The Techno-Futuristic Philosophy Behind Elon Musk’s Mania

"…The balance of evidence is such that it would appear unreasonable not to assign a substantial probability to the hypothesis that an existential disaster will do us in," Bostrom wrote, adding later in the paper, "With technology, we have some chance, although the greatest risks now turn out to be those generated by technology itself."

Whether or not Musk read the paper, he has echoed Bostrom and other proponents of longtermism, including the philosopher William MacAskill. MacAskill became something of a celebrity intellectual among technologists and financiers, to whom he preached an "earning-to-give" approach to philanthropy. Sam Bankman-Fried, the now disgraced crypto magnate, was one of his biggest acolytes. Musk touted MacAskill's 2022 book, "What We Owe the Future," saying on X — the social media network that he owns — that the explication of longtermist thinking is "a close match to my philosophy."

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https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/29/business/elon-musk-longtermism-effective-altruism-doge.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Brain (& heart) drain

Dr. Timothy Johnson, longtime network TV medical reporter and founding editor of the Harvard Medical School Health Letter, says that by cutting more than $1.8 billion in grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Trump administration risks destroying U.S. medical research infrastructure and prompting a "brain drain" of scientists to other countries. https://cbsn.ws/4jgJp6I

The President Will Destroy You Now

"…This is going to completely kneecap biomedical research in this country," Jennifer Zeitzer, the deputy executive director at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, told Science magazine. Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association, warned that cuts will "totally destroy the nation's public health infrastructure."

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https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/20/opinion/trump-musk-doge-government.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

The best in us

Born on this day in 1872, Bertrand Russell lived nearly a century, through two world wars, and won the Nobel Prize for his timeless writing that champions the best in us: our kindness, our critical thinking, our freedom of being. His immortal wisdom on how to grow old and what makes a fulfilling life:

https://www.themarginalian.org/2018/07/03/how-to-grow-old-bertrand-russell/

Go to Mars, Never Die and Other Big Tech Pipe Dreams

… One prominent paper concluded that $100 spent on A.I. safety saves one trillion future lives — making it "far more" valuable "than the near-future benefits" of distributing anti-malarial bed nets. "For a strong longtermist," Becker writes, "investing in a Silicon Valley A.I. safety company is a more worthwhile humanitarian endeavor than saving lives in the tropics." 

Tech billionaires' pet projects can sound deliriously futuristic, but lurking underneath them all is an obsession that is very old. It's the primal fear of death, encased in a shiny new rocket ship. Becker quotes other writers who have noticed how Silicon Valley, with its omnivorous appetite, has turned existential angst into yet another input. "Space has become the ultimate imperial ambition," the scholar Kate Crawford writes in "Atlas of A.I.," "symbolizing an escape from the limits of Earth, bodies and regulation." In "God, Human, Animal, Machine" (2021), Meghan O'Gieblyn describes how technology took over the domain of religion and philosophy: "All the eternal questions have become engineering problems."

The "ideology of technological salvation" that Becker identifies can therefore be understood, too, as a desperate attempt to deal with despair. Amid his sharp criticisms of the tech figures he writes about is a resolute call for compassion. He encourages us not to get hung up on galaxies far, far away but to pay more attention to our own fragile planet and the frail humans around us.

"We are here now, in a world filled with more than we could ever reasonably ask for," Becker writes. "We can take joy in that, and find satisfaction and meaning in making this world just a little bit better for everyone and everything on it, regardless of the ultimate fate of the cosmos."

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/23/books/review/more-everything-forever-adam-becker.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Baby Is Healed With World’s First Personalized Gene-Editing Treatment

The technique used on a 9½-month-old boy with a rare condition has the potential to help people with thousands of other uncommon genetic diseases.

...The researchers emphasized the role government funding played in the development.

The work, they said, began decades ago with federal funding for basic research on bacterial immune systems. That led eventually, with more federal support, to the discovery of CRISPR. Federal investment in sequencing the human genome made it possible to identify KJ's mutation. U.S. funding supported Dr. Liu's lab and its editing discovery. A federal program to study gene editing supported Dr. Musunuru's research. Going along in parallel was federally funded work that led to an understanding of KJ's disease.

"I don't think this could have happened in any country other than the U.S.," Dr. Urnov said...


https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/15/health/gene-editing-personalized-rare-disorders.html?smid=em-share

A Longevity Expert’s 5 Tips for Aging Well

"There are simple steps you can take to improve your mental health and delay disease, Dr. Topol said, such as spending time outdoors. One study found that subjects who spent at least 30 minutes a week in outdoor green spaces experienced lower rates of depression and high blood pressure.

Studies show people with active social lives typically have a lower risk of mortality and disease. The Wellderly adults in the Scripps study also tended to have rich social lives, Dr. Topol wrote in "Super Agers.""
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/06/well/live/eric-topol-longevity-tips.html#:~:text=There%20are%20simple,in%20%E2%80%9CSuper%20Agers.%E2%80%9D