Starship, AI and now anti-aging - It seems like 2023 is the year of sci-fi tropes. My pet theory is that Haim Eshed was right and there is a secret cabal of people in touch with post scarcity aliens with a cornucopia of fancy tech - but then they (in true sci-fi trope fashion) left the implementation to a committee of popular sci-fi novelists ...
All we need now is for boston dynamics to release their mech-warrior line...
I’ve thought about this a few times and I came to the conclusion that when you become a billionaire you become that alien to humanity. You are so far removed from average peoples needs you take on a fully alien mindset
Substantial global progress has been made in reducing childhood mortality since 1990. The total number of under-5 deaths worldwide has declined from 12.8 million in 1990 to 5 million in 2021. Since 1990, the global under-5 mortality rate has dropped by 59%, from 93 deaths per 1000 live births in 1990 to 38 in 2021. Globally, the number of neonatal deaths also declined, from 5.2 million in 1990 to 2.3 million in 2021.
Sure, but I look at it this way: if billionaires wan't to spend money on something, these technological long-shots aren't the worst they could do.
I'll take infinite amounts of these long-shots over a single WEF-esque attempt to reorganise society from the top down to institute a techno-fascist regime.
Not to defend MIT, but as I got zero with my blockers (uBo + uMatrix + FF tracking protection), maybe it’s time for an upgrade? ;) Might of course also be another reason.
MIT contributes tremendously to military technology. It's the primary purpose. I'd be concerned for that reputational and moral hazard such that the the UX challenges of a blog wouldn't even register.
Even Chomsky couldn't make it out clean and got sucked into state actor trouble.
Sounds like a rich people trap. You can say anything if you don't show the results. Patents are also not a proof of anything remotely close to working. So for now they have... nothing?
I think this question is pivotal in how one analyzes the benefits and disadvantages in this space. The article links to a story that covers this a bit. I feel truly undecided on this question.
Technically, I think if something happens in 100% of cases that's the mainline and not an exception case that you can analyze/fix. So probably we cannot say it's a disease.
Now, in order to stop aging you will need to understand and stop all processes that lead to aging. everything we are doing today, in all domains, is trivial compared to understanding biology (even for simpler organisms). The complexity is just mindblowing (google: roche merabolic map poster). It would be probably easier (although this is still far far far out of reach) to create a new body and transfer the brain's content than to stop aging.
That should not stop us from trying to understand it though and there may be "low hanging fruits" that may add 1-2-10 years to life.
Another thing worth pondering is quality of life. If you could live the same amount of time without most of the decline that comes with old age who wouldn't want to do that?
It highly depends on the definition you use, gather them from wikipedia and a few dictionaries and you will see. Looking at it from different languages is also worth looking into. I see it as an unavoidable (so far and in my opinion for a long time) disposition to go through a process. As such I would not consider aging in general as a disease. But individual processes taking place in aging would be in my opinion, especially since they can happen at earlier age in some people. I am much more interested in providing better quality of life to people impacted by those than to everybody (the societal impact would be quite dramatic).
The question is more relevant from a political/legal perspective but less so from a technical perspective. From a technical perspective the most important question is how do we go about fixing it.
> Altos, with an eye-popping $3 billion in startup funds, is among the best funded biomedical startups of all time, if not the richest of them all.
> The company has established three institutes, in Cambridge, UK, San Diego and in the San Francisco Bay area. Wolf Reik, leader of Altos’ Cambridge institute, also spoke during the Boston event and mentioned the “very beautiful building” Altos occupies there. He showed a photo of workers lined up in an atrium, who he referred to as “many happy people. Happy people in lab coats.”
> Unlike workers at universities, Altos researchers don’t have to spend time applying for grants. Altos pays its top staff salaries of one million dollars and more and doubles what junior scientists can earn.
At least we know where all that funding is going. Results still TBD.
A little off topic but since this mentions stem cells, I thought I’d ask: my wife is pregnant with our first child. The hospital has a (rather expensive) program where they will preserve the child’s stem cells from the placenta at birth. Their rep has been hounding me about it, but my doctor says not to bother.
Does anyone here have any experience with something like this? Is it something my child might benefit from, say, 15 years down the line?
There are 2 questions here: 1/ can you afford it? Is paying the fee for the procedure for you like buying a meal at a fancy restaurant which you do without thinking too much about itor is it a lot of money? 2/ what are the odds of the kid developing a disease and the stem cells from the collected blood being usable for the said disease?
I would say go for it if financially this has virtually zero impact on you, but also be realistic about ever using it.
Just because you can afford something doesn't mean you should pay for it. Successful rich people are usually as diligent about a $1000 purchase as they are for $10M. Others with a "it's just a tiny bit of money, worst case it will go to waste, but maybe the snake oil actually works" attitude are prime targets for scammers and sleazy sales reps.
Doing your research is important no matter the price or product.
Three kids in three different hospitals (and two different states) in the US, and they all have this.
I don’t think it’s a hospital program it’s just an up-sell they get a kick-back on for selling to you.
It’s not a specific recommendation from that hospital, it’s the same as a car dealer upselling a third party insurance program.
As for value and utility, I think that’s covered here already, but I put it in the same bucket as cryogenics. Who knows where those stem cells go and how they’re maintained?
That said, my youngest is 10, so the state of science here might have changed since I last made the decision.
You’ve already got an answer from an expert working in the field who spent years studying and more years practicing.
Randos on the internet aren’t going to give you a better answer. If you want another perspective ask the rep to put you in touch with an MD who thinks it IS a good use of resources.
All we need now is for boston dynamics to release their mech-warrior line...