Aditya Sinha on state paternalism: “A reversible policy is one the state can revisit when evidence demands it. An irreversible cohort ban is one the next generation must inherit, whether it consents or not. A regulator that eschews paternalism need not give up rule-making. It would only need to recognize that citizens may be ignorant but that does not make them foolish. Ignorance can be corrected but the informed choices of adults should be respected. To override these preferences, unwise as they may be, is to treat them as a means to the state’s preferred outcomes, rather than the authors of their own lives.”
Sam Altman: “I think there have been four great moments for platform enablement of startups at mass scale: there was the Internet, there was cloud, there was mobile, and then there was AI…Startups generally win when there is a big platform shift and you can do things with a faster cycle time and much less capital than before, that’s a classic way startups can beat big companies.”
WSJ: “Sabastian Sawe’s mind-bending, sub-two hour (1:59:30) performance at London marathon—followed closely by a possibly even more astonishing 1:59:41 run by first-time marathoner Yomif Kejelcha—has provoked excitable discussion on how this once presumed-unbreakable 2-hour mark fell, twice, in one day. Much of the buzz has centered on the featherweight, carbon-fiber plated Adidas running shoes both Sawe and Kejelcha wore. These sneakers, which the Journal’s Rachel Bachman recently wrote about, weigh a mere 3.4 ounces in a men’s size 9—less than a bar of Irish Spring. The weight and carbon springiness combine for a formidable weapon: the “supershoe.” Less known-but similarly compelling—is the brainy leap that’s happening with my best sport, eating. In grueling endurance sports like cycling, and now running, athletes are gobbling down unprecedented amounts of sugary carbohydrates, both in training and competition, via fast-acting gels and bottles loaded with glucose and fructose.”
NYTimes: “Many scientists now believe that mastering cellular rejuvenation may be the key to transforming how long and how well we live. Some hope that they might eventually be able to harness the process to cure hundreds of diseases, extend life by decades and even fend off aging entirely. Over the past 20 years, they have learned how to trigger rejuvenation in the lab, achieving a series of breakthroughs that have made that future feel tantalizingly close. Scientists have taken skin cells from 90-year-olds and restored them to youth in a petri dish. They have rejuvenated diseased mice, turning their gray hair back to black and strengthening their muscles. They have taken failing kidneys out of rats, rejuvenated them in a lab and successfully reimplanted them; they are now moving on to pigs. In March, the first safety trials to test rejuvenation therapy on humans began with an attempt to reverse disease in the eyes and cure glaucoma.”
