
Michael Hawley of MIT's Media Lab has died - bransonf
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/technology/michael-hawley-dead.html
======
arvinaminpour
Loved this TedX talk that Michael gave a few years ago:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWR31GRu3_A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWR31GRu3_A)

"I really think the act of making and doing things is the salvation of our
crumbling society. It has to be as someone commented over lunch -- creation is
the opposite of destruction."

RIP

------
helloworld
I hadn't known that Hawley helped write Steve Jobs's inspiring 2005 Stanford
commencement address:

[https://twitter.com/mjhawley/status/1173273979894796297?s=19](https://twitter.com/mjhawley/status/1173273979894796297?s=19)

~~~
kiba
You mean the 'death is great' speech?

~~~
asveikau
Yeah, as I recall he said something like that death is good because it keeps
ideas fresh, by leaving room for future generations to do their thing instead
of humanity comprising the same old individuals all the time.

I don't think it's too unusual or bad for someone to have a brush with cancer
and start getting philosophical about it in this way.

~~~
kiba
That's a status quo bias. Things had been happening like this for as long
humanity had ever known.

People either ignored it, or folks like Steve Job decided to rationalize it.

It doesn't mean it's a good thing.

~~~
catalogia
I assume you think it's wrong. Can you explain why immortality would be good
for society?

Most of the transhumanists I've met don't bother justifying this belief beyond
the selfish _" I don't want to die."_ Personally I think it would lead to the
ossification of culture and an astronomically enormous class divide
(particularly between those who can afford immortality and those who cannot.)
I'm not eager to live in a society where the ultra-billionaires like Steve
Jobs can buy their way out of death, which thus-far, has been the great
equalizer that even the _most_ wealthy cannot bribe forever.

~~~
kiba
_Most of the transhumanists I 've met don't bother justifying this belief
beyond the selfish "I don't want to die."_

It isn't a selfish desire. Do you want your SO to die? Your parents? Think
about anyone you ever care about.

 _Personally I think it would lead to the ossification of culture and an
astronomically enormous class divide (particularly between those who can
afford immortality and those who cannot.)_

Based on what? This society isn't the only way to organize society or the only
way we ever live, assuming it is the kind of society where we get deep and
rapid ossification.

Sure, immortality have its own problems, but can you say that the new problems
are so undesirable that we should not even attempt to solve it?

 _I 'm not eager to live in a society where the ultra-billionaires like Steve
Jobs can buy their way out of death, which thus-far, has been the great
equalizer that even the most wealthy cannot bribe forever._

If that is the case, then it is a colossal failure for such a technology,
since it only alleviated human suffering for a very handful of people.

Currently, our healthcare system is suffering from a massive demand on its
capabilities due incredibly ill people being needed to be cared for.

Biomedical technology here, should be the great equalizer. Instead of being
bankrupted by ultimately ineffective medical care, you now have more wealth to
spend on things that's important to you, like living with your loved ones.

------
estomagordo
Always heartbreaking to see a parent eulogize or comment on their child's
passing, no matter how old the child was.

~~~
DoofusOfDeath
I would have agreed with every part of your statement, until a few years ago.
I attended the memorial service for the daughter of a retired Christian
missionary. The mother's eulogy of her daughter was filled with hope and the
expectation of life after death. Much to my surprise, it was far from
heartbreaking.

------
BlasDeLezo
Michael was interviewed by Susan Lammers in her "Programmers at work"
(Microsoft Press, 1986). They had a very funny, insightful conversation about
music, films and tech. Very sad news indeed. My condolences to the family.

------
codecamper
That's a tragedy.

Colon cancer is most often avoidable. All one needs to do is go for a
colonoscopy by age 45. Heck, why not just start when you are 25? (I had a
great friend die at age 32 from colon cancer).

So you get a colonoscopy every 5 years.

Every year you get the colon cancer marker poop test. It looks for bits of RNA
I believe. Or maybe it's PCR. Maybe those are the same. I dunno.

Colon cancer typically grows slowly and the precursors are easily seen in the
colonoscopy & the colon cancer poop test does a good job too.

~~~
hannob
> Heck, why not just start when you are 25?

The answer to that is almost certainly that balancing the pros and cons of
preventive screenings is a surprisingly complicated science. Screenings can
cause harms by causing unnecessary treatment of patients with false positive
diagnoses. If you increase screening of patient groups with a very low
incidence of something then you overwhelmingly will get more false positives.

It requires careful evaluation of the scientific evidence to design screening
programs that do what they should do: Improve patient outcomes and not cause
more harm than good.

~~~
gridlockd
"More harm than good" cannot be assessed objectively. How could you possibly
weigh "one extra death" against "ten unnecessary treatments"?

It has to be an individual decision. Give me the false positive rate and the
harm of an unnecessary treatment and I'll weigh that against the risk of my
premature death.

~~~
kerkeslager
I rarely downvote, but I when I do, I always try to leave an explanation. I
downvoted this post because you made a claim with great confidence, despite it
being clear you don't know how medical research works.

> "More harm than good" cannot be assessed objectively. How could you possibly
> weigh "one extra death" against "ten unnecessary treatments"?

Well, a very simple way would be to see how many deaths are caused by those
ten unnecessary treatments. If those ten unnecessary treatments cause two
deaths, I think the outcome is fairly clear.

More specifically, you wouldn't assess this in terms of "deaths" because 100%
of people die. Instead, you'd study this in terms of units of time alive, with
a probability distribution and a quality factor applied. If a treatment
reduces pain and but causes blindness, pain and blindness both correspond to
quality factors.

The quality factors, right now _are_ generally treated as subjective and left
to the patient as you suggest, but this is largely because we haven't gathered
enough evidence for a general theory of quality of life based on health
factors. Your claim that this "cannot be assessed objectively" is very much
not in evidence--a great many scientists _are_ assessing it objectively,
looking at happiness, life satisfaction, satisfaction with care, societal
effects, etc.

There is an entire, mature field of study built around objectively assessing
the thing you are claiming cannot be objectively assessed. Hundreds of
billions of dollars are invested in the idea that this can be objectively
assessed. You might have some criticism of medical research, but throwing out
a claim like "this cannot be assessed objectively" with no evidence when
millions of people and billions of dollars are invested in the opposite,
sounds an awful lot like you aren't aware that strong counterarguments to your
point exist which need to be addressed if you make such a claim. This is
further supported by you talking about "deaths" when in fact that's not really
the metric people use for assessing interventions.

Source: worked a at a company that did medical study data warehousing.

In a more general sense, I would caution you that just because _you_ can't
assess something objectively doesn't mean it cannot be assessed objectively.

~~~
gridlockd
> If those ten unnecessary treatments cause two deaths, I think the outcome is
> fairly clear.

No, it isn't. Deaths are not fungible. My life is not someone else's life. If
I get a diagnosis, there is _always_ a chance that it is wrong, that the
treatment will kill or injure me, and so on. That doesn't mean I shouldn't get
a diagnosis. I'm the person to make the decision here, I can always choose not
to get a diagnosis, or to ignore it.

> More specifically, you wouldn't assess this in terms of "deaths" because
> 100% of people die. Instead, you'd study this in terms of units of time
> alive, with a probability distribution and a quality factor applied. If a
> treatment reduces pain and but causes blindness, pain and blindness both
> correspond to quality factors.

Again, this can not be objectively assessed. You can not put a number on how
bad (risk of) blindness versus pain is for an individual.

> There is an entire, mature field of study built around objectively assessing
> the thing you are claiming cannot be objectively assessed. Hundreds of
> billions of dollars are invested in the idea that this can be objectively
> assessed.

Just because something can, by simple reasoning, not be done objectively,
doesn't mean it can not be done at all. Of course you can "objectively" add up
a bunch of numbers and say that this represents the best course of action by
some arbitrary metric. That doesn't mean it is the best course of action for
the individual. See:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere_addition_paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere_addition_paradox)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_monster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_monster)

> In a more general sense, I would caution you that just because you can't
> assess something objectively doesn't mean it cannot be assessed objectively.

It should stand to reason that no one can assess something objectively that is
_inherently_ subjective, like my own value perception of my life and (risk) of
death.

~~~
kerkeslager
> > If those ten unnecessary treatments cause two deaths, I think the outcome
> is fairly clear.

> No, it isn't. Deaths are not fungible. My life is not someone else's life.
> If I get a diagnosis, there is always a chance that it is wrong, that the
> treatment will kill or injure me, and so on.

Yes, and we can objectively measure what those chances are. Also don't forget,
the process of diagnosis often also has consequences. Some percentage of
people die on the table during surgical biopsies, for example.

> That doesn't mean I shouldn't get a diagnosis. I'm the person to make the
> decision here, I can always choose not to get a diagnosis, or to ignore it.

Sure, if you wish to ignore all objective evidence when making life-and-death
decisions for yourself as a way of showing off just how _gosh-darn free_ you
are, that's your prerogative.

> It should stand to reason that no one can assess something objectively that
> is inherently subjective, like my own value perception of my life and (risk)
> of death.

I'm not sure how you've concluded that your perceptions cannot be objectively
measured.

~~~
gridlockd
> Yes, and we can objectively measure what those chances are.

That's not being questioned. You're missing the point.

Let's say you have cancer: You statistically have a 10% chance of surviving if
you do treatment, but it will make your remaining time worse, no matter what.
What do you do? Delegate your decision to some abstract scoring system? Of
course not. It's a personal decision, influenced by all the variables in your
life.

As matter of fact, our system is set up to endorse more treatments in order to
limit liabilities. How are you going to factor that one in? It has nothing to
do with you and everything to do with the people treating you.

> Sure, if you wish to ignore all objective evidence when making life-and-
> death decisions for yourself as a way of showing off just how gosh-darn free
> you are, that's your prerogative.

Choosing to get a screening early is probably about as risky as riding a
bicycle to work. What if the average person really likes riding a bike so much
that it's worth the risk? Shouldn't you also absolutely ride a bike? Of course
not. You should ride the bike if _you_ like to.

> I'm not sure how you've concluded that your perceptions cannot be
> objectively measured.

Can my perception, which _by definition_ is subjective, be measured
objectively, by some technology, at least in theory? Perhaps.

Practically speaking, is it going to be measured in this context? Am I going
to get a prediction on how I personally will feel when choosing one thing over
another? No.

~~~
kerkeslager
> Can my perception, which by definition is subjective, be measured
> objectively, by some technology, at least in theory? Perhaps.

If by "some technology" you mean "your doctor asking you what your perception
is", sure.

Yes, patients lie, which is why there's a whole field of study around when and
why patients lie, and detecting that.

> Practically speaking, is it going to be measured in this context? Am I going
> to get a prediction on how I personally will feel when choosing one thing
> over another? No.

 _Yes._ Do your really think you're the first person in hundreds of years of
medicine to think, "Hey, maybe we should personalize treatment based on what
patients want."?

This is a science that is still far from mature, and we're a long way from
being able to make accurate predictions in every situation, but at this point
we can definitely predict patient satisfaction with a high degree of certainty
for common cases, _based on what the patient says they value_.

------
joshdance
Hadn't ever heard of him before today, but now I want to know more about his
work.

------
foolinaround
Wow, such accomplishments in wildly different fields!!

------
jgrahamc
Fuck colon cancer.

