To note, a huge market segment is are already paying thousands of dollars per yer, right now, on skin care (for instance the SK-II lineup sells well, and it’s 100-250$ a bottle)
My semi-cynical view would be that cosmetics companies don’t have any specific incentive to accelerate the natural march of research as long as they stay on the forefront of it and have top of the line products. Basically they’d only have issues with new players making bolstering entrances and disrupting their market with a revolutionary products they’re not ready to counter.
And the gap between some process being validated, and a product with that process being on the market is so huge, it’s hard to see a non entranched company start investing on that without getting noticed.
I’d see it as the same situation as Camera makers when digital was coming at the horizon. They only needed to be there when the tech is ready, and had no need to bet the farm on making it a reality sooner than necessary.
I kind of hate to say it, but isn't this why patents exist? The first company to make a product with this tech will have exclusivity for 20 years. Shouldn't that be a sufficient incentive?
For instance Kodak was first on the ground with their digital camera, but we all know how it went. The same way pharmaceutical companies patent drugs but it doesn’t stop a rival company from doing their own development cycle and coming up with a competing drug based on the same molecule.
Instead, patents are used defensively, for obvious things and rent-seeking. Why is that?
I'm not sure, but I can imagine a combination of:
* You don't have to prove your invention works.
* Patents can be vague and broad, and the non-obviousness bar is depressingly low. Low effort patents have more power than real advances.
* It's hard to enforce patents on in-house processes and systems.
* Workarounds can be found after you've done the hard work.
* Basic research (e.g. algorithms) can't be patented, and basic research is the hardest part.
We really do need a system that makes basic research with high eventual impact profitable. Brilliant scientists are getting paid peanuts.
Certainly, the first company to the market with a drug is usually rewarded pretty heavily, until generics come online 20 years later.
for instance, Prozac was a breakthrough (the first SSRI), but it was easy for other companies to make their own SSRIs.
This is where the "competition" pillar of capitalism comes into play. All producers would naturally benefit from being a cartel, but in practice the benefit to the One Player Who Cheats (in this case, by developing better products) is so large that we end up advancing anyway.
There’s a peloton running ahead, and they want to keep a sane distance from the pack. They’ll watch and react to the pack getting closer, but won’t be sprinting their lungs off until any of them gets in reaching distance of the goal.
Except when one of them decide to take the gamble (“cheat” as you say) and start sprinting. But we can agree it is extremely rare to have a sole sprinter leave the peloton mid-race and stay ahead until the end.
When it comes to huge international companies with billions and billions on the line, I expect even less of them to make huge gambles and try escaping the peloton with no goal in sight for the next 15~20 years.
Telomeres are the ultimate clock for cells that differentiate.
I'm not so sure this was really true. For example when the mirrorless transition happened Sony had basically bet the farm on making it a reality and as a result they dominate the mirrorless space in marketshare. If a new product is sufficiently better than existing ones then it can overcome the capital advantages of existing players. Especially with modern day VC funds pumping billions into high growth startups.
I also think you have to consider that very few people in legacy companies have cutting edge expertise. Walmart is not going to have the calibre of robotics, AI, or engineering personnel that Amazon does.
They had a CCD/CMOS group company since the 80s and started using them in video cameras. From there they also produced sensors for feature phone, smarphones, and mirrorless was more or less an extension of that
I looked at the Linkedin information for a few cosmetic companies and found that most of the employees work in marketing and channels, followed by business administration, and followed by a handful of cosmetician. My guess is that either research and development are outsourced or they are primarily marketing companies, which means there might not be any research to begin with.
If somebody came up with a product that actually did work, they know they would be in deep trouble.
The reason for this is simply sad. Imagine you are a woman in your forties, fifties and so on. For your whole life the society was communicating to you in different ways, directly and indirectly, that a large share of your value lies in your beauty. Now it is fading away and there is no going back. So you do what you can to slow this process down. If you believe it works, you simply feel better. And when you tell it to your friends, of course they will support you ("This cream really works miracles, you look so much younger"). Same with cosmetic surgeries, for some people it verges on the bring of psychiatric disorder, with one operation after another turning you into a monster, but when you look into the mirror you perceive yourself as more beautiful than before.
Is this really still true? I know of many female professionals who are respected for their skills alone
The societal biases that disappeared are almost excluse those that are so long gone that we have little chance to even know they existed.
I notice that this beauty standard is mostly kept alive by women themselves. Men care a lot less about the appearances of professionals, especially if they're women. It also depends on the industry. Women in engineering seem only really to be judged by other women outside of engineering. Maybe this is why you haven't noticed it?
Side question: do these skin care products work? Is anyone here on HN using them and notice any difference?
Those are the big three that dermatologists will recommend that have evidence of efficacy for anti-aging.
Everything else: The Ordinary
Lotion in general does a huge amount to help skin stay healthy and accumulate less exposure damage over the decades.
One of the biggest investors in digital photography was Kodak, because they recognized the threat to their film model. Now they used their patents to stall the conversion to digital instead of using their lead to dominate a new market, but it's not uncommon for companies to invest hard in their replacement to secure IP. That's why MS was getting paid $5/android phone for a while.
Well you are correct. Altos labs (https://altoslabs.com/) is basically every "who's who" in science doing this with billions of dollars. Including Wolf Reik who is featured in the article.
The field of molecular biology didn't exist before World War II; after, a number of funding managers at NIH recognized that there was an incipient science to augment biochemistry and other fields, and funded it through places like Rockefeller Institute (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25862750/).
The long term impact of these early scientists and funders who recognized the potential of MB has been enormous; it lead to the discovery of recombinant DNA, and many other important things which produced an explosion of research.
where I drive to work every day, there was only one biotech (Genentech) campus and now there are probably 20-30 different companies with enormous well-outfitted research labs all stuffed into one little corner of South San Francisco. "Overnight", biotech became a huge industry- overshadowed by the enormous tech industry- but in many ways, the "tech" part is ripe for disruption in ways that look just like the tech industry in 1997.
Either way, it will be interesting to see what is the state of the art 30-40 years from now, assuming the research infrastructure continues apace.
Rogaine and off-label finesteride don't quite cut it.
The basic issue is, and remains, that certain cells die the more and the longer they're exposed to DHT. To solve male pattern baldness, you'll have to reduce your DHT levels, either by reducing your testosterone levels, or by taking brutal dosages of finasteride.
Trans women actually do that, and can stop and even reverse male pattern baldness most of the time. But for cis men, this solution is obviously inadequate.
I think it would also have a profound impact on society and culture. Just how we think about the world differently as our lifespan extends. I think that makes a lot of people scared.
Discussing this with others I see a few things people are highly concerned with but I'm unsure if they would actually happen (as in, I'm uncertain either way). The first is over population. The reason I'm not convinced this would be a problem is that most western countries have declining populations (without immigration) and world wide we've seen dramatic reductions in birth rates. World fertility rate is about 2.4 (replacement level is 2.0)[0]. The other aspect is political. People think change happens on the generation level. But I'm not entirely convinced of this either. We can take attitudes of same sex-marriage as an example[1][2]. A generation is 20 years but our (US) views have changed substantially faster than that. Especially if you include LGBT[3] (I couldn't find timeline sources for European attitudes as easily. Even when looking for specific countries and including quotes). I agree that there's a correlation with generations, but I'm not convinced it is a principle component.
I also wonder how we would think about the future. Interesting to be is that a lot of Eastern cultures typically are more future oriented in their thinking (as compared to typical Western, and I wouldn't say by too much). I would expect that longer lifespans would put pressure to be more cognizant. Would a crisis that is 100 years out seem as far away? Hard to say. We might even have to live with longer lifetimes for awhile for that to happen.
All I know is that it would cause big changes. But I'm not sure that should stop us from pursuing this technology unless we see major pitfalls ahead of time and find that they are insurmountable obstacles to overcome. There are clearly issues with increased longevity (especially the disproportionate use of it) as many dystopian SciFis have pointed out. But I think it is better that we at least discuss these things in the open since the technology itself is no longer in the realm of fantasy but has graduated to the realm of possibility. There's too much money being put in this technology now for us to not take the questions of the impact of it seriously. Even if 10+ years out (even 50+) I don't think we should dismiss them. If we're talking about culture shifts, maybe one of the best things we could do is talk about the impacts (pros/cons and how to use them in fair and equitable means) of technologies before they are here. Maybe we could have some of that discussion here?
I'm normally not a big CGP Grey person, but I do like this video on the Fable of the Dragon Tyrant[4]
[0] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?location...
[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/350486/record-high-support-same...
[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/fact-sheet/changing-att...
[3] https://news.gallup.com/poll/1651/gay-lesbian-rights.aspx
It’s an interesting exploration of the topic.
I don't think so. Once something is out and proven to be cost-effective, even expensive treatments, it proliferates into the top 5-10 per cent of the world's population pretty fast.