we see less expensive drugs as a result during this journey. That would be a huge win IMO.

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

#68

Post by diminoten »

ginko wrote: post #45
jerf wrote: post #38

Earlier 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.

I'd rather live in a world where my great-grandparents are in charge than not live at all.

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

#69

Post by csallen »

zerorbit wrote: post #58
gdulli wrote: post #29

I'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.

The vast majority of resources in the universe are unavailable to us, and will likely remain so unless we make efficient use of the resources that are available to us.

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

#70

Post by ianstallings »

netrus wrote: post #27
ianstallings wrote: post #20

I 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…

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.

I think that as people live longer they will have less children as a result, simply because the inner need to procreate and keep humanity alive will die down. We see this in the differences between the first world and third world countries where mortality rates have a significant delta. For instance, In Africa they tend to have more children on average than they do in Europe.
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