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Comment by guard-of-terra | Hacker News Reader

So now you vote for stopping progress forever for the fears of safety?

I assume you understand this makes you undeserving of that safety.

There's a difference between stopping progress forever and expecting companies to perform some kind of human safety tests before bringing products to market.

Do you have proof (or reasonable doubts) that the person described in an article doesn't?

I do....I know this person personally. She is duplicitous and ethically bankrupt. I have seen studies done years ago supposedly on some of the things she has developed and their efficacy but nothing in the last decade pretty much. The people commenting with skepticism on her credentials earlier in this thread are getting close to the mark with their assumptions. If you dig deeper on her a lot of claims fall apart. It sickens me she is getting all this exposure and publicity.

I vote for recognizing clear risks, and taking appropriate steps to mitigate them up front. If you're deliberately trying to put biologically active stuff into millions of people, it is just a question of time before the law of unintended consequences hits you. Your desire to sell more effective skin whitening creams does not, in my books, mean that you should ignore the possibility that your beautifier can make people sick. And if you're in doubt, I want you to err on the side of safety.

Of course if you're selling something that we have good evidence is both acceptably safe and makes people look better, then the more power to you. But that's not, by her admission, the position that she is probably in.

What makes you think she doesn't have good evidence that her product is both acceptably safe and makes people look better? I re-read that portion of TFA and nothing rang my bell.

Based on the article, she's a pioneer in using new biological pathways for a cosmetic effect. You don't get to be first if you're trying to study safety, and that industry as a whole does not pay much attention to safety.

Therefore I find it extremely likely that she has evidence of biological effect in your body's cells, and has not done research on unexpected possible side effects in the same cells that she's impacting.

Oh that's brilliant. If she is a pioneer then she is automatically pronounced guilty, and the people who come and share her work with much less risk are to get the benefits.

I see so much enterpreneur spirit in your comments on HN that I am speechless.

Is this your life choice as well? Looking for people who innovate, bash them over their mistakes and then steal their good results?

>So now you vote for stopping progress forever for the fears of safety?

Why not?

Because you believe in "progress" as in an inherently good metaphysical entity?

I'd take safety and a better life for the vast majority of mankind over progress anyday.

The vast majority of mankind do not have safe and enjoyable life.

The reason for that is not enough progress. "Safe and better" isn't going to materialize out of thin air.

>The vast majority of mankind do not have safe and enjoyable life.

My sentiments exactly.

>The reason for that is not enough progress.

No, the reason for that is not enough political action for solving that.

It's not like we don't have enough food, resources of technology to solve all of those problems. And it's not like any new technology is applied to solving them.

People are dying (by the millions) by problems that can be solved by 200 and 300 year old technology.

Will that political action consist of taking the wealth from people who embraced progress and giving it to people who ignored progress?

So they can keep on remaining in the cultural and intellectual stone age and be proud of it?

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