Can we cure all diseases in our children's lifetime? | Hacker News Reader

Can we cure all diseases in our children's lifetime?

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24 points_nh_31 comments

I don't understand the vitriol. They may, or may not, reach their goal, but it's certainly worth trying.

Even if they don't cure all diseases - if they advance our understanding of some of them, or help cure some, then humanity will be advanced by that much more.

>They may, or may not, reach their goal, but it's certainly worth trying.

Well, maybe. It's a worthy goal in the sense that eliminating disease would be great. But they may just end up blowing a lot of money that could have been spent more profitably on reasonably attainable goals.

The first emperor of China spent a nontrivial amount of his country's economic output trying to find the secret of immortality. Would that have been a good thing to learn? Certainly. Was it worth trying? No.

I guess my frame of context is, it's their money, and they can spend it however they may, but at least with this there is a chance of benefiting society as a whole.

While your example seems fitting at first glance, I don't really think it's relevant. This is private money spent on something that may be a public good, and in this case we do have a basis for saying that, yes, we can eradicate diseases, we've done it before and we're getting close again with others.

I'm not saying they shouldn't be allowed to spend the money. I'm a big property rights guy - if you have money and you want to make a hundred foot tall shrine to Elvis, knock yourself out.

All I'm saying is you can end up wasting a lot of money by stretching for a goal that's too far ahead of current technology, and in that sense it might be a more efficient use of money to attempt something more near-term.

Also, I'm not entirely sure seeking to "eradicate all diseases" is a laudable goal in itself.

1. We don't understand the consequences of this.

2. Our notion of disease has changed (as a previous poster noted, think about our thoughts on homosexuality)

3. Technics used to address disease have historically had some severe unintended consequences (e.g., antimicrobial resistance)

Wonderful example. Literally taken, they're nearly after immortality. But of course, you shouldn't take them literally.

Ha! Some countries don't even have universal healthcare.

Maybe - but by then climate change might make that irrelevant with food shortages, unliveable conditions and further inequality. Perhaps rather than following Bill and Melinda's footsteps, the new generation should use their considerable lobbying power and personal wealth to start pushing for change in reduction in climate change. But hey, it's their ridiculous amounts of money and vanity - so they can do whatever they want with their name on the self-congratulatory banner. At least they didn't start another space company.

If we were to cure all known diseases of today, new diseases would emerge, and in fact, our definition of "disease" could even evolve. Case in point: Homosexuality was once considered to be a disease.

And could be again. The floodgates may open once we can "fix" things like that.

We will all be dead so we will never know.

Well, biology is on the verge of a revolution. Given the research that is being put into reversing aging, I wouldn't be surprised if you made it.

No. (cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline... )

Step 1) Be a myopic silicon-valley bubble child. Step 2) Confuse "disruptive apps and services" with something difficult, like medicine. Step 3) Be naive. Step 4) Finally give up.

This sort of snarky dismissal is what we're trying to avoid on HN. If you have a substantive critique you're welcome to share it, but merely splashing vitriol degrades the quality of discussion we're hoping for. That's true even if the implied critique is right (i.e. even assuming you're right, that doesn't make it ok), and despite the invariable popularity of snarky comments.

Also, this is name-calling:

> myopic silicon-valley bubble child

... and that is not allowed:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

so please edit it out of your posts here.

A more political way to state this is to say that those of us who were trained in biology and medicine find it frustrating when people who are successful in Silicon Valley making a product that makes money, but isn't particularly valuable in a social sense, suddenly think they can transform all of healthcare in a rapid way, simply because "it's easy", only to learn "it's actually really hard! there are structural problems in addition to engineering and research problems that require decades of work!"

That said I've read what Zuckerberg said, https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-zuckerberg/can-we-cure-a..., and his thesis is not completely lunatic. It's more nuanced, and actually hits most of the critical points:

1) he's talking about disease amelioration, not true cures for all diseases. 2) he's got a more realistic timeframe (not "solve cancer in 10 years") 3) he's focusing on tool building, and addressing some key structural deficiencies around how research is conducted 4) he's got a great collection of leaders to run the institute 5) it's tightly integrated with the existing research system, so it's likely the results of the research will be published in prominent journals

This places Zuckerberg and Chan in the "likely to show impact over time" category.

That said I still have to deal with lots of short-sighted people in Silicon Valley who believe that machine learning is going to cure cancer tomorrow, and that is myopic, naive, and, well, isolated from reality.

This is an interesting comment. It could be summarized as: "1. Some people are idiots; 2. The people in this article aren't idiots, have done their homework, and are getting this mostly right. 3. Still, some people are idiots."

The secret to substantive discussion on HN is having the discipline to address the specifics of what's interesting in a story, and resisting the temptation to let loose on unrelated idiocy. That's hard, because letting loose on unrelated idiocy feels good. But it stuffs the discussion with junk.

(This is a general point, not just about your post. If everyone did it the way you did we'd all be much better off.)

That was my reaction when Bill Gates said he would fight malaria. But then his funds really made a difference. "Cure all disease before 2100" does not seem an impossible goal and helping scientists build tools globally usable is actually a very good angle to help the medical community.

Reading the article made me think that Zuckberg did his homework and may be able to spend money in an area that makes a difference over time.

You know, I still hate Microsoft and Facebook, but if Bill Gates or Zuckberg decide to spend a few billions on medical research rather than on a fleet of private jet or personal theme park, I'll join the choir of applause.

Except the problem with malaria was actually the availability of funding. The solution was known, just not implemented. Totally different.

Zuckerberg could do a decent job combatting a lot of disease by dumping money into poverty reduction efforts, raising overall education and health maintenance etc.

No worries, Zuck and Priscilla will do it.

I wonder how Big Pharma feels about this.

I'd imagine a lot of a pharmaceutical company's revenue depends on the fact that a lot of diseases haven't been cured but are nonetheless treatable.

I imagine what they're thinking is that Zuckerberg spent the last decade building Facebook while they turned AIDS and Hep-C from death sentences into manageable conditions.

I think you're missing my point.

HIV/AIDS is a good example actually.

The lifetime cost of treating HIV is estimated at more than $500,000, and there are more than a million Americans that have it.

If HIV/AIDS is cured, instead of being turned into a monthly payment plan, this would hardly make any business sense for pharmaceutical companies.

Edit: Grammar

My guess is rayiner didn't miss your point but responded that way because it's a bit of a conspiracy trope that "Big Pharma" is actively hiding/preventing/whatever cures from being developed or marketed to keep their revenues up. Your point in and of itself is probably true, but it is really close to that trope, which is quite tiresome to people who have encountered it too often. That is probably why you got the response you did.

I doubt it. Health care CEOs, like their money guaranteed just like everyone else.

If HIV/AIDs is cured, it'll be at a $500,000 payment that can be paid in instalments for the next 20 years---20 years of actually productive life that they may have not had if they had to suffer through 'treatments' where too many setbacks will lead to death.

What will likely happen in the US, is the government will guarantee loans for these treatments and the prices will skyrocket. It'll be worse than the student loan crises of today, but hey... at least less people will die.

Just last week I read that Michelin (tires) engineers said in the 80s they knew how to make a product that would be one order of magnitude better at everything they sell, but that would be shooting themselves in the foot.

Business paradox.

Source?

http://mourad.benamar.free.fr/tuning/chassis/pneus/pneus.htm

search for "pneu inusable". I don't have a better source.

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