11 ms·

As someone with Fuchs Dystrophy (which is slowly blinding me), and writing style aside, I'd like to see the aging billionaires of Web 2.0 throw money at more id

As someone with Fuchs Dystrophy (which is slowly blinding me), and writing style aside, I'd like to see the aging billionaires of Web 2.0 throw money at more ideas like this instead of at Hail Mary passes to immortality. Is that so much to ask for? I think it's realistic to live to 100 with 90+ good years. Without fundamental breakthroughs in science, it seems like a hard trek to get beyond that. https://www.allaboutvision.com/conditions/fuchs-corneal-dystrophy.htm https://www.allaboutvision.com/conditions/fuchs-corneal-dyst...

guelo 7y ago
Instead of relying on billionaire's whims I'd rather we taxed them more and used CDC's and NIH's epidemiology and scientist's opinions to fund research that benefits society the most.
- melling 7y ago
  You want to tax all 536 billionaires? Capital gains perhaps? I’m not exactly sure why everyone middle class and above wouldn’t want to pay a little more for more medical research. We’ll all likely benefit. The ”let’s just tax the rich” is only going to get us so far.
  - r00fus 7y ago
    Any stronger taxation scheme to make the rich pay their share is probably fine. I personally prefer a small financial transaction tax.
    - archey1 7y ago
      In the United States: The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual income taxes (37.3 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (30.5 percent). The top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97 percent of total individual income taxes. The top 1% was 1.4 million returns in 2016. The top 50% is 140.9 million returns. How much is "fair"? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-14/top-3-of-u-s-taxpayers-paid-majority-of-income-taxes-in-2016 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-14/top-3-of-...
      - dmix 7y ago
        Income tax is also hardly the only tax wealthy people pay. It's probably the least interesting tax to consider. I keep reading people talking about billionaires "hoarding" their money, as if it was just sitting in a vault like Scrooge McDuck and not being reinvested in countless businesses, while only a small percentage is going towards their 'luxury' lifestyle (which they also assume goes all into useless flashy cars and fashion like lower-tier wealthy celebrities they see on TV who also frequently happen to end up broke... for some reason). We should tax that consumption, not the investments the return value and therefore jobs, technology, science, etc to society). Or focus on the far wealthier corporations who pay no direct tax through various financial trickery and/or incentives to off-shore it instead of keeping it locally to spend (although most still pay tons in taxes through other means).
        zzzzzzzza 7y ago
        neither income nor consumption should be taxed, instead, consider taxing that which we do not produce via the work of our own hands, such as land value (which ultimately comes from nature/the productivity of the surrounding community).
        ShorsHammer 7y ago
        Consumption should very much be taxed considering it is the simplest way to claw back all the environmental externalities in an ever polluted world with no one willing to take responsibility.
        zzzzzzzza 7y ago
        if you really want to do that levy a carbon tax or a packaging tax or something more direct a consumption tax would also penalize transactions that might decrease environmental impact e.g. solar panels, or of tools used in the construction of a composting toilet, those being easy, obvious examples.
        weeksie 7y ago
    - JasonGenova25 7y ago
      FTT's are retarded and are very bad for any nation's financial sector. Instead, tax capital gains higher.
- traek 7y ago
  Why CDC and NIH instead of the EPA?
- BurningFrog 7y ago
  Hard disagree. The CDC and NIH undoubtedly do great work, but they are one model and thus a single point of failure. I'd much rather see dozens of more or less eccentric billionaires put money into other things and other ways of organizing and incentivizing research and problem solving.
- handedness 7y ago
  "If it was up to the NIH to cure polio through a centrally directed program instead of independent investigator driven discovery, you'd have the best iron lung in the world, but not a polio vaccine." -Samuel Broder, former Director of the National Cancer Institute
  - folli 7y ago
    How are the independent investigators financed if not mainly through taxes?
    - adolph 7y ago
      Publisher Gerard Piel credited [Basil] O'Connor with a "unique social invention: a permanently self-sustaining source of funds for the support of research — the voluntary health organization." With a centralized administration, state and local chapters and a large corps of volunteers, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis became the prototype for dozens of similar foundations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_of_Dimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_of_Dimes
cududa 7y ago
Most billionaires funding anti-aging are primarily focused on using anti-aging to increase quality of life during those 90-100 years
paulcole 7y ago
I mean, yeah as someone with Type 1 diabetes, I’d rather rich people throw money at that than corneas or immortality. But isn’t that why aging rich people dream of immortality? It’s the cure to the “disease” they have. I guess it just boils down to the simple fact that most people are pretty selfish.
- farresito 7y ago
  To be fair, if you cure aging, you drastically reduce (or make non-existent) the incidence rate of most diseases, since they tend to appear as you get older. I think curing aging is the ultimately smart thing to do.
  - paulcole 7y ago
    Assuming that aging is “curable” and not some fanciful daydream to avoid thinking about dying. But again, it’s just perspective I guess. I don’t care when some rich dude buys a basketball team. If this is how they want to spend their money then go nuts.
    - TomMarius 7y ago
      Well aging is a physical process, why shouldn't it be theoretically reversible?
      - paulcole 7y ago
        Shredding a piece of paper is a physical process and that’s a tough one to reverse without a lot of scotch tape and a lot of patience. And in the end it’s still not the same piece of paper you started with.
        TomMarius 7y ago
        I never said it is easy. Even you do not believe it's entirely impossible, right? Let's wait 100 years and see. I'm fairly positive I'll be still alive and so might you.
mkl 7y ago
Are transplants of donor corneas not an option? I have keratoconus, and both my current corneas are transplants, done 21 and 26 years ago. Donor corneas are one of the easiest organ transplants there is to deal with, as there's no life-long anti-rejection medication needed. The unusual distortions caused by the donor corneas' attachment (stitches, scar tissue, etc.) are hard for standard glasses lenses to fix completely, but it sure beats blindness!
- KitDuncan 7y ago
  I am sorry you had to go through transplants. I got my keratoconus cured with crosslinking, which I suspect is a much nicer option.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

guelo 7y ago

Instead of relying on billionaire's whims I'd rather we taxed them more and used CDC's and NIH's epidemiology and scientist's opinions to fund research that benefits society the most.

melling 7y ago
You want to tax all 536 billionaires? Capital gains perhaps? I’m not exactly sure why everyone middle class and above wouldn’t want to pay a little more for more medical research. We’ll all likely benefit. The ”let’s just tax the rich” is only going to get us so far.
- r00fus 7y ago
  Any stronger taxation scheme to make the rich pay their share is probably fine. I personally prefer a small financial transaction tax.
  - archey1 7y ago
    In the United States: The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual income taxes (37.3 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (30.5 percent). The top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97 percent of total individual income taxes. The top 1% was 1.4 million returns in 2016. The top 50% is 140.9 million returns. How much is "fair"? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-14/top-3-of-u-s-taxpayers-paid-majority-of-income-taxes-in-2016 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-14/top-3-of-...
    - dmix 7y ago
      Income tax is also hardly the only tax wealthy people pay. It's probably the least interesting tax to consider. I keep reading people talking about billionaires "hoarding" their money, as if it was just sitting in a vault like Scrooge McDuck and not being reinvested in countless businesses, while only a small percentage is going towards their 'luxury' lifestyle (which they also assume goes all into useless flashy cars and fashion like lower-tier wealthy celebrities they see on TV who also frequently happen to end up broke... for some reason). We should tax that consumption, not the investments the return value and therefore jobs, technology, science, etc to society). Or focus on the far wealthier corporations who pay no direct tax through various financial trickery and/or incentives to off-shore it instead of keeping it locally to spend (although most still pay tons in taxes through other means).
      - zzzzzzzza 7y ago
        neither income nor consumption should be taxed, instead, consider taxing that which we do not produce via the work of our own hands, such as land value (which ultimately comes from nature/the productivity of the surrounding community).
        ShorsHammer 7y ago
        Consumption should very much be taxed considering it is the simplest way to claw back all the environmental externalities in an ever polluted world with no one willing to take responsibility.
        zzzzzzzza 7y ago
        if you really want to do that levy a carbon tax or a packaging tax or something more direct a consumption tax would also penalize transactions that might decrease environmental impact e.g. solar panels, or of tools used in the construction of a composting toilet, those being easy, obvious examples.
        weeksie 7y ago
  - JasonGenova25 7y ago
    FTT's are retarded and are very bad for any nation's financial sector. Instead, tax capital gains higher.
traek 7y ago
Why CDC and NIH instead of the EPA?
BurningFrog 7y ago
Hard disagree. The CDC and NIH undoubtedly do great work, but they are one model and thus a single point of failure. I'd much rather see dozens of more or less eccentric billionaires put money into other things and other ways of organizing and incentivizing research and problem solving.
handedness 7y ago
"If it was up to the NIH to cure polio through a centrally directed program instead of independent investigator driven discovery, you'd have the best iron lung in the world, but not a polio vaccine." -Samuel Broder, former Director of the National Cancer Institute
- folli 7y ago
  How are the independent investigators financed if not mainly through taxes?
  - adolph 7y ago
    Publisher Gerard Piel credited [Basil] O'Connor with a "unique social invention: a permanently self-sustaining source of funds for the support of research — the voluntary health organization." With a centralized administration, state and local chapters and a large corps of volunteers, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis became the prototype for dozens of similar foundations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_of_Dimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_of_Dimes

cududa 7y ago

Most billionaires funding anti-aging are primarily focused on using anti-aging to increase quality of life during those 90-100 years

paulcole 7y ago

I mean, yeah as someone with Type 1 diabetes, I’d rather rich people throw money at that than corneas or immortality. But isn’t that why aging rich people dream of immortality? It’s the cure to the “disease” they have. I guess it just boils down to the simple fact that most people are pretty selfish.

farresito 7y ago
To be fair, if you cure aging, you drastically reduce (or make non-existent) the incidence rate of most diseases, since they tend to appear as you get older. I think curing aging is the ultimately smart thing to do.
- paulcole 7y ago
  Assuming that aging is “curable” and not some fanciful daydream to avoid thinking about dying. But again, it’s just perspective I guess. I don’t care when some rich dude buys a basketball team. If this is how they want to spend their money then go nuts.
  - TomMarius 7y ago
    Well aging is a physical process, why shouldn't it be theoretically reversible?
    - paulcole 7y ago
      Shredding a piece of paper is a physical process and that’s a tough one to reverse without a lot of scotch tape and a lot of patience. And in the end it’s still not the same piece of paper you started with.
      - TomMarius 7y ago
        I never said it is easy. Even you do not believe it's entirely impossible, right? Let's wait 100 years and see. I'm fairly positive I'll be still alive and so might you.

mkl 7y ago

Are transplants of donor corneas not an option? I have keratoconus, and both my current corneas are transplants, done 21 and 26 years ago. Donor corneas are one of the easiest organ transplants there is to deal with, as there's no life-long anti-rejection medication needed. The unusual distortions caused by the donor corneas' attachment (stitches, scar tissue, etc.) are hard for standard glasses lenses to fix completely, but it sure beats blindness!

KitDuncan 7y ago
I am sorry you had to go through transplants. I got my keratoconus cured with crosslinking, which I suspect is a much nicer option.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]