CarbonIceDragon

Not to mention, even if it proves satisfactory to the existing userbase, any new users will start with no history to draw inferences from, wouldn't that tend to imply that any existing users unaffected are essentially "grandfathered in", but with the same privacy concerns for everyone else in the long run?

It does say "as a baseline" so presumably its just there for comparison's sake

I wouldn't say print books have no place today, it can't be assumed that one will have access to electronics in all circumstances after all and many people do prefer physical media, but it's definitely an indictment of the sort of cheaply made basically disposable books made in larger quantities than needed to fill their current niche, and of the way unwanted (by their owners) but usable goods are dealt with in general.

Sure, but it is rather a waste of paper, ink, manufacturing and transportation capacity etc. It's not the only instance of this of course, waste of unsold inventory exists in just about any industry that sells physical products, but it's still frustrating to see it.

But that's Finland

What does Norway have to do with it?

You misunderstand, I am not saying "make sure he spends it responsibly". Nobody has has "made" him do this at all, and I didn't advocate for a policy of doing so. What I'm saying is that I don't think this particular use is worthy of condemnation the way his other actions are, because in the long run I think that this specific thing will end up benefiting people other than him no matter if he intends for that to happen or not (even if the American healthcare system prevents access, which I'm not confident it will do completely, not every country has that system, and it's statistically improbable that the US will have it forever, and research results are both durable and cross borders). That sentiment isn't saying that it excuses his wealth, just that I think people are seeing only the negatives in this merely because of the association with Altman's name and ignoring the potential benefits out of cynicism. The concept is just as valid with him funding it as it would be had he been condemning it instead.

The response to something beneficial being only available to the rich shouldn't be to avoid developing that thing, it should be to make it available to everyone. The failures of the US healthcare and economic systems don't suddenly make developing new medical techniques a bad thing. Human augmentation is another issue from curing genetic disease, though I'd personally argue that wouldn't be a bad cause either, with the same caveat about it availability. It at least has more potential to improve somebody's life somewhere down the line than just buying a yacht with his ill gotten gains or some other useless rich person toy would.

I'm not sure I get the universal negativity to this. Like sure, Altman sucks as a person, and an individual having enough money to significantly bankroll research like this is a sign of an economic failure, but surely curing or preventing genetic disease is just about the most uncontroversial use human genetic modification could have?

Microbes are still made of chemicals, it's just different chemicals

and not to mention, the tools required to create it (maybe not the best examples, but still) are already in the possession of virtually everybody.

Hmm, that is fair. I would suggest making votes not federate at all in that case, except doing that would make single person or very small instances effectively be limited to sorting by new