Swipe navigation in mobile Safari is a problem. Lichess.org recently did a very nice redesign that made it more mobile friendly. But the user can’t drag and drop pieces from the leftmost file because it’s interpreted as navigation. Safari doesn’t allow the webpage to listen for this event so there’s no way to call ‘preventDefault’. Basically unfixable if you want to use the whole screen as far as I know.
It was dusky evening, the clock knobs pointing at the two numbers before midnight all the while a tiny light serendipitously blinking in the distance. It was that moment in time I knew I was about to throw up reading yet another BB article ...
As someone with Fuchs Dystrophy (which is slowly blinding me), and writing style aside, I'd like to see the aging billionaires of Web 2.0 throw money at more ideas like this instead of at Hail Mary passes to immortality. Is that so much to ask for? I think it's realistic to live to 100 with 90+ good years. Without fundamental breakthroughs in science, it seems like a hard trek to get beyond that.
Instead of relying on billionaire's whims I'd rather we taxed them more and used CDC's and NIH's epidemiology and scientist's opinions to fund research that benefits society the most.
You want to tax all 536 billionaires? Capital gains perhaps?
I’m not exactly sure why everyone middle class and above wouldn’t want to pay a little more for more medical research. We’ll all likely benefit. The ”let’s just tax the rich” is only going to get us so far.
Income tax is also hardly the only tax wealthy people pay. It's probably the least interesting tax to consider.
I keep reading people talking about billionaires "hoarding" their money, as if it was just sitting in a vault like Scrooge McDuck and not being reinvested in countless businesses, while only a small percentage is going towards their 'luxury' lifestyle (which they also assume goes all into useless flashy cars and fashion like lower-tier wealthy celebrities they see on TV who also frequently happen to end up broke... for some reason).
We should tax that consumption, not the investments the return value and therefore jobs, technology, science, etc to society). Or focus on the far wealthier corporations who pay no direct tax through various financial trickery and/or incentives to off-shore it instead of keeping it locally to spend (although most still pay tons in taxes through other means).
neither income nor consumption should be taxed, instead, consider taxing that which we do not produce via the work of our own hands, such as land value (which ultimately comes from nature/the productivity of the surrounding community).
Consumption should very much be taxed considering it is the simplest way to claw back all the environmental externalities in an ever polluted world with no one willing to take responsibility.
if you really want to do that levy a carbon tax or a packaging tax or something more direct
a consumption tax would also penalize transactions that might decrease environmental impact e.g. solar panels, or of tools used in the construction of a composting toilet, those being easy, obvious examples.
So I agree if a 1 percenter is paying 37.3% on their income, they are paying enough.
But that's not how it works for the top of that tier once you're living primarily off complicated capital gains and financial instruments, and it's disingenuous IMO to lump this all together.
Even my conservative (mostly) tax-hating friends are not happy seeing occasional individuals pay 5% or less, which they do, through a variety of tax loopholes and shelters. And because of this, the richest Americans, the top 0.001%, on average, pay at a lower rate than the rest of the 1%.
I said I prefer a financial transaction tax. That is not an income tax, but something that taxes (at a reasonable rate) the churn in our stock markets. It greatly dissuades front-running and HFT.
It hits the corporates and rich where they actually care (passive gains), while not increasing the tax load of anyone's income (active renumeration).
The CDC and NIH undoubtedly do great work, but they are one model and thus a single point of failure.
I'd much rather see dozens of more or less eccentric billionaires put money into other things and other ways of organizing and incentivizing research and problem solving.
"If it was up to the NIH to cure polio through a centrally directed program instead of independent investigator driven discovery, you'd have the best iron lung in the world, but not a polio vaccine." -Samuel Broder, former Director of the National Cancer Institute
Publisher Gerard Piel credited [Basil] O'Connor with a "unique social invention: a permanently self-sustaining source of funds for the support of research — the voluntary health organization." With a centralized administration, state and local chapters and a large corps of volunteers, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis became the prototype for dozens of similar foundations.
To be fair, if you cure aging, you drastically reduce (or make non-existent) the incidence rate of most diseases, since they tend to appear as you get older. I think curing aging is the ultimately smart thing to do.
Assuming that aging is “curable” and not some fanciful daydream to avoid thinking about dying.
But again, it’s just perspective I guess. I don’t care when some rich dude buys a basketball team. If this is how they want to spend their money then go nuts.
Shredding a piece of paper is a physical process and that’s a tough one to reverse without a lot of scotch tape and a lot of patience. And in the end it’s still not the same piece of paper you started with.
I never said it is easy. Even you do not believe it's entirely impossible, right? Let's wait 100 years and see. I'm fairly positive I'll be still alive and so might you.
Yes, I believe it is entirely impossible. If I am somehow wrong and it is possible it’s only going to accelerate society’s descent into a true sci-if style dystopia.
I hope to god I am not alive in 100 years. The earth is going to be absolute shit by then.
Hmm. Why do you think so? Wouldn't such stance among you and your peers actually perform as a self-fulfilling prophecy and why not do something about it?
There’s no need to do anything about anything. I mean just look at the world. It’s obvious that there’s no reversing global warming. We just like our modern lives too much to make any significant sacrifices. There are also too many people as it is so we’re just going to keep ratcheting that number up by helping people live longer with this miracle anti-aging treatment?
I have 0 interest in living longer than is “natural.” Honestly I don’t even want to live that long! I mean what’s the point, live longer to just barely keep getting by and keep working as long as possible?
What is the point? How many people have you talked today? Everyone outside has an interesting story to share. The world is a fascinating place that should never cease to amaze you.
Honestly, IMHO your stance borders with depression, please get that checked.
For example, we could continue development of nuclear technology and solar arrays. Both of these technologies are guaranteed to be a success (the principle is proven) and offer solutions to most of our energy-related problems. We need to push harder! And I'm sure we can do it. Cultured meat and vertical farming is going to help solving our environmental crisis and will free significant space for new and old population.
That's a big if. We've spent millions of year evolving to last long enough to reproduce and care for our young. Beyond that, our bodies break down in all sorts of ways ("aging"), and "curing" all of them seems unlikely. Shortening telomeres, reduced muscle and bone mass, slower metabolism, macular degeneration, worn cartilage, arterial plaque...
The ultimately smart thing to do would be to make our current 80 or so years of life as healthy as possible.
From what I have learned the most important cause of aging is cancer defense. As we get older DNA gets more and more damaged and cancer a bigger and bigger risk. To prevent cancer, the body slows down cell division. But cell division is very important. It's through cell division that our body renews itself and heals. With a slower division rate we become frail.
So if we could strike at the root cause, and heal DNA damage, then we wouldn't have to worry about cancer, and we would be able to turn cell division up and become more youthful. Or alternatively if we could develop better cancer cures, we could turn cell division up and deal with problems as they arise.
Now DNA damage isn't the only thing we would have to fix. For instance some poisons and junk cannot be eliminated by the body and stay with us permanently. We would need to find ways to clean them up.
For some reason people see aging as an illness, some unfortunate byproduct of natural processes.
It is not. It is tuned to pefection. You are _made_ to die, it is builtin, it is a feature. Notice how from 0 to 20 you don't "age", you just get stronger and better. How? Some species are considered young in their 40s.
You consume enough nutrients and energy to constantly fix yourself. You won't. Why? You need to die for evolution to work. Just die already.
Elders' need for care may have burdened the success of their living descendants. In this sense we may have evolved to die.
A counterargument is that past generations lived too rarely to the point of natural death ("Intrinsic senescence") to experience selective pressure. I feel the burden of proof is in showing this.
An interesting discussion is whether or how an encoded trait that's negatively selected for is different than one that was never factored into the equation.
Are transplants of donor corneas not an option? I have keratoconus, and both my current corneas are transplants, done 21 and 26 years ago. Donor corneas are one of the easiest organ transplants there is to deal with, as there's no life-long anti-rejection medication needed. The unusual distortions caused by the donor corneas' attachment (stitches, scar tissue, etc.) are hard for standard glasses lenses to fix completely, but it sure beats blindness!
Not knowing what Gore-Tex I thought it was a TeX variant for the vision impaired. According to Wikipedia: "Gore-Tex is a waterproof, breathable fabric membrane and registered trademark of W. L. Gore and Associates."
Yeah, it is a name for several types of fabric used in a lot of outdoor equipment. They all claim to be both waterproof and breathable, but in reality, they are mostly either one or the other. Waterproof Gore-Tex will fill with condensation, and breathable Gore-Tex will soak through. Pick your poison.
There are tradeoffs between waterproofing (hydrostatic head measured in mm) and breathability (measured in g/m^2/24h), but "one or the other" isn't really accurate, there are products that do very well at both.
I remember when their clothing line came out decades ago. These days I have what is essentially a Gore-Tex aorta attached to my heart. I'll bet they make a difference in eye repair. They're a pretty interesting company.
Interesting that you mention this. My gut reaction to the article was along the lines of “smart rich maker doing some crazy innovative shit in an area totally unrelated from what they are known for”. Is there anything specific about Gore-Tex that would make you happy that they are pursuing the problem vs some other rich nerd?
Not that rich nerds pursuing problems is a bad thing, I just want to know more about Gore-Tex specifically.
No, goretex and Teflon are made with an intermediate applicator chemical called PFOA, which is found in high quantities in carpets, wax paper, and some cleaning products and has been dumped in water sources near chemical factories. Its presence is negligible in clothing and cookware.
You say 'No' and then do not refute my statement, Just make a minor nitpicky remark (that its actually PFOA we're talking about) and some other true but ancillary remarks.
Existing artificial corneas have great difficulties with biocompatibility and more critically stability of the interface between the implant and the host eye tissues. Currently donor corneas are a much better option for most where this is available.
If they can crack the issues this will make a difference, but they are not easy issues to solve. Corneal blindness is important cause of blindness worldwide, with a lot of the burden in places where corneal transplants are not available or not practical.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 104 ms ] threadhttps://www.allaboutvision.com/conditions/fuchs-corneal-dyst...
I’m not exactly sure why everyone middle class and above wouldn’t want to pay a little more for more medical research. We’ll all likely benefit. The ”let’s just tax the rich” is only going to get us so far.
I personally prefer a small financial transaction tax.
The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual income taxes (37.3 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (30.5 percent).
The top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97 percent of total individual income taxes.
The top 1% was 1.4 million returns in 2016. The top 50% is 140.9 million returns.
How much is "fair"?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-14/top-3-of-...
I keep reading people talking about billionaires "hoarding" their money, as if it was just sitting in a vault like Scrooge McDuck and not being reinvested in countless businesses, while only a small percentage is going towards their 'luxury' lifestyle (which they also assume goes all into useless flashy cars and fashion like lower-tier wealthy celebrities they see on TV who also frequently happen to end up broke... for some reason).
We should tax that consumption, not the investments the return value and therefore jobs, technology, science, etc to society). Or focus on the far wealthier corporations who pay no direct tax through various financial trickery and/or incentives to off-shore it instead of keeping it locally to spend (although most still pay tons in taxes through other means).
a consumption tax would also penalize transactions that might decrease environmental impact e.g. solar panels, or of tools used in the construction of a composting toilet, those being easy, obvious examples.
But that's not how it works for the top of that tier once you're living primarily off complicated capital gains and financial instruments, and it's disingenuous IMO to lump this all together.
Even my conservative (mostly) tax-hating friends are not happy seeing occasional individuals pay 5% or less, which they do, through a variety of tax loopholes and shelters. And because of this, the richest Americans, the top 0.001%, on average, pay at a lower rate than the rest of the 1%.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldurkheimer/2018/03/01/0-...
It hits the corporates and rich where they actually care (passive gains), while not increasing the tax load of anyone's income (active renumeration).
The CDC and NIH undoubtedly do great work, but they are one model and thus a single point of failure.
I'd much rather see dozens of more or less eccentric billionaires put money into other things and other ways of organizing and incentivizing research and problem solving.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_of_Dimes
But isn’t that why aging rich people dream of immortality? It’s the cure to the “disease” they have.
I guess it just boils down to the simple fact that most people are pretty selfish.
But again, it’s just perspective I guess. I don’t care when some rich dude buys a basketball team. If this is how they want to spend their money then go nuts.
I hope to god I am not alive in 100 years. The earth is going to be absolute shit by then.
I have 0 interest in living longer than is “natural.” Honestly I don’t even want to live that long! I mean what’s the point, live longer to just barely keep getting by and keep working as long as possible?
Honestly, IMHO your stance borders with depression, please get that checked.
For example, we could continue development of nuclear technology and solar arrays. Both of these technologies are guaranteed to be a success (the principle is proven) and offer solutions to most of our energy-related problems. We need to push harder! And I'm sure we can do it. Cultured meat and vertical farming is going to help solving our environmental crisis and will free significant space for new and old population.
That's a big if. We've spent millions of year evolving to last long enough to reproduce and care for our young. Beyond that, our bodies break down in all sorts of ways ("aging"), and "curing" all of them seems unlikely. Shortening telomeres, reduced muscle and bone mass, slower metabolism, macular degeneration, worn cartilage, arterial plaque...
The ultimately smart thing to do would be to make our current 80 or so years of life as healthy as possible.
So if we could strike at the root cause, and heal DNA damage, then we wouldn't have to worry about cancer, and we would be able to turn cell division up and become more youthful. Or alternatively if we could develop better cancer cures, we could turn cell division up and deal with problems as they arise.
Now DNA damage isn't the only thing we would have to fix. For instance some poisons and junk cannot be eliminated by the body and stay with us permanently. We would need to find ways to clean them up.
It is not. It is tuned to pefection. You are _made_ to die, it is builtin, it is a feature. Notice how from 0 to 20 you don't "age", you just get stronger and better. How? Some species are considered young in their 40s.
You consume enough nutrients and energy to constantly fix yourself. You won't. Why? You need to die for evolution to work. Just die already.
A counterargument is that past generations lived too rarely to the point of natural death ("Intrinsic senescence") to experience selective pressure. I feel the burden of proof is in showing this.
An interesting discussion is whether or how an encoded trait that's negatively selected for is different than one that was never factored into the equation.
As a mortal, I'm all for it!
Not that rich nerds pursuing problems is a bad thing, I just want to know more about Gore-Tex specifically.
https://youtu.be/6veeTrdEyek
Chemicals used to make Teflon, which cause cancer, deformity, etc, have been found in the blood of pretty much everyone worldwide.
If they can crack the issues this will make a difference, but they are not easy issues to solve. Corneal blindness is important cause of blindness worldwide, with a lot of the burden in places where corneal transplants are not available or not practical.