Last time I checked, science and technology had already solved problems like clean water, sanitation and medicine. In fact, they were solved decades ago. The failure of political and social institutions to consistently implement and maintain these solutions isn't the fault of the the inventors.
What's more, when tech people like Zuckerberg and Thiel start trying to get involved in politics, they're crucified in the media by writers just like the author of this article, depicted as arrogant, inhuman idiots, who shouldn't dare to step outside the technology ghetto.
Articles like this having nothing to do with the issues they're supposedly championing, as the author's complete lack of insight into said issues demonstrates. Rather, they're part of a campaign by entrenched elites to resist the shift in power away from members of old industries to newer ones.
Executives from the oil, finance, legal, etc. industries have long enjoyed privileged access to power, and a smooth route from the private sector into politics. Now technology execs are starting to do the same thing, and the establishment is fighting back. This kind of astroturfing is an attempt to reassert the traditional dominance of STEM by non-STEM interests: E.g. "These people and companies should work on what we [non-STEM observers] think they should work on, because we understand the world better, and we know better than them what is needed. And we'll do whatever it takes to turn wider society against them if they don't obey us."
I'm an engineer and software developer, and I push back against "tech execs" doing the same stuff that Oil and Finance execs do because I feel partially responsible for their clout.
I hate how Zuckerberg co-opts the optimism behind stuff like "free internet!" into bald-facedly cynical for-profit initatives like internet.org. I have nothing good to say about Thiel or Palantir.
The article captures how I feel fairly well, and I'm not an external agent pushing to retain control or whatever conspiracy you've cooked up down there in your last paragraph.
Yes, this article is just clickbait, and I'm sad to see Wired stooping so low to express a very unpopular opinion that their journalists themselves don't (and shouldn't) hold -- one that even defies the very purpose of Wired itself, just for the sake of creating controversy. They've successfully trolled us all though, given that they managed to top HN.
Clearly this article upsets a lot of people but it ties together two important issues: One is that economics drives SV's best efforts towards the problems of the affluent. This gets extra flack because of all the (mostly hollow) talk of "changing the world" you hear from every startup CEO.
The second issue is that as science advances, there are fewer important problems that can be solved with a quick technology fix, and there remain a huge pile of problems that require political solutions. From what I've seen, those are much harder problems to solve, which suggests an upper limit on how far we can invent our way into a better future.
The entire domain of palliative care (save for the rarest of exceptions) is designed around a single purpose: siphoning money from the relatives overwhelmed by grief and therefore unable to take rational decisions.
The last thing we need is increased funding of this particular circle of hell and its beneficiaries.
For the evidence of the contrarian way, observe how doctors choose to die.
Silicon Valley is right — death itself is the ultimate enemy to push away and finally conquer. And palliative care is usually nothing more than prolonged suffering.
Usually pain control and comfort are the purpose. The financial effects are similar to what happens in other fields of medicine, not specific to palliative care. Seeing people die with extreme anxiety and inadequate pain control might change your mind.
Also, switching someone to palliative care protocols often involves DNR/DNI, CMO, no transfer to MICU, etc, which reduces peri-death interventions and costs. Would enjoy hearing your opinion though.
I'm sorry if you had this experience with palliative care for your relatives; it really doesn't have to be that way and hasn't been my experience. In fact, low quality PC in your area may reflect that the industry there is ripe for innovation.
While I don't necessarily agree with the tone of this piece - I do think that there seems to be a general preference to solving '1st world problems' in the tech industry.
The thing is - people should work on what they want to work on. The things people end up working on are a reflection of what's valued by our society.
Obviously life is valued over death - and solving for longer lives is a worthy pursuit. It would be nice though, if there was more awareness around the problems facing people who aren't in SV, or a huge city, with a lot of relative wealth. That comes with diversity - of thought and actors, which the tech world could improve on.
Lastly, it's a lot more glam (and profitable) to say "I made it possible to live 'x' years longer than average" than it is to say "I made a product that helped old people live better". In my experience - VCs/"tech people" aren't interested in such a proposition - though it could be very profitable!
I look forward in this thread to see people justify complaining about other people's efforts to prevent-- ultimately-- what may be trillions of needless deaths, because they'd rather these people spend their time elsewhere because every other problem than _dying_ isn't yet cured.
If you found yourself nodding your head at the article then, please, I urge you to please take a bit to read Bostrom's The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant with an open mind: http://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html
Political and social problems are harder for engineers and scientists to solve than technological and scientific problems. Though they get to lobby politicians using their financial resources, they don't get to directly make laws and policies -- they are not given the power by the people to do so.
This article carries the hidden assumption that technology alone can solve inequality and social problems, but they might as well put the blame on Hollywood or some other single professional group.
You're answering the headline, but not the article text:
> But over the past two decades, deaths attributed to inequality, isolation, and addiction have risen for both men and women without a college education in the US. In particular, as Princeton economists revealed today, white middle-aged men with a high school education or less, hit disproportionately by the Great Recession, are dying of despair. Well-heeled techies obsessed with life extension have little to say about these problems, suggesting a grim blind spot: Are they really trying to extend everyone’s lives? Or just those of people already doing great?
The article's thesis is: People are dying right now in the world's richest third-world country of easily-preventable things, and this is being ignored.
"palliative care—making people in extreme pain or at the end of their life more comfortable—would much more meaningfully address the problem of death."
How does this get past the editor?
Basical it blames SV for what the world could have achieved 40 years ago, if it had the will SV does.
Couldnt agree more. The middle class if the united states is eroding away and it finally has manifested itself in the election of donald trump -- this country is in its final death throws before descending into third world levels of inequality. And yet all anyone in silicon valley wants to do is make the next chat service. Snapchat is fucking incinsequential and stupid. Tbose people in silicon valley drive past dozens of homeless on their way to work and they dont care.
There is a long and proud history of writers promptly losing all common sense whenever asked to take on the topic of changing the current situation for aging, age-related disease, and death.
If you take a utilitarian view, every problem other than aging is secondary to some degree, usually a very large degree, just by looking at the number of people negatively affected, and the level of suffering involved.
Not that people who don't write for a living appear much better than the writers on this topic. If you ask most people, they proudly declaim their willingness to age to death on the same schedule as their parents. Not that they'd follow through on that declaration were the technologies of rejuvenation available when needed, since they go to the doctor when sick, or when suffering age-related disease, and do all they can with what is available.
People in general are, for the most part, profoundly irrational and/or hypocritical when it comes to aging and the near future of real, working rejuvenation treatments. They won't help to make these technologies a reality, they decry the idea, and they will run in their multitudes to use the therapies when they arrive.
[+] [-] stupidcar|9 years ago|reply
What's more, when tech people like Zuckerberg and Thiel start trying to get involved in politics, they're crucified in the media by writers just like the author of this article, depicted as arrogant, inhuman idiots, who shouldn't dare to step outside the technology ghetto.
Articles like this having nothing to do with the issues they're supposedly championing, as the author's complete lack of insight into said issues demonstrates. Rather, they're part of a campaign by entrenched elites to resist the shift in power away from members of old industries to newer ones.
Executives from the oil, finance, legal, etc. industries have long enjoyed privileged access to power, and a smooth route from the private sector into politics. Now technology execs are starting to do the same thing, and the establishment is fighting back. This kind of astroturfing is an attempt to reassert the traditional dominance of STEM by non-STEM interests: E.g. "These people and companies should work on what we [non-STEM observers] think they should work on, because we understand the world better, and we know better than them what is needed. And we'll do whatever it takes to turn wider society against them if they don't obey us."
[+] [-] RodericDay|9 years ago|reply
I hate how Zuckerberg co-opts the optimism behind stuff like "free internet!" into bald-facedly cynical for-profit initatives like internet.org. I have nothing good to say about Thiel or Palantir.
The article captures how I feel fairly well, and I'm not an external agent pushing to retain control or whatever conspiracy you've cooked up down there in your last paragraph.
[+] [-] nickpinkston|9 years ago|reply
It seems like this is just a traditional person supporting traditional things - i.e. actual support, not astroturfed.
[+] [-] Hydraulix989|9 years ago|reply
It's not astroturfing, but it IS gaslighting.
[+] [-] ljw1001|9 years ago|reply
The second issue is that as science advances, there are fewer important problems that can be solved with a quick technology fix, and there remain a huge pile of problems that require political solutions. From what I've seen, those are much harder problems to solve, which suggests an upper limit on how far we can invent our way into a better future.
[+] [-] atemerev|9 years ago|reply
The last thing we need is increased funding of this particular circle of hell and its beneficiaries.
For the evidence of the contrarian way, observe how doctors choose to die.
Silicon Valley is right — death itself is the ultimate enemy to push away and finally conquer. And palliative care is usually nothing more than prolonged suffering.
[+] [-] medymed|9 years ago|reply
Also, switching someone to palliative care protocols often involves DNR/DNI, CMO, no transfer to MICU, etc, which reduces peri-death interventions and costs. Would enjoy hearing your opinion though.
[+] [-] jbdistaken|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SamBoogieNYC|9 years ago|reply
The thing is - people should work on what they want to work on. The things people end up working on are a reflection of what's valued by our society.
Obviously life is valued over death - and solving for longer lives is a worthy pursuit. It would be nice though, if there was more awareness around the problems facing people who aren't in SV, or a huge city, with a lot of relative wealth. That comes with diversity - of thought and actors, which the tech world could improve on.
Lastly, it's a lot more glam (and profitable) to say "I made it possible to live 'x' years longer than average" than it is to say "I made a product that helped old people live better". In my experience - VCs/"tech people" aren't interested in such a proposition - though it could be very profitable!
[+] [-] nullc|9 years ago|reply
If you found yourself nodding your head at the article then, please, I urge you to please take a bit to read Bostrom's The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant with an open mind: http://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html
[+] [-] ginko|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ArchD|9 years ago|reply
This article carries the hidden assumption that technology alone can solve inequality and social problems, but they might as well put the blame on Hollywood or some other single professional group.
[+] [-] wodencafe|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidgerard|9 years ago|reply
> But over the past two decades, deaths attributed to inequality, isolation, and addiction have risen for both men and women without a college education in the US. In particular, as Princeton economists revealed today, white middle-aged men with a high school education or less, hit disproportionately by the Great Recession, are dying of despair. Well-heeled techies obsessed with life extension have little to say about these problems, suggesting a grim blind spot: Are they really trying to extend everyone’s lives? Or just those of people already doing great?
The article's thesis is: People are dying right now in the world's richest third-world country of easily-preventable things, and this is being ignored.
[+] [-] nojvek|9 years ago|reply
Every single time I visit I feel disgusted that billions of dollars still makes no difference
[+] [-] justausername|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] aaron695|9 years ago|reply
"palliative care—making people in extreme pain or at the end of their life more comfortable—would much more meaningfully address the problem of death."
How does this get past the editor?
Basical it blames SV for what the world could have achieved 40 years ago, if it had the will SV does.
[+] [-] onmobiletemp|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fennecfoxen|9 years ago|reply
You don't catch someone in the throes of death.
[+] [-] reasonattlm|9 years ago|reply
If you take a utilitarian view, every problem other than aging is secondary to some degree, usually a very large degree, just by looking at the number of people negatively affected, and the level of suffering involved.
Not that people who don't write for a living appear much better than the writers on this topic. If you ask most people, they proudly declaim their willingness to age to death on the same schedule as their parents. Not that they'd follow through on that declaration were the technologies of rejuvenation available when needed, since they go to the doctor when sick, or when suffering age-related disease, and do all they can with what is available.
People in general are, for the most part, profoundly irrational and/or hypocritical when it comes to aging and the near future of real, working rejuvenation treatments. They won't help to make these technologies a reality, they decry the idea, and they will run in their multitudes to use the therapies when they arrive.