

The Libertarian Futurism of a Silicon Valley Billionaire (2011) - doppp
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/11/28/no-death-no-taxes

======
biomimic
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_hin...](http://www.ted.com/talks/cynthia_kenyon_experiments_that_hint_of_longer_lives)

“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
_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.

~~~
Turing_Machine
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
"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
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.

~~~
djokkataja
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-Tw...](http://www.gallup.com/poll/7042/ForProfit-vs-NotforProfit-
Two-Paths-Same-Outcome.aspx)). 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.

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

------
biomimic
Blade Runner quotes are quite fitting:
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/quotes](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/quotes)

