4 ms·

The Libertarian Futurism of a Silicon Valley Billionaire (2011)

19 points by doppp 12y ago

biomimic 12y ago
I'd say he's in good company along with Aubrey de Grey, Google, Cynthia Kenyon, Craig Ventor, Genentech, Apple and a few others... and with most of the rest of the human race of course. http://humanlongevity.com http://humanlongevity.com http://calicolabs.com http://calicolabs.com http://genopharmix.com http://genopharmix.com http://sens.org http://sens.org http://thebuckinstitute.com http://thebuckinstitute.com “What controls aging? Biochemist Cynthia Kenyon [now with Google’s Calico effort] has found a simple genetic mutation that can double the lifespan of a simple worm, C. elegans. The lessons from that discovery, and others, are pointing to how we might one day significantly extend youthful human life.” — TED.com [VIDEO]: http://www.ted.com/talks/cynthia_kenyon_experiments_that_hint_of_longer_lives http://www.ted.com/talks/cynthia_kenyon_experiments_that_hin... “Google Launches New Company, Calico, to Extend the Human Life Span” - http://goo.gl/2LgUKd http://goo.gl/2LgUKd “The Race To Extend The Human Lifespan Is Heating Up: Google & Craig Venter Leading the Pack" - http://goo.gl/xrHWgv http://goo.gl/xrHWgv “For too many of our friends and family, life has been cut short or the quality of their life is too often lacking. Arthur Levinson is one of the crazy ones who thinks it doesn’t have to be this way. There is no one better suited to lead this mission and I am excited to see the results.” - Apple CEO Tim Cook “Ten years ago, we thought aging was probably the result of a slow decay, a sort of rusting. But Professor Kenyon has shown that it’s ... controlled by genes. That opens the possibility of slowing it down with drugs.” — Jeff Holly, Bristol University
- kiba 12y ago
  most of the rest of the human race of course. Most of the human race? Isn't there a meme that said pursuing immortality is folly? That being said, I am in support of giving humans the opportunity to become immortal even though that implies we have to give up making babies.
  - biomimic 12y ago
    Extending human lifespan solves for space travel. Space travel solves for [fill in the blank]
  - Turing_Machine 12y ago
    Not necessarily. People would still be killed by accidents, acts of war, etc. As long as each person contributed only one set of genes on average to the next generation (i.e., two children if each one was with one other partner, one child for full clones) the population would stabilize eventually. At a much higher level, yes, but it wouldn't grow without bound. I think I read somewhere (but can't source at the moment) that if you got rid of diseases and old age, the average lifespan would be about 400 or so. That's considerably higher, but not true immortality. All bets are off if we get computer brain backups and those are legally and philosophically accepted as being the "same person".
zobzu 12y ago
"Thiel expressed concern that the company would attract people with a nonprofit attitude, who felt that “it’s not about making money, we’re doing something good, so we don’t have to work as hard." Turns out, people in non profits work harder. Doing something good has more value than money, as you long as you're paid enough to get by.
- drpgq 12y ago
  Is there anything to back this up? In my experience comparing startups to non-profits, people working for non-profits don't tend to get much done and have a phenomenal number of meetings.
  - jMyles 12y ago
    No joke. It really is a phenomenon.
  - djokkataja 12y ago
    I've had a similar experience; I've worked and volunteered with several nonprofit organizations, and I've worked for several for-profit companies (not startups), and the nonprofits were dazzlingly inefficient by comparison. The executives in the nonprofits were pretty driven and at least somewhat visionary, but average nonprofit employee seemed less competent than the average for-profit employee to me. Dug around to see if I could find studies about this--most seemed to be about the beneficial effects (if any) of profit-sharing. The closest I came was this survey of hospital workers (http://www.gallup.com/poll/7042/ForProfit-vs-NotforProfit-Two-Paths-Same-Outcome.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/7042/ForProfit-vs-NotforProfit-Tw...). Very roughly, it suggests that for-profit employees may be slightly more committed to doing quality work if the difference found in the survey is actually significant. Besides that, work at not-for-profits seems to be significantly more humane based on the responses. Unfortunately it's only about hospital employees and doesn't specify the sample size or the methodology.
  - zobzu 12y ago
    "is there anything to back the opposite up?" I worked in a couple of well known not-for-profit and a few for profit. The vast majority of people worked much harder in the not-for-profit (note: they're still paid a good salary) and didn't get in the for-profit, unless they were playing the political games. I would imagine that small not-for-profit dont necessarily work as hard since they're probably making zero impact since forever and live on donations, yes. But then again its the same problem with small but long lasting for-profit as well. The only diff is that there are more of the later and less of the former.
bra-ket 12y ago
..it's probably "How many digits does the number 125^100 have?" instead of 125100
biomimic 12y ago
Blade Runner quotes are quite fitting: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/quotes http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/quotes

19 points by doppp 12y ago

I'd say he's in good company along with Aubrey de Grey, Google, Cynthia Kenyon, Craig Ventor, Genentech, Apple and a few others... and with most of the rest of the human race of course. http://humanlongevity.com http://humanlongevity.com http://calicolabs.com http://calicolabs.com http://genopharmix.com http://genopharmix.com http://sens.org http://sens.org http://thebuckinstitute.com http://thebuckinstitute.com “What controls aging? Biochemist Cynthia Kenyon [now with Google’s Calico effort] has found a simple genetic mutation that can double the lifespan of a simple worm, C. elegans. The lessons from that discovery, and others, are pointing to how we might one day significantly extend youthful human life.” — TED.com [VIDEO]: http://www.ted.com/talks/cynthia_kenyon_experiments_that_hint_of_longer_lives http://www.ted.com/talks/cynthia_kenyon_experiments_that_hin... “Google Launches New Company, Calico, to Extend the Human Life Span” - http://goo.gl/2LgUKd http://goo.gl/2LgUKd “The Race To Extend The Human Lifespan Is Heating Up: Google & Craig Venter Leading the Pack" - http://goo.gl/xrHWgv http://goo.gl/xrHWgv “For too many of our friends and family, life has been cut short or the quality of their life is too often lacking. Arthur Levinson is one of the crazy ones who thinks it doesn’t have to be this way. There is no one better suited to lead this mission and I am excited to see the results.” - Apple CEO Tim Cook “Ten years ago, we thought aging was probably the result of a slow decay, a sort of rusting. But Professor Kenyon has shown that it’s ... controlled by genes. That opens the possibility of slowing it down with drugs.” — Jeff Holly, Bristol University

kiba 12y ago
most of the rest of the human race of course. Most of the human race? Isn't there a meme that said pursuing immortality is folly? That being said, I am in support of giving humans the opportunity to become immortal even though that implies we have to give up making babies.
- biomimic 12y ago
  Extending human lifespan solves for space travel. Space travel solves for [fill in the blank]
- Turing_Machine 12y ago
  Not necessarily. People would still be killed by accidents, acts of war, etc. As long as each person contributed only one set of genes on average to the next generation (i.e., two children if each one was with one other partner, one child for full clones) the population would stabilize eventually. At a much higher level, yes, but it wouldn't grow without bound. I think I read somewhere (but can't source at the moment) that if you got rid of diseases and old age, the average lifespan would be about 400 or so. That's considerably higher, but not true immortality. All bets are off if we get computer brain backups and those are legally and philosophically accepted as being the "same person".

zobzu 12y ago

"Thiel expressed concern that the company would attract people with a nonprofit attitude, who felt that “it’s not about making money, we’re doing something good, so we don’t have to work as hard." Turns out, people in non profits work harder. Doing something good has more value than money, as you long as you're paid enough to get by.

drpgq 12y ago
Is there anything to back this up? In my experience comparing startups to non-profits, people working for non-profits don't tend to get much done and have a phenomenal number of meetings.
- jMyles 12y ago
  No joke. It really is a phenomenon.
- djokkataja 12y ago
  I've had a similar experience; I've worked and volunteered with several nonprofit organizations, and I've worked for several for-profit companies (not startups), and the nonprofits were dazzlingly inefficient by comparison. The executives in the nonprofits were pretty driven and at least somewhat visionary, but average nonprofit employee seemed less competent than the average for-profit employee to me. Dug around to see if I could find studies about this--most seemed to be about the beneficial effects (if any) of profit-sharing. The closest I came was this survey of hospital workers (http://www.gallup.com/poll/7042/ForProfit-vs-NotforProfit-Two-Paths-Same-Outcome.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/7042/ForProfit-vs-NotforProfit-Tw...). Very roughly, it suggests that for-profit employees may be slightly more committed to doing quality work if the difference found in the survey is actually significant. Besides that, work at not-for-profits seems to be significantly more humane based on the responses. Unfortunately it's only about hospital employees and doesn't specify the sample size or the methodology.
- zobzu 12y ago
  "is there anything to back the opposite up?" I worked in a couple of well known not-for-profit and a few for profit. The vast majority of people worked much harder in the not-for-profit (note: they're still paid a good salary) and didn't get in the for-profit, unless they were playing the political games. I would imagine that small not-for-profit dont necessarily work as hard since they're probably making zero impact since forever and live on donations, yes. But then again its the same problem with small but long lasting for-profit as well. The only diff is that there are more of the later and less of the former.

bra-ket 12y ago

..it's probably "How many digits does the number 125^100 have?" instead of 125100

biomimic 12y ago

Blade Runner quotes are quite fitting: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/quotes http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/quotes