
Zuckerberg and Chan aim to tackle all disease by 2100 - timoth
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37435425
======
kendallpark
I'm glad they're putting money into medical research, but I kinda roll my eyes
when people make big claims about curing X, especially when X is something
incredibly broad like "cancer" or in this case, "all diseases." AI/ML has
barely scratched the surface of its potential in medicine, however, I find it
naive to think that you can throw AI/ML at any random disease and always get a
cure. Even after a century. Will we have a cure for trisomy 21? For antisocial
personality disorder? For obesity and addiction? These things are far more
complicated than just creating the right drug.

But as much as I'm rolling my eyes at their blanket statement, the spirit of
"yes we can!" does way more for science and progress than naysay of critics.

~~~
user731955373
"yes we can!" built the atomic bomb.

~~~
bsder
Only by turning almost 10% _OF AN ENTIRE COUNTRY_ into doing nothing but
producing an atomic bomb.

That's not 2 billion dollars, that's 2 _TRILLION_ dollars.

So, basically, redirecting the US military budget. I approve.

~~~
rory096
Source? Estimates I see for the Manhattan Project from a quick google range
from .25% to .41% of GDP.

[0]
[https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34645.pdf](https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34645.pdf)

[1] [http://mitchellhowe.blogspot.com/2006/02/want-manhattan-
proj...](http://mitchellhowe.blogspot.com/2006/02/want-manhattan-project-take-
number.html)

[2]
[https://arxiv.org/pdf/1511.09054.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1511.09054.pdf)

~~~
akiselev
He's likely thinking of the urban myth that over 10% of the US's power
generation was used for the Manhattan Project [1] and confusing it with the
cost of the project, for which estimates vary but is around $2 billion total
(1945 GDP was $2 trillion).

[1]
[http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/APR11/Session/H13.4](http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/APR11/Session/H13.4)

------
Animats
Probably not feasible without some genetic re-engineering to design out
vulnerabilities to common diseases. That's how aging will probably be solved.
There's a big debug time problem, though. It takes about two generations to be
sure you got it right. We'll probably have very long lived mice decades before
it works for humans. (Many cancers in mice can be cured now. This doesn't
translate to humans.)

Then there will be species conflicts. Merck people won't be able to mate with
Novartis people because they'll be too different genetically.

~~~
jychang
> Then there will be species conflicts. Merck people won't be able to mate
> with Novartis people because they'll be too different genetically.

I don't think this will be a problem if you get to the point of genetically
engineering people. You just can't mate the old fashioned way, but if anything
that's a benefit- free birth control. IVF + genetic modification of the egg
cell, assuming your technology is that advanced, should be the easy solution.

------
apatters
This is difficult to say without sounding snarky, but will 'all disease'
include the mental disorders (both discovered and undiscovered) that Facebook
inflicts upon its users? Depression from seeing other people's perfect lives,
obsessive compulsive dopamine-fueled update checking to maximize Zuck's ad
revenue etc.

I'm glad he's spending his money this way but how about the way he makes it.
Facebook is not a particularly benign product and when you throw in the rising
privacy, censorship, and "Free Basics" concerns, I would argue it's creeping
towards having a net negative impact on the world.

I would have much more respect for Zuckerberg if he took a profit hit to fix
his product and how his company interacts with the world. It's worth noting
that Bill stepped away from Microsoft before he got deeply into philanthropy,
in part to avoid conflict of interest. He knew he had a checkered past and he
made a break with it. Zuck has a checkered present. Curing diseases in the
developing world while pushing your product on it at the same time is somewhat
morally ambiguous in my view.

~~~
estefan
You're seriously equating looking at someone's photos with catching HIV, Ebola
or developing cancer? Pathetic.

~~~
apatters
No, I'm not.

Do you always assume that people who have differing opinions from yours must
be heartless monsters and insult them? That must be a serious impediment to
constructive discussion.

To put my point succinctly Zuckerberg hasn't demonstrated a great deal of
social responsibility in running his business. There are problems much closer
to his influence (literally caused by his product) which he doesn't even
discuss in public, let alone try to solve. So when he announces he and his
wife are going to effectively end the greatest cause of human suffering, some
skepticism about his motives is totally legitimate. For instance, what strings
will be attached to the receipt of this money?

~~~
estefan
The guy's running a business. He has a responsibility to his shareholders to
make it as valuable as he can. Sticky apps/web sites lead to more ad
impressions and higher prices. His business does __not __give people cancer or
HIV.

You may find life more rewarding to assume people are good and try to see the
best in people. As Dale Carnegie says in How to Win Friends and Influence
People, if you assume the best in people and encourage them, they're more
likely to want to live up to that image.

~~~
therealbobsmoot
and yet you do the exact opposite - you label the guy pathetic simply because
he has a viewpoint that is different to yours.

~~~
estefan
The opinion, not the OP. I'm sure he/she is a fine individual.

------
idlewords
Pharmacology is an interesting example where better technology and scientific
understanding have made things worse than earlier, low-tech methods ("inject
plant extracts into animals and see what happens").

The number of new drugs discovered per dollar of research has been dropping
since 1960, and obvious explanations (like "the easy ones have already been
found") turn out not to explain the phenomenon.
[[http://www.nature.com/nrd/journal/v11/n3/fig_tab/nrd3681_F1....](http://www.nature.com/nrd/journal/v11/n3/fig_tab/nrd3681_F1.html)]

This is something we should try to understand better, since it goes against
the intuition that technology is an unalloyed good in scientific research.

I applaud the money they're spending, but the level of technophilia in the
announcement gives me pause.

~~~
notahacker
I can't speak for the past, but I think the big deal for the testing of the
future will be shifting from "forty percent of the test subjects responded
positively to the drug; none of the side effects were that bad" to "80% of
test subjects carrying thought-to-be-marginally-relevant gene Y showed
positive responses to the drug but none carrying gene Yvariant; those also
carrying not-suspected-of-be-relevant gene X exhibited much stronger side
effects"

That should make initial testing a _lot_ more expensive, but in the long run
launches of new drugs less risky.

~~~
theptip
I've been thinking along these lines recently; we currently design treatment
plans using statistical methods, i.e. averaging effects across 'representative
populations'. But imagine if you took your car to the garage and they said
"90% of cars showing this symptom respond well to this treatment".

When we truly understand how these biological systems work (which could be
more than 100 years from now) we'll be able to measure what is different from
the individual's baseline, rather than extrapolating based population
averages.

------
mmaunder
All disease with $3bn? [https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/what-we-
do/budget](https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/what-we-do/budget)

~~~
jaggederest
3bn is, one assumed, being used as leverage rather than a primary mover.

If you have matching donations or can kickstart an otherwise self-sustaining
process, the end-to-end cost doesn't have to add up to 3bn to be feasible with
a 3bn pool of initial capital.

Think of it as venture research.

~~~
throwaway729
_> If you have matching donations or can kickstart an otherwise self-
sustaining process_

They won't have been the first people funding research to have thought of
this... it's a criteria sometimes used in evaluating in NIH grants, for
instance.

 _> Think of it as venture research_

As opposed to?

~~~
jaggederest
As opposed to more standard research funding which isn't as goal oriented.

I assume they're looking for a "billion dollar exit" from their research
funding.

~~~
alsocasey
Overemphasis on commercialization is a common complaint of the current funding
situation in medical research, so I don't think we're failing for lack of
interest in commercial exits. In fact, many scientist are serial
entrepreneurs.

Moreover, many discoveries that went on to make a lot of people a lot of money
had no obvious commercial application when they were first being researched...
Predicting future markets is hard.

~~~
jaggederest
No I don't mean "made money", that would just be standard venture capital.

I mean "achieves their targets by reducing the total burden of disease on
humanity", which is a _different_ radical exit.

~~~
throwaway729
I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you mean by "achieves their targets
by reducing the total burden of disease on humanity". Or maybe I just don't
understand the difference between this as merely "achieves their targets by
selling useful treatments to people"?

Could to elaborate?

~~~
jaggederest
A malaria vaccine would make no commercial sense but would be a huge reduction
in the total burden of disease. That's what I mean.

------
ryandrake
Not to take the wind out of anyone's sails, but there is a concern to be
raised about relying more and more on charities to fund the public good. When
a democratically elected government funds the public good, at least in theory,
the public at large has a small say in choosing what counts as "public good".
When you leave it to charity, you're relying on the morals of individual
wealthy donors to decide what counts as a "public good". I don't claim to know
which method is more risky in terms of mis-allocation of resources, but it's
something to think about.

~~~
bmmayer1
Why do you assume that government politicians and bureaucrats have a higher
moral position to decide what counts as public good?

~~~
ryandrake
I never assumed that.

------
bitL
Saw this on Reddit, maybe someone can comment:

\---

From Wikipedia:

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is not a charitable trust or a private
foundation but a limited liability company which can be for-profit, spend
money on lobbying, make political donations, will not have to disclose its pay
to its top five executives and have fewer other transparency requirements,
compared to a charitable trust. Under this legal structure, as Forbes wrote
it, "Zuckerberg will still control the Facebook shares owned by the Chan
Zuckerberg Initiative".

~~~
jakewins
First, so we are on the same page: An LLC and "a non profit" are two
orthogonal things. "Non-profit" is a tax status granted to any entity
recognized by the IRS, an LLC is a state construct, not recognized by the IRS.

LLCs exist in the court system - they can be liable for things done under the
legal umbrella of the LLC, meaning they be sued, and so on. This is the
"Limited Liability" part; the members of an LLC are, for some things, not
personally liable for any legal trouble. LLCs do not exist, as far as the IRS
is concerned.

Because of this, an organization can be an LLC in it's local state, registered
as a corporation of some kind with the federal gov't - and that corporation
can be Non-Profit; eg; an LLC can be Non-Profit, and nothing can be "a" Non-
Profit, because Non-Profit is not an entity, it's a tax status.

So.

You are Mark Zuckerberg. You hold a lot of Facebook stock, and you want to
commit that stock to Philantropy. Cool. You could start a federal corporation
(which would be recognized by the IRS) and file for Non Profit status.

But why would you? You're not accepting other peoples donations, so you don't
need to help them make tax-deductible donations. Your money, "moved into" the
LLC, still goes on your personal taxes (remember, the IRS does not care that
your state has invented some court construct called an LLC - unless you're a
federal corporation, your money goes on your regular tax return), meaning any
donations made to, say, a Non-profit research fund, will be tax deductible
just like it would any other day, so _you_ don't loose out on any taxes.

Creating a Non-Profit of some kind would mean a lot of legal work, a lot of
complexity in terms of how this new federal entity uses it's $3B Facebook
stock to vote, if you set up as a foundation there are rules around holding
too much stock in individual companies, et cetera et cetera. TL;DR: There's a
lot of downside and the only upside is that some guy on Reddit would whine
about how you're a fraud in some other way.

If I wanted to set aside $3B of my personal stock and tell the world "I'm
gonna donate this money, over time", I don't see why I wouldn't just pay the
$50 filing fee to get some legal distance from lawsuits in the form of an LLC
and call it a day.

Edit: I should say that this is a short-term perspective. I would expect, as
Mark grows older, he may want to move this money into an actual non-profit
entity of some kind, with a board and so on that could oversee the management
and dispersement of the money over the long haul, or whatever. But in the
short term, it just seems like a lot of legalese for no benefit.

------
calsy
I know it's more of a western problem, but it would be good if someone could
find some real solutions to the obesity crisis.

If you ask many GPs in the west they will tell you that a majority of
illnesses they address are related to weight and diet. With an aging,
increasingly overweight adult population alongside a sharp rise in child
obesity come big consequences for health care over the next half century.

Im not saying its an easy task you can just throw money at, but if trends
continue as they are now the health and economic impact on society will be
huge.

Bar some sort of national catastrophe (for e.g. war, famine, disease) is it a
crazy idea to think we could see a reduction in obesity levels? Are we simply
resigned to the fact that we will just get bigger and bigger in the future?

~~~
blackoil
For starter, stop drinking liters of cold drink and beer every day. If you
really need it, I will create an app for that.

~~~
calsy
I need an app to drink beer?

~~~
jmkni
_Untapped_ is a great app if you are a fan of craft beer, makes it easy to
keep track of what beers you have tried and still have to try!

------
a13n
"Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan announce $3 billion initiative to ‘cure
all diseases’"

[http://venturebeat.com/2016/09/21/mark-zuckerberg-and-
prisci...](http://venturebeat.com/2016/09/21/mark-zuckerberg-and-priscilla-
chan-announce-3-billion-initiative-to-cure-all-diseases/)

~~~
SEJeff
I suspect it would have been _much_ better for them to simply partner with the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where they're actually curing diseases.
They've literally almost eradicated polio globally[1].

    
    
        [1] http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/Global-Development/Polio

~~~
maxerickson
Largely by funding the effort.

[http://www.polioeradication.org/Portals/0/Document/Financing...](http://www.polioeradication.org/Portals/0/Document/Financing/HistoricalContributions.pdf)

Which I don't mean as a criticism, it's just that they aren't really driving
the effort, they are participating by providing a lot of resources.

~~~
SEJeff
Based on that link, the Gates foundation is providing $2.86 billion. The
second biggest donor is the US Government at $2.64 billion.

I'd consider the entity with the most money in the game as the driver of
really anything.

------
sams99
The absolutely crazy thing is that in this day and age the vast majority of
diagnosed paediatric cancers are not sequenced (no germline, tumor or RNA seq)
It actually makes me feel quite sick that there is so much information out
there that is not being mined or analyzed.

I hope this money does not go into some sort of "in 100 years from now
moonshot" as opposed to, we have huge urgent needs for money right now.

------
bwindels
These self-congratulatory billionaire philanthropists and their tax evasion
schemes really irk me. Everything won't be peachy in the future. We're well on
our way to warm up the planet by 4 degrees Celsius by 2100, because of the
globalized world in which you could gain your fortune. Stop exerting power of
money that doesn't belong to you, pay your taxes like everyone else, and maybe
governments would have more means to improve issues that were democratically
prioritized, with more oversight. These flashy single issues funds with vague
goals are mainly there to serve the ego of whoever funded them.

The school of life has a good video on this topic:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTAE5m3ZO2E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTAE5m3ZO2E)

------
BorisVSchmid
Most infectious diseases in humans are known to have originated from wildlife,
so eradicating all current diseases will still leave us with new diseases
entering the human population. Current rate at which new diseases establish
themselves in the human population is about ~1 per year, moreso under unstable
climate [Greger, Woolhouse].

[http://czbiohub.org/projects/infectious-
disease/](http://czbiohub.org/projects/infectious-disease/)

Looks like Chan and Zuckerberg's initiative on infectious diseases is focused
on a rapid response once a disease establishes itself in humans. There is
certainly a lot to win there, but it is still acting after the fact, rather
than prevention. Would have liked part of the effort to be focused on
monitoring wildlife to understand which diseases are at risk of jumping over.

Greger, M.Crit. Rev. Microbiol. 33, 243–299 (2007).
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18033595](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18033595)

Woolhouse, M .E.J. Trends Microbiol. 10, s3–s7 (2002).
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12377561](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12377561)

------
hmate9
Not sure why there is a lot of negativity here. It doesn't seem that
ridiculous of a goal. I think by 2100 we will have extremely powerful AI that
will make fighting diseases extremely easy compared to methods available
today. To be honest, it seems like an achievable goal.

I wish Zuckerberg and Chan the best in this.

~~~
kafkaesq
_I think by 2100 we will have extremely powerful AI that will make fighting
diseases extremely easy compared to methods available today._

Right. Just like the jetpacks and lunar colonies we have easy access to now,
as promised in the 1960s.

~~~
dwaltrip
Would you trade the development of the internet for jetpacks? I wouldn't.

~~~
kafkaesq
The point is that most predictions of what the future holds for us (based on
spike developments in the past 5-10 years)† usually prove to be quite silly.

† And in ML's case, ridiculously successful branding (per the sibling comment
of yours).

------
tschellenbach
This is great. Great achievements as a startup founder and now philanthropy.

For those comparing this to pharma companies. Pharma companies invest in drugs
that they can make money with. It sounds as though this $3 billion is aiming
at more general research and making it publicly available.

~~~
metaphorm
maybe you should hold off on the praise until there's some results to show for
it. making a press statement is not the same thing as curing a disease.

~~~
hsod
I'm comfortable praising someone for giving away 3 billion dollars to fight
disease, even before the results are in.

~~~
ams6110
Indeed. In fact most of the wealthy people I know are quite charitable, in
contrast to the way "the rich" are portrayed in the media and politics. And a
high profile commitment like this from a high profile person could encourage
that.

------
whybroke
This is lovely and all.

But he is in a much better position to work on the curious problems of ever
increasing political polarization in our new Post-Factual world.

If I were to guess, over the next century that problem is going to result is a
vastly more misery than a slight speed up to medical technology could
compensate for.

~~~
projektir
I am much more concerned about social/ethical/cultural problems in general. I
think if those problems were solved, all other issues with effectively
evaporate in a very short time, because we waste a tremendous amount of energy
on, well, random crap.

Sometimes technological/medical/governmental/etc. changes do move the social
forward so there's hope there.

~~~
whybroke
I agree entirely. And, looking at a small but easier part, I believe that
there is a particular piece that Zuckerberg can work on very effectively.

His company is now a key part of the way people form their view of the world.
The algorithm/process that selects what ideas they are exposed to chooses only
the most outlandish and memorable ideas that also serve to reinforce the
viewers already existing preconceptions. This, after all, makes facebook quite
attractive: an echo chamber of stimulating impressions that always reconfirm
your world view. Obviously accuracy is irrelevant in this model and evidence
is unheard of.

This is a specific problem that is contributing to a completely credulous
world view, worsening political gaps based on untruths and, worst of all,
creating the belief that fact is just another word for opinion. And this
problem is exactly in his area of expertise on a platform he has control of.

At any rate, if not worked on pretty quick, a re-established House Un-American
Activities Committee will make it awfully hard later.

------
stevefeinstein
I would never discourage them, audacious goals are how real change is
achieved.

But in the history of the world, every time you conquer one disease, a worse
and scarier one seems to fill the void. And if you wanted to get pedantic, it
could be said that Humanity is a disease of the Earth. Eliminating that
infestation might qualify under the goal. Perhaps AI is not going to solve the
problem by eliminating disease, but eliminating that which can be diseased.
Kill the prey, and the predator dies.

~~~
projektir
Pedantic or simply oddly foolish? That's not a precise statement at all. The
concept of humanity-as-a-disease makes no sense outside of a highly
misanthropic and Stockholm-syndrome-ish view of the world. "Earth" is not a
sensing entity, for one, so you cannot commit moral crimes against it (i.e,
bring forth to it the very real suffering that a human experiences from a
disease), and it's also the source of both humanity and disease in the first
place. We have diseases because "Earth" runs a process by which various
creatures are continually created and torment each other to figure out who
survives better.

Removing humans would do nothing more but restart the misery process again,
until another intelligent vehicle appears to try to resist it, assuming that
intelligent vehicles are a low energy state that evolution-style processes
like to reach. Such a vehicle is our best bet for the disease truly going
away. The intelligent vehicle, of course, will be highly influenced by the
natural world it came from.

You could go for a Sargeras-style crusade and decide to extinguish all life in
the universe and make all planets uninhabitable so that nothing can ever
evolve again to cause diseases anywhere, but you would still need such an
immensely powerful vehicle to enable that that you could as well stop wasting
your time and make utopias instead because if you can handle FTL travel you
can handle some microbes.

> But in the history of the world, every time you conquer one disease, a worse
> and scarier one seems to fill the void.

There are plenty of awful diseases people used to get from unsanitary
conditions, malnourishment, and direct contact with nature that we don't talk
about anymore because nobody gets them in first world countries or because
they have been eliminated.

------
pkaye
I just feel this is too broad and unbounded. They should have focused on a
specific diseases and a shorter timeframe. By 2100 most of us will be long
dead by current standards.

------
vegabook
Very nice. Some context:

Mark Zuckerberg is worth 55 billion dollars. This is 5% of his net worth.

Mark Zuckerberg spent 20bn on Whatsapp. At his 28% shareholding in facebook
that's a 5.6bn USD personal commitment.

The top 5 global pharma companies spent 42 billion USD on R&D in 2015 alone.
Total pharma sector R&D is circa 200 yards. Every singe year. They aren't
anywhere near "curing all diseases". This intiative would fund them for 5
days.

Very generous, but let's keep some perspective.

~~~
aphextron
>The top 5 global pharma companies spent 42 billion USD on R&D in 2015 alone

But how much of that spend was actually targeted at curing diseases, versus
things like hair loss treatments, erectile dysfunction, type 2 diabetes, or
other first world problems? It's well known that big pharma corps generally
ignore the low hanging fruit of curable third world diseases because there is
no monetary incentive for it. See why there was no viable Ebola vaccine until
the latest outbreak, even though we've been dealing with it for decades.

~~~
vegabook
If you look at pharma company R&D, they know where their bread is buttered:
people who are at risk of death are much bigger spenders than brunettes
wanting to be blondes. 70%+ of pharma R&D goes towards life-prolonging
research.

------
karmicthreat
So lets say this were possible. Where would be the best place to throw this
money? Just researching X disease one by one isn't going to be successful.
There are not enough resources available to make that happen that way. Period.

So what if a big leap in computational biology happened? Making faster
machines is relatively easier and largely unregulated.

So you focus on simulating disease and some form of automation that tries to
cure it. We have the problem of building these models for the computer to
crunch on. So why not build them from people. Continuously monitor everything
about someone. DNA, the various omics, self reports. All the while machine
learning is trying learn these models. So other automations can change them.

So the first thing we need is a way to collect all this data. Itself a major
medical breakthrough. How much data do we need to build the models? This seems
to be the first breakthrough we need to even approach this.

------
2pointsomone
Feeling so privileged right now; what a great time to be alive and see such
visionary leadership. Thank you Mark, Priscilla, Bill, and the thousands of
people whose names I don't know who work tirelessly on these problems.

------
supergirl
any money spent on research is good but,

1\. governments around the world probably spend hundreds of billions yearly on
research in medicine alone. and zuckerberg wants to solve everything with his
3bn?

2\. our current technology is not even close to good enough to make the kind
of major breakthroughs needed to say we 'cured cancer'. for example, the
biggest neural networks we trained have the order of 10bn parameters while the
human brain has 100bn neurons, each, I'm guessing, having at least 10
parameters. similarly for very small scale technology. I think we need to tone
down a bit the hype in AI and computing.

------
ravenstine
_All_ disease? I hope they mean specifically pathogens, because there are
plenty of diseases that are caused by other things or have unknown causes, and
you can throw ten times the net worth of Facebook at them and they probably
wouldn't be cured noticeably sooner. If it's just pathogens, I could believe
that if we programmed nanoprobes that could target them, making
antibiotics/antivirals permanently obsolete.

------
meitham
To achieve this goal, Mark will need access to the entire world medical
records, selling our data to insurance companies. Sorry Mark, but I refuse to
trade my privacy, and the safety of millions that cannot afford medical
insurance with a promise of living in a world without disease.

------
helthanatos
New diseases will come to be. Possibly, the cures will cause the new diseases,
possibly something else, but all disease won't be conquered. Does this
ambitious projection include only disease or does it also include disorder? I
think it would be cool to cure disorder before disease.

------
bunkydoo
Addiction is probably one of the worst diseases, and I am not sure that you
can 'cure' it.

------
NicoJuicy
I don't think it's a good thing to make us disease-free in terms of evolution.

I think it's better to just cure the diseases that kill us ( long/short-term)
eg. cancer, aids, ... or make us immoble for longer term ( parkinson, ..)

Why? Because i think the best defense is a good immune system. You don't get a
good immune system by staying inside and infection free and using medication
all the time. Let people become sick ( not lethal ones) and let nature fight
it off.

~~~
projektir
You're essentially advocating that a huge amount of people would die off, FYI.

~~~
NicoJuicy
I am not.

I am saying that getting sick is not a bad thing, a sickness that kills is.

------
danielmorozoff
In this vein, Some very interesting work is being done by the church group at
Harvard to encode cells to withstand all viral infections at the genetic
level.

[https://www.newscientist.com/article/2101657-synthetic-
super...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2101657-synthetic-supermicrobe-
will-be-resistant-to-all-known-viruses/)

------
subcosmos
I built a visualizer of the top causes of death. We've got a lot of diseases
to cure!

[https://www.infino.me/mortality/usmap](https://www.infino.me/mortality/usmap)

------
yazaddaruvala
Including aging as a disease?

------
Arkaad
I wonder what they plan to do about the anti-vaccination movement.

------
mungoid
What about new diseases that are discovered between now and then?

------
unknown_apostle
The commitment is very big, my comment is very small.

Whatever exists needs to be challenged continuously to keep existing. Any
naive attempt to suppress all adversity forever will backfire.

~~~
hmate9
Ok, so you would rather Zuck not spend his money trying to cure diseases?

~~~
unknown_apostle
No, but the sanguinary headline made me imagine a future where all biological
stressors have actually been eradicated. Our species would be at its weakest.

I guess I was briefly taking the donator's unicorn propaganda literally.
Sorry.

~~~
Hondor
We're already partly there. Infant mortality is way down, allowing weak babies
to live on to reproduce. Antibiotics and immunization of course. A lot of the
good things we do for individuals are probably bad for our species because
they remove stressors.

------
chris_wot
I'd like to see their efforts in stopping the spread of the most rapidly
increasing disease to challenge humanity in any man's lifetime.

It's called Facebook.

------
zaro
I don't remember who's quote is but sounds relevant for this article :

We won't have cure for diseases until first we have a cure for greed.

------
troels
How does one even define "disease"?

------
languagewars
I'm sick of this contrarian disruptive nonsense.

Redd Foxx got to choose his fate, but what am I going to do while forced to
sit around the hospital dying of nothing?

Find a socially acceptable alternative to disease before you eliminate it.

(Ok, to put it more clearly: get off my damn lawn and my damn planet you
stupid non-exponential function understanding kids.. Please!)

------
pokemongoaway
Such a joke. If they were anyone else we would be calling them out. Is there
any evidence that this wealth won't be concentrated in the same industry,
whose stock prices would decrease if their drugs worked to treat any disease
causes. A claim like this can be dismissed without evidence.

------
Arkaad
Why does the author keep saying "Ms Chan"? Aren't they married?

~~~
gammarator
Should be Dr. Chan. She has an MD.

------
karmicthreat
By 2100 I hope we have a patchable structures that just need an electronic
update to generate the new immune cell/protein/expression.

------
grownseed
These acts of apparent philanthropy from ridiculously wealthy people rub me
the wrong way. It feels like those rich patrons from older times who would
bestow their "generosity" as they pleased, except that in modern times most
countries have frameworks in place to make this sort of work happen, and these
rich people choose to ignore them, or worse, disparage them.

Companies like Facebook (and people like Mark Zuckerberg) actively avoid
paying taxes whenever they can, in a lot of countries that, for example, have
public healthcare and other public institutions that would normally benefit
from these taxes.

It's a bit like repeatedly stealing some kid's lunch, and then making fun of
the kid for her weakness while appearing strong (and stronger in comparison to
the weak kid) and compassionate when the kid passes out and you carry her on
your back.

~~~
wineisfine
Very true. Empires build by companies with low ethics and that are known for
bullying competition and poor integrity.

Some skepticism here would be appropriate. I guess it's still better then them
buying more, eh, yachts.

Still, I can't shake the feeling that instead of making a horrible closed
product, Facebook, that's basically eating the internet like a cancer, itself
-- how about fixing that too?

These people are so powerful they have presidents kissing their ass.

------
wiz21c
Who will own the intellectual property rights on the discoveries ? If it's
Zuck, then I'm not interested.

------
caub
as long as smoking will be removed the planet I'm fine

------
dschiptsov
Not bold enough. Let them tackle nondeterminism first.)

------
partycoder
Most likely by year 2100 Mark and Priscilla won't be alive, and people that
read about this claim won't be alive either. Then, it is not a legally binding
claim. I think it's a way to promote their foundation.

------
drcross
EDIT: JWZ disagrees that this is all rainbows and puppydogs.

Archive.org link because JWZ dislikes HN-
[https://web.archive.org/web/20160818144913/https://www.jwz.o...](https://web.archive.org/web/20160818144913/https://www.jwz.org/blog/2015/12/zuckerberg-
has-not-donated-anything-you-gullible-credulous-pinheads/)

~~~
elevensies
NSFW due to testicle.

JWZ has some referrer detection so you might want to open it in a private tab
to get around.

~~~
zach
And a perfect illustration of why "I'll just leave this here" is so much worse
than a simple description of the link target.

------
johansch
Hubris, much?

Yes, this is a commendable effort, but I don't think they have the
smarts/money for this. Even at an investor/patron level.

~~~
jonknee
It almost certainly won't happen, but you could have said the same thing about
starting a social network that includes over a billion daily users.

~~~
M_Grey
That's like comparing the discovery of a new fundamental force, with the
discovery that mythical dragons have been living in secret among us as our
lawyers. It's true that both are unlikely, but one is ridiculous and the other
merely very very challenging.

~~~
jonknee
I don't think it's all that ridiculous, it's over 80 years in the future. 80
years ago we were dying of all sorts of [now] easily preventable and curable
diseases. Penicillin was not used until 1942!

~~~
M_Grey
And now it's practically useless. It's not a one-sided battle we're in, and
we're heavily outnumbered.

~~~
jonknee
The point was that so much has changed in the previous ~80 years that I don't
think it's ridiculous to think things will be radically different ~80 years
into the future.

~~~
M_Grey
Barring universally available, and highly advanced nanotech, it's ridiculous
to think that all diseases will be "tackled" in ~80 years. In that same time
frame it's much more likely that we'll be tackling issues of how to maintain a
semblance of civilization, not achieving utopia.

------
snappy173
this is marginally better than the Bluth family's fundraising efforts to cure
TBA ...

------
aestetix
Step 1: shut down Facebook.

~~~
socmag
Sorry to see you got downvoted for voicing your opinion. Remember, Stockholm
Syndrome is a disease.

~~~
sanderjd
That opinion adds nothing to the current discussion. This isn't just an open
"tell us any random opinion you might have!" forum; the idea is to contribute
thoughts relevant to the topic.

~~~
socmag
I think the OP here was hinting along these lines perhaps:

[http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/245251.php](http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/245251.php)

Facebook is by some considered an addiction, so in some regards a disease that
should be tackled along with others.

------
limeyy
I wonder why, all these billionaires first want to make billions, and then do
philanthropy. How about making their services/business/products more
affordable with which they are making all this money with in the first place?

For example: MS Office used to cost 4-500 euro for the average home user a few
years ago. That was ridiculous.

If you have a small shop and 2000 Facebook page likes, Facebook rips you off
each time you want to reach them.

Maybe market dictates these prices but then again, they would be in the
position to dictate the prices in the first place.

~~~
patall
I rather wonder why those philanthropists think they are the best to decide
what to do with the money? If I understand it correnctly, neither Zuckerberg
nor Gates have given up much control over their money, they just cannot use it
anymore for themself.

~~~
dmix
Looking at the lasting impact of Carnagie's estate or any of the other
billionaires who decided to spend their later life focusing on philanthropy,
rather than just throwing cash at other peoples causes, I'd say they can and
do provide a real to society by continuing to control their capital.

Just like the other commentors have pointed out, who is better qualified to
launch and run a major project than those who already spent their lives
building and scaling great businesses.

------
meira
Charity with evaded money is very evil.

~~~
dmix
Public tax policy that either provides plentiful loopholes or high enough tax
rates where billionaires/millionaires can (and are highly incentivized to)
shift their money and use tax saving schemes are what's really evil.

If people spent time focusing on increasing government tax _revenue_ from the
rich rather than increasing tax _rates_ on the rich - which just pushes more
and more wealthy people to stash their money in tax shelters (see Ireland)
rather than investing it at home - they'd actually succeed in improving the
inequality situation. And most importantly boost the economy and create more
middle income jobs (by keeping money as job-generating capital instead of
sitting dormant in off-shore shelters).

Instead of expecting humans to stop acting out of self-interest, how about:

a) Creating incentives for businesses and the wealthy to not move money
elsewhere by having competitive tax rates. The simple fact is having them pay
something rather than further incentiving them to pay nothing would massively
increase revenues without increasing rates.

b) Massively simplify the tax system to close the myriad of loopholes that
allow these wealthy people to continue operating locally while shifting all
tax liability elsewhere. Make it obvious exactly how much each person owes
their governments at the end of each year.

Creating a tax policy that's grounded in the reality of human behaviour (you
can call it evil if you wish) rather than idealistic fallacies of how people
_should_ act is the real solution here.... Assuming this whole thing
Zuckerberg is creating is partially a form of tax sheltering in the first
place.

------
M_Grey
I plan to conquer the world and all of its inhabitants... long after all of us
here are dead or senescent.

I guess it _is_ easy to make empty statements if you make them apply to a far
enough future. Mars colonies from Musk (still working on getting the colonists
there in one piece of course), and all disease tackled!*

*With $3Bn

~~~
adventured
The difference being that you don't have an army or the power necessary such
that I'm going to consider your plans to be serious in the least.

With $56 billion, I'm inclined to take Zuckerberg a lot more seriously. He
currently has eight times the annual R&D budget of Pfizer in paper wealth that
has been increasing in value at a rapid clip (emphasis on paper, in that of
course it may go up a lot more or down a lot, who knows). Tackling all disease
is beyond grandiose; wiping out numerous diseases however is not - that would
be an extraordinary accomplishment.

~~~
M_Grey
Well, to be fair I _am_ responding to the grandiose statement that he made,
not the more reasonable one that he could have made.

~~~
socmag
And again, trolley problems...

There is $3B on on one track, with a note pinned to the top.. "To cure all
diseases - <3 MarkZ".

A train is barreling down.

On the other track lies you, with a hoodie and a ham sandwich.

Watching to the side is HN...

HN can pull the switch and change the points, thereby saving the $3B, but
killing you... in the hope the $3B will cure all disease.

On the other hand HN can say screw the cash and let's save a ham sandwich,
because (ummm, let's face it, sorry kid, you aren't going to amount to much)

Little did HN know, you ARE MarkZ!

~~~
M_Grey
Are you actually replying to me, or are you... what the hell are you talking
about?

~~~
socmag
I was making an abstract defense in your favor based on the parent comment
where someone appeared to be claiming you had neither the power nor the cash
to have any say in the matter.

For all we know you might have billions or a machine for curing all diseases
already working. (Or be MarkZ).

Yes, probably time for my bed, it's rather late. And far too late for moral
philosophy.

~~~
M_Grey
No no, I think I just missed it, my bad. Either way though, sleep well.

------
lostmsu
I really wonder why those techy multibillionaires invest in medicine rather
than techy stuff. I'd rather like to see fusion and hardware research done.
Speaking globally, that might just bump global economy so significantly, the
illnesses would go down just because more people would be able to afford
education and medical care easily.

------
nenadg
Oh that's just great, another billionaire philanthropist curing all diseases.
Like Gates did.

I don't know whether their passion loses momentum inside 'initiative/fund' or
it was doomed to be opposite of it's cause from the start?

~~~
dewitt
That's a strange reaction. Hasn't the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation been
one of the most successful philanthropic organizations of all time? I thought
they've saved millions of lives fighting malaria alone?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundation)

~~~
nenadg
There is literally nothing on that article about how many lives their
initiative saved. Just standard corporate propaganda about how much they spent
on this and that.

If I've spent 80 millions on Vaccines does that mean that I've saved hundreds
of lives? No.

I don't want to be a truther here, nor I'll paste links that would confirm
partial statement wrapped inside my question, but it would be great if one
could be open to critically observe actions of our beloved philanthropists,
there is complete universe beyond local news feeds.

~~~
stanleydrew
I think your opinion is probably interesting and potentially valid, but your
tone in the original comment is limiting your ability to communicate
effectively.

Less sarcasm would serve you well.

~~~
nenadg
sarcasm is better part of life, it's not limiting it's enriching :) I fail to
understand why people hate it?

~~~
maus42
After a while, overtly sarcastic tone gets a bit boring when you get to read
it every day in the every corner of internet over any possible issue.

And in my experience, it's rarely very effective in changing people's
opinions, if they are not tending to agree with you already in the first
place.

~~~
nenadg
Okay people, you win. I wasn't trying to change opinions, I just kept my own.
I'm still new here so let's consider this an experiment in public discourse.

Peace ;)

