
Silicon Valley Would Rather Cure Death Than Make Life Worth Living - kornish
https://www.wired.com/2017/03/silicon-valley-rather-cure-death-make-life-worth-living/
======
stupidcar
Last time I checked, science and technology had _already_ solved problems like
clean water, sanitation and medicine. In fact, they were solved decades ago.
The failure of political and social institutions to consistently implement and
maintain these solutions isn't the fault of the the inventors.

What's more, when tech people like Zuckerberg and Thiel start trying to get
involved in politics, they're crucified in the media by writers just like the
author of this article, depicted as arrogant, inhuman idiots, who shouldn't
dare to step outside the technology ghetto.

Articles like this having nothing to do with the issues they're supposedly
championing, as the author's complete lack of insight into said issues
demonstrates. Rather, they're part of a campaign by entrenched elites to
resist the shift in power away from members of old industries to newer ones.

Executives from the oil, finance, legal, etc. industries have long enjoyed
privileged access to power, and a smooth route from the private sector into
politics. Now technology execs are starting to do the same thing, and the
establishment is fighting back. This kind of astroturfing is an attempt to
reassert the traditional dominance of STEM by non-STEM interests: E.g. "These
people and companies should work on what we [non-STEM observers] _think_ they
should work on, because we understand the world better, and we know better
than them what is needed. And we'll do whatever it takes to turn wider society
against them if they don't obey us."

~~~
RodericDay
I'm an engineer and software developer, and I push back against "tech execs"
doing the same stuff that Oil and Finance execs do because I feel partially
responsible for their clout.

I hate how Zuckerberg co-opts the optimism behind stuff like "free internet!"
into bald-facedly cynical for-profit initatives like internet.org. I have
nothing good to say about Thiel or Palantir.

The article captures how I feel fairly well, and I'm not an external agent
pushing to retain control or whatever conspiracy you've cooked up down there
in your last paragraph.

~~~
fersc
He's not theorizing conspiracies, imo he's simply explaining how business men
are unqualified for their jobs. They don't make well informed decisions.
Neither do politicians. STEM based tech company execs are going to change
that.

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ljw1001
Clearly this article upsets a lot of people but it ties together two important
issues: One is that economics drives SV's best efforts towards the problems of
the affluent. This gets extra flack because of all the (mostly hollow) talk of
"changing the world" you hear from every startup CEO.

The second issue is that as science advances, there are fewer important
problems that can be solved with a quick technology fix, and there remain a
huge pile of problems that require political solutions. From what I've seen,
those are much harder problems to solve, which suggests an upper limit on how
far we can invent our way into a better future.

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atemerev
The entire domain of palliative care (save for the rarest of exceptions) is
designed around a single purpose: siphoning money from the relatives
overwhelmed by grief and therefore unable to take rational decisions.

The last thing we need is increased funding of this particular circle of hell
and its beneficiaries.

For the evidence of the contrarian way, observe how doctors choose to die.

Silicon Valley is right — death itself is the ultimate enemy to push away and
finally conquer. And palliative care is usually nothing more than prolonged
suffering.

~~~
medymed
Usually pain control and comfort are the purpose. The financial effects are
similar to what happens in other fields of medicine, not specific to
palliative care. Seeing people die with extreme anxiety and inadequate pain
control might change your mind.

Also, switching someone to palliative care protocols often involves DNR/DNI,
CMO, no transfer to MICU, etc, which reduces peri-death interventions and
costs. Would enjoy hearing your opinion though.

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SamBoogieNYC
While I don't necessarily agree with the tone of this piece - I do think that
there seems to be a general preference to solving '1st world problems' in the
tech industry.

The thing is - people should work on what they want to work on. The things
people end up working on are a reflection of what's valued by our society.

Obviously life is valued over death - and solving for longer lives is a worthy
pursuit. It would be nice though, if there was more awareness around the
problems facing people who aren't in SV, or a huge city, with a lot of
relative wealth. That comes with diversity - of thought and actors, which the
tech world could improve on.

Lastly, it's a lot more glam (and profitable) to say "I made it possible to
live 'x' years longer than average" than it is to say "I made a product that
helped old people live better". In my experience - VCs/"tech people" aren't
interested in such a proposition - though it could be very profitable!

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nullc
I look forward in this thread to see people justify complaining about other
people's efforts to prevent-- ultimately-- what may be trillions of needless
deaths, because they'd rather these people spend their time elsewhere because
every other problem than _dying_ isn't yet cured.

If you found yourself nodding your head at the article then, please, I urge
you to please take a bit to read Bostrom's The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant with
an open mind:
[http://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html](http://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html)

~~~
ginko
The thought of a trillion people living on this planet sounds downright
dystopic.

~~~
Qwertious
Realistically, if we get immortality then we'd want to cap our population. The
mechanics are actually really simple: Get the average number of children per
couple significantly lower than 2.

Like, if it's a 1 child per couple rate, then it caps out at double the
population. If it's 1.4 per couple, then it caps out at somewhere less than 4x
our population, I think. Which, realistically, means we'll probably never have
more than 40 billion people, since _without_ immortality our population will
cap at around 10 billion.

The "worst case" scenario is if immortality is widely administered before
birth rates drop to 2/couple or below. I'm not sure that will happen, because
I'd expect immortality to start off fairly expensive and a populace getting
wealthier usually results in birth rates dropping massively, AND there will be
a huge focus on minimising birth rates once immortality (and the asociated
population problems it causes) becomes widely recognised as imminent by the
general population.

~~~
davidgerard
The proven way to cap population growth is to empower women and give them
social clout. This works over and over. It's a problem that we have the
solution to.

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ArchD
Political and social problems are harder for engineers and scientists to solve
than technological and scientific problems. Though they get to lobby
politicians using their financial resources, they don't get to directly make
laws and policies -- they are not given the power by the people to do so.

This article carries the hidden assumption that technology alone can solve
inequality and social problems, but they might as well put the blame on
Hollywood or some other single professional group.

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wodencafe
You can get to that "make life worth living" caveat after death is cured.

~~~
davidgerard
You're answering the headline, but not the article text:

> But over the past two decades, deaths attributed to inequality, isolation,
> and addiction have risen for both men and women without a college education
> in the US. In particular, as Princeton economists revealed today, white
> middle-aged men with a high school education or less, hit disproportionately
> by the Great Recession, are dying of despair. Well-heeled techies obsessed
> with life extension have little to say about these problems, suggesting a
> grim blind spot: Are they really trying to extend everyone’s lives? Or just
> those of people already doing great?

The article's thesis is: People are dying right now in the world's richest
third-world country of easily-preventable things, and this is being ignored.

~~~
orangecat
_In particular, as Princeton economists revealed today, white middle-aged men_

Note "middle-aged". Their productive working lives are at least half over, and
rightly or wrongly they don't believe it's feasible to start over in a new
profession. Curing aging would put them on the same footing as 20 year olds.

 _Are they really trying to extend everyone’s lives? Or just those of people
already doing great?_

Are cell phones for everyone, or just rich businessmen?

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nojvek
To be honest I first want silicon Valley to solve the homeless problem in
their own neighborhood before going for lofty goals.

Every single time I visit I feel disgusted that billions of dollars still
makes no difference

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justausername
Substitute "doctors" for "silicon valley" and "cancer" for "death" and you get
an equally accurate, though less mood affiliated, headline

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aaron695
Wired really publish some shit sometimes.

"palliative care—making people in extreme pain or at the end of their life
more comfortable—would much more meaningfully address the problem of death."

How does this get past the editor?

Basical it blames SV for what the world could have achieved 40 years ago, if
it had the will SV does.

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onmobiletemp
Couldnt agree more. The middle class if the united states is eroding away and
it finally has manifested itself in the election of donald trump -- this
country is in its final death throws before descending into third world levels
of inequality. And yet all anyone in silicon valley wants to do is make the
next chat service. Snapchat is fucking incinsequential and stupid. Tbose
people in silicon valley drive past dozens of homeless on their way to work
and they dont care.

~~~
fennecfoxen
> death throws

You don't _catch_ someone in the throes of death.

------
reasonattlm
There is a long and proud history of writers promptly losing all common sense
whenever asked to take on the topic of changing the current situation for
aging, age-related disease, and death.

If you take a utilitarian view, every problem other than aging is secondary to
some degree, usually a very large degree, just by looking at the number of
people negatively affected, and the level of suffering involved.

Not that people who don't write for a living appear much better than the
writers on this topic. If you ask most people, they proudly declaim their
willingness to age to death on the same schedule as their parents. Not that
they'd follow through on that declaration were the technologies of
rejuvenation available when needed, since they go to the doctor when sick, or
when suffering age-related disease, and do all they can with what is
available.

People in general are, for the most part, profoundly irrational and/or
hypocritical when it comes to aging and the near future of real, working
rejuvenation treatments. They won't help to make these technologies a reality,
they decry the idea, and they will run in their multitudes to use the
therapies when they arrive.

