8 ms·

Most 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, a

Most 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.

astrodust 13y ago
Plus the one thing Google doesn't have access to at the moment is your medical records. I guess this fixes that.
- anfedorov 13y ago
  They used to have a service for exactly that: http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/health/about/ http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/health/about/
  - specialist 13y ago
    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.
- cookingrobot 13y ago
  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.
  - _pferreir_ 13y ago
    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.
    - kbenson 13y ago
      There are very specific laws in place in the US that make this more than unlikely, probably illegal. I sincerely doubt Google wants HIPAA to start applying to far more of their business and data.
natrius 13y ago
Can you name something that was only for the elites fifty years ago that isn't available to pretty much everyone today? This is what progress always looks like.
- needacig 13y ago
  Clean water. Physical safety. Electricity. Maybe when you thought "pretty much everyone," you had the bay area in mind or something, but actually it includes a pretty large group of very poor people.
- bowlofpetunias 13y ago
  Clean water. Basic health care. Not dying from diseases we've already been able to cheaply cure or prevent for decades. Oh, I'm sorry, you don't consider yourself part of the elite?
  - natrius 13y ago
    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 http://thewaterproject.org/water_stats.php
    - needacig 13y ago
      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, 86%, doing pretty good! But if this many people can't even get access to even the most basic of technologies today, what makes you think most people, even people in the developed world, will have access to whatever mythical mortality-defying technology people are speculating about here? It's all such speculation as to what they are doing, the question is practically not worth answering. But if extreme life-lengthening technologies are truly on the table, the potential for an Elysium-like scenario should be taken seriously. (Also, point of clarification: what do you mean by "intrinsic reason"? Can you give an example of an intrinsic reason something would be limited to the elite?) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Internet_usage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Internet_usage [2] http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-sta... [3] http://www.statisticbrain.com/number-of-american-adults-who-cant-read/ http://www.statisticbrain.com/number-of-american-adults-who-... [4] http://www.unwater.org/statistics_san.html http://www.unwater.org/statistics_san.html [5] http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20f...
kyledilger 13y ago
I too, watched "In Time."
Techowl 13y ago
Affording proper care is definitely a problem, but the diseases of aging are the greatest causes of death globally, not infectious diseases or other health problems [1]. Taking care of diseases like malaria is unquestionably a noble and important task, but if we're talking about the world as a whole, aging is actually the greatest burden on health right now. Cardiovascular problems in particular are a serious problem worldwide [2]. 1 - http://who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs310/en/ http://who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs310/en/ 2 - http://www.who.int/cardiovascular_diseases/publications/global_brief_hypertension/en/index.html http://www.who.int/cardiovascular_diseases/publications/glob... There are tons of statistics at http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.CODWORLD?lang=en http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.CODWORLD?lang=en for the full picture.
enraged_camel 13y ago
Your logic can be dismissed as nonsense with a very easy thought experiment. Imagine you have two groups of people: Group A and Group B. You are voting on a technology that can prevent 90% of deaths in Group A. Do you vote yes or no? If you vote no, congratulations, you just condemned a large group of people to continue dying for the sake of egalitarianism. (The reason this thought experiment is powerful is that it strips the scenario of value-judgments such as "elite" and "poor.")
- gilrain 13y ago
  Your logic can be dismissed as a false dichotomy.
  - enraged_camel 13y ago
    Of course. After all, it is simply a stripped down version of the parent comment that I responded to. He polarized the scenario such that it was a false dichotomy, but even then it was flawed.
- newsign 13y ago
  its not about whether elite is saved or not ... its about whether you're healthy or not .... Imagine you have two groups of people: Group A and Group B. Group A is living longer but unhealthy and Group B is living shorter but extremely healthy , which one do you pick - I rather pick Group B ... dont know whether Calico will be about living longer or living healthier - its not a easy thing to crack but I hope they succeed ...
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  If Group B is 99x the size of Group A, then I vote no.
  - BrandonY 13y ago
    In his example, he did not suggest that there were any downsides to voting yes. What was your basis for voting no?
tnuc 13y ago
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.
- olalonde 13y ago
  > Most people in the US don't even get close to old age What? The average life expectancy in the US is 79 years old... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expec...
- adventured 13y ago
  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.
lbrandy 13y ago
This isn't a serious objection and this line of thinking is fundamentally flawed. You could say the exact same about the internet or the automobile or the MRI. It only solves the problem of "the elite".
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
mhartl 13y ago
This basic argument could be used against any new technology, ever.
adventured 13y ago
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.
lcedp 13y ago
> This is not about making the world a better place. This about allowing the elite that can afford it to live forever. You're probably right. But any advantages in medicine eventually will boost available level of tools to all. Well it worked as this so far. Elite is just able to get the best much earlier - but that doesn't mean we should stop all scientific progress and reset to the level of medicine everybody can get.

astrodust 13y ago

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

anfedorov 13y ago
They used to have a service for exactly that: http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/health/about/ http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/health/about/
- specialist 13y ago
  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.
cookingrobot 13y ago
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.
- _pferreir_ 13y ago
  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.
  - kbenson 13y ago
    There are very specific laws in place in the US that make this more than unlikely, probably illegal. I sincerely doubt Google wants HIPAA to start applying to far more of their business and data.

natrius 13y ago

Can you name something that was only for the elites fifty years ago that isn't available to pretty much everyone today? This is what progress always looks like.

needacig 13y ago
Clean water. Physical safety. Electricity. Maybe when you thought "pretty much everyone," you had the bay area in mind or something, but actually it includes a pretty large group of very poor people.
bowlofpetunias 13y ago
Clean water. Basic health care. Not dying from diseases we've already been able to cheaply cure or prevent for decades. Oh, I'm sorry, you don't consider yourself part of the elite?
- natrius 13y ago
  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 http://thewaterproject.org/water_stats.php
  - needacig 13y ago
    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, 86%, doing pretty good! But if this many people can't even get access to even the most basic of technologies today, what makes you think most people, even people in the developed world, will have access to whatever mythical mortality-defying technology people are speculating about here? It's all such speculation as to what they are doing, the question is practically not worth answering. But if extreme life-lengthening technologies are truly on the table, the potential for an Elysium-like scenario should be taken seriously. (Also, point of clarification: what do you mean by "intrinsic reason"? Can you give an example of an intrinsic reason something would be limited to the elite?) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Internet_usage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Internet_usage [2] http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-sta... [3] http://www.statisticbrain.com/number-of-american-adults-who-cant-read/ http://www.statisticbrain.com/number-of-american-adults-who-... [4] http://www.unwater.org/statistics_san.html http://www.unwater.org/statistics_san.html [5] http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20f...

kyledilger 13y ago

I too, watched "In Time."

Techowl 13y ago

Affording proper care is definitely a problem, but the diseases of aging are the greatest causes of death globally, not infectious diseases or other health problems [1]. Taking care of diseases like malaria is unquestionably a noble and important task, but if we're talking about the world as a whole, aging is actually the greatest burden on health right now. Cardiovascular problems in particular are a serious problem worldwide [2]. 1 - http://who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs310/en/ http://who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs310/en/ 2 - http://www.who.int/cardiovascular_diseases/publications/global_brief_hypertension/en/index.html http://www.who.int/cardiovascular_diseases/publications/glob... There are tons of statistics at http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.CODWORLD?lang=en http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.CODWORLD?lang=en for the full picture.

enraged_camel 13y ago

Your logic can be dismissed as nonsense with a very easy thought experiment. Imagine you have two groups of people: Group A and Group B. You are voting on a technology that can prevent 90% of deaths in Group A. Do you vote yes or no? If you vote no, congratulations, you just condemned a large group of people to continue dying for the sake of egalitarianism. (The reason this thought experiment is powerful is that it strips the scenario of value-judgments such as "elite" and "poor.")

gilrain 13y ago
Your logic can be dismissed as a false dichotomy.
- enraged_camel 13y ago
  Of course. After all, it is simply a stripped down version of the parent comment that I responded to. He polarized the scenario such that it was a false dichotomy, but even then it was flawed.
newsign 13y ago
its not about whether elite is saved or not ... its about whether you're healthy or not .... Imagine you have two groups of people: Group A and Group B. Group A is living longer but unhealthy and Group B is living shorter but extremely healthy , which one do you pick - I rather pick Group B ... dont know whether Calico will be about living longer or living healthier - its not a easy thing to crack but I hope they succeed ...
eli_gottlieb 13y ago
If Group B is 99x the size of Group A, then I vote no.
- BrandonY 13y ago
  In his example, he did not suggest that there were any downsides to voting yes. What was your basis for voting no?

tnuc 13y ago

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.

olalonde 13y ago
> Most people in the US don't even get close to old age What? The average life expectancy in the US is 79 years old... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expec...
adventured 13y ago
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.

lbrandy 13y ago

This isn't a serious objection and this line of thinking is fundamentally flawed. You could say the exact same about the internet or the automobile or the MRI. It only solves the problem of "the elite".

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

mhartl 13y ago

This basic argument could be used against any new technology, ever.

adventured 13y ago

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.

lcedp 13y ago

> This is not about making the world a better place. This about allowing the elite that can afford it to live forever. You're probably right. But any advantages in medicine eventually will boost available level of tools to all. Well it worked as this so far. Elite is just able to get the best much earlier - but that doesn't mean we should stop all scientific progress and reset to the level of medicine everybody can get.