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Re:Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on... by gdulli on Wednesday September 18, 2013 @01:00PM (#6406420)
I'd rather see a high quality of life for everyone on earth for 80 years than 150+ year life spans for the first world. Which will just further increase the footprint of the rich and divert resources from the poor.

Not to mention, it's a more attainable goal. It doesn't help much to keep the body going for 50 more years if you can't also keep the brain going. I believe these are very different problems. If you can somehow solve both, it doesn't help if you can't feed and house all these people.

Re:Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on... by abstractbill on Wednesday September 18, 2013 @01:07PM (#6406457)
I believe these are very different problems.

Aubrey de Grey believes they are not different.

If he's right, the only way you could keep people perfectly healthy up to age 80 without them living much longer would be to execute on his plan (or a similar one), and then kill people once they got old enough.

Re:Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on... by VikingCoder on Wednesday September 18, 2013 @01:11PM (#6406469)
You either believe in capitalism, or you don't.

Google believes in capitalism. They will offer goods and services to people who can afford them, and they will also work to make their products more accessible to those with limited resources.

I personally believe Android will have enormous long-lasting positive impacts on the rest of the world. A $25 smartphone ... A $10 smartphone... A $5 smartphone... Giving access to instant communication, and huge amounts of information, will in the long run dramatically improve human lives. My personal opinion.

Re:Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on... by jbooth on Wednesday September 18, 2013 @02:23PM (#6406982)
I also disagree with the parent poster but you absolutely do not either "believe in capitalism, or you don't".

The only pure capitalist societies are anarchist hellholes. Among nice societies, capitalism is implemented all sorts of different ways with the things capitalism does poorly[1] papered over in different ways.

[1] law enforcement, basic standard of living for all, various economic regulations to address market failures, e.g. I can't legally plug in a transmitter at 100MHz and 1000 watts and black out WNBC in my neighborhood, and can't sell capitalist let-the-market-decide food out of a roach den

Re:Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on... by VikingCoder on Wednesday September 18, 2013 @02:31PM (#6407049)
I didn't intend my first statement to be absolutist, and I do not believe I need to resort to some extreme form of free market society, in order to have my vision of reality work.

gdulli was criticizing a corporation for providing goods and services that a relative minority of the wealthy can provide.

I assert that that criticism is only valid, if you have fundamental problems with capitalism itself. The way I stated that was, "you either believe in capitalism, or you don't." I am not aware of a better way to state that. It's a matter of faith / belief / an assumption. If you share in that view, you can correctly engage in one set of logical discussion. If you do not share in that view, you can only engage in another set of logical discussions. Watching someone criticize a corporation for providing luxury goods is ample evidence that they're having the wrong kind of discussion. Their first necessary step would be to convince me that we should abandon capitalism. Period. There's no other first move in that game.

Re:Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on... by jbooth on Wednesday September 18, 2013 @02:42PM (#6407129)
Well, if we're being honest, this isn't particularly capitalist of Google. It's an idealist, good-intentions-and-ego-driven play. Yes, they want to capture some of the value that they eventually might create but they are not doing it primarily for money.
Re:Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on... by outside1234 on Wednesday September 18, 2013 @09:13PM (#6409209)
yeah right!
Re:Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on... by Florin_Andrei on Wednesday September 18, 2013 @02:50PM (#6407203)
> You either believe in capitalism, or you don't.

I hope what you really meant was far, far better than what you made it to sound like.

Re:Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on... by VikingCoder on Wednesday September 18, 2013 @03:08PM (#6407327)
I don't get it. Can you expand upon what you're worried I might have said, which you think is far, far worse?
Re:Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on... by Florin_Andrei on Wednesday September 18, 2013 @03:17PM (#6407391)
It seems like you're saying, it's either Ayn Rand or Stalin, there's no middle ground.
Re:Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on... by VikingCoder on Wednesday September 18, 2013 @05:09PM (#6408162)
I get ya.

From that perspective it's hard to describe exactly what I'm thinking...

If you lean towards "capitalism and free markets are good," then I really don't think you have a leg to stand on, in criticizing a corporation for offering luxury services.

If you lean towards, "Universal healthcare, and this is health care, so therefore the government should have a monopoly on it, except this should be way down low on the list of priorities," then it's a completely different conversation.

Re:Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on... by eli_gottlieb on Wednesday September 18, 2013 @06:35PM (#6408630)
And what if I lean towards, "Universal healthcare, and this is health care, so therefore the government should have a monopoly on it, and this should be way up high on the list of priorities"?
Re:Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on... by Florin_Andrei on Thursday September 19, 2013 @11:06AM (#6412059)
Then you'd be right. ;)
Re:Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on... by dragonwriter on Wednesday September 18, 2013 @04:59PM (#6408101)
> I'd rather see a high quality of life for everyone on earth for 80 years than 150+ year life spans for the first world.

They aren't mutually exclusive goals; working on the social/political/distributional problems that prevent most people from having a high quality of life is not exclusive with working on the health technology problems that mean that no one is living 150+ years.

And I'd rather see a high quality of life for everyone on Earth for 150+ year life spans than either of your options.

Re:Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on... by joseph_cooney on Thursday September 19, 2013 @01:45AM (#6410053)
So you should be happy with the work the Gates Foundation is doing. It's good to see different technologists tacking a similar problem from different ends of the spectrum.
Re:Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on... by zerorbit on Wednesday September 18, 2013 @01:30PM (#6406594)
You are assuming resources are limited, but they are infinite. Making the assumption the Universe is infinite.
Re:Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on... by csallen on Wednesday September 18, 2013 @01:39PM (#6406664)
The vast majority of resources in the universe are unavailable to us, and will likely remain so unless we make efficient use of the resources that are available to us.
Re:Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on... by unimpressive on Wednesday September 18, 2013 @01:57PM (#6406789)
>You are assuming resources are limited, but they are infinite. Making the assumption the Universe is infinite.

Silliest thing I've read all day. There are huge costs associated with extracting resources here on earth, let alone from the stars. And even if "the universe" is infinite, no new matter is being generated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe

Re:Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on... by vdaniuk on Wednesday September 18, 2013 @02:07PM (#6406858)
Huge costs for a scarcity based economy. I guess that will be changing soon enough.