I've spent 8 yrs researching a bit into the area where Daniel Ek is doing his startup because of a personal health issue and so i think this is a powerful move in the right direction. ie. i think scanning the human body and using AI to crunch the data and draw out the patterns will draw out amazing conclusions that go against what we currently think and believe.
ie. i can do the same to a certain extent just visually by looking at a person's body and face... not too differently from what an osteopath can do. Because its just patterns that you start to see over a period of years.
The problem i have with his startup is.. ok so you find the indicator.. and then what? what do you do about it?
And this is where im quite sure they'll fall flat. Because modern health still doesnt know what to do about it. Pharmaceuticals, surgeries and the like are not the answer. They address symptoms.
When Daniel figures that part out.. hopefully he will begin on what i consider to be the true challenge. Understanding the root cause. Which is something i personally have spent the last 8 yrs investigating.
I saw a presentation by Mark Mills where he showed that the amount of copper, lithium, platinum group metals, neodymium etc would require 5x to 10x increased mining from present levels in order for Net Zero to happen. And that would induce 1000% or greater costs if it is even possible. Nor is his presentation the only one: I have seen reports from McKinsey showing multiples of above resources needed per unit of replacement (i.e. EV replacing ICE).
Needless to say: these so called EV improvements do nothing to change this reality. Even if incremental efficiency improvements do occur (and they should), the fundamental underlying resource constraints driving input price increases will prevent mass adoption. That's because percentage of these metals in ore, as an industry, is falling: copper dropped from average 4% ore to 1% ore from 2000 to 2020. This means 4x more ore processed per unit of copper output, in case it isn't obvious, and corresponding 400% greater cost of operations.
As usual - hype about new stuff when the reality is that the old stuff just isn't what it used to be. The resource constraints don't even address the grid issues: stability as well as the 5x grid scale-up and $15 trillion of storage cost that Mills estimates is needed for full electrification. I have seen other calculations where just converting all road transport to electricity (vs ICE) would require a 60% increase of the entire grid by itself, so 5x because of intermittent sources like solar PV and wind isn't the least bit unreasonable.
Love this, Dan. Thanks for sharing!
I've spent 8 yrs researching a bit into the area where Daniel Ek is doing his startup because of a personal health issue and so i think this is a powerful move in the right direction. ie. i think scanning the human body and using AI to crunch the data and draw out the patterns will draw out amazing conclusions that go against what we currently think and believe.
ie. i can do the same to a certain extent just visually by looking at a person's body and face... not too differently from what an osteopath can do. Because its just patterns that you start to see over a period of years.
The problem i have with his startup is.. ok so you find the indicator.. and then what? what do you do about it?
And this is where im quite sure they'll fall flat. Because modern health still doesnt know what to do about it. Pharmaceuticals, surgeries and the like are not the answer. They address symptoms.
When Daniel figures that part out.. hopefully he will begin on what i consider to be the true challenge. Understanding the root cause. Which is something i personally have spent the last 8 yrs investigating.
And its complex as hell.
Re: EVs
I saw a presentation by Mark Mills where he showed that the amount of copper, lithium, platinum group metals, neodymium etc would require 5x to 10x increased mining from present levels in order for Net Zero to happen. And that would induce 1000% or greater costs if it is even possible. Nor is his presentation the only one: I have seen reports from McKinsey showing multiples of above resources needed per unit of replacement (i.e. EV replacing ICE).
Needless to say: these so called EV improvements do nothing to change this reality. Even if incremental efficiency improvements do occur (and they should), the fundamental underlying resource constraints driving input price increases will prevent mass adoption. That's because percentage of these metals in ore, as an industry, is falling: copper dropped from average 4% ore to 1% ore from 2000 to 2020. This means 4x more ore processed per unit of copper output, in case it isn't obvious, and corresponding 400% greater cost of operations.
As usual - hype about new stuff when the reality is that the old stuff just isn't what it used to be. The resource constraints don't even address the grid issues: stability as well as the 5x grid scale-up and $15 trillion of storage cost that Mills estimates is needed for full electrification. I have seen other calculations where just converting all road transport to electricity (vs ICE) would require a 60% increase of the entire grid by itself, so 5x because of intermittent sources like solar PV and wind isn't the least bit unreasonable.