AN OPEN LETTER TO GOOGLE 2

 A great many people are pessimistic about Africa but these are percepts rather than observations. Africa has a huge population with a low population density, a low median age and a high population growth rate in addition to low infrastructure and few to no legacy systems. The regulatory environment is severely under-resourced in all respects and this means a low friction environment with outstanding prospects for innovation.

This is an exhortation to Google to create a new paradigm. I am very interested in being part of this solution. I have previously stated that Google has no moral obligation here. I see it as an opportunity to transition to something greater: we are currently a very primitive civilisation and I have seen no credible discourse about what comes after the information age. The data-information-knowledge pyramid is conceptually incomplete and I do not believe that wisdom falls on the same pyramid or is in any way related.

What is in it for Google? Institutional immortality and personal longevity; the evolution of information as representative currency; the moral vanguard of human evolution and longevity.

If we accept that human lives have intrinsic value and that meaningful, productive lives are desirable and that there is value in extending humanity’s footprint beyond earth and our current solar system and that this can be done without sacrifice and within a reasonable time frame then there is no good reason not to attempt it.

“All progress is due to unreasonable men.”

I have no interest in making the rules and/or enforcing them. Truth be told, I have little interest in rules as it is. I have some interest in the purposes that rules serve especially if those purposes are important.

I believe that human lives are important and that social capital is important and that social networks are considerably more important than most realise. Human evolution is too slow and represents an existential bottleneck that needs strategic foresight and concerted action.

I am not a good Samaritan. I am a medical professional who is no longer satisfied saving one life at a time. I do not have the resources to change the world but I believe in the power of collective interest and collective action to realise the miraculous. Our current collective ability to orient and adapt is woefully inadequate and is sorely in need of a new paradigm.

AN OPEN LETTER TO GOOGLE

 There is no theoretical limit to human lifespan. Given this, humanity's most essential task is to extend productive longevity. Doing so will necessarily require improvements in energy use and efficiency, computation and information use and efficiency.

The Kardashev scale can be extended from energy to information. These two are intertwined and mutually reinforcing with the advantages that information evolution is easier and less costly and so a natural driver.

Google's mission to organise the world's information is admirable but somewhat lacking because its focus is efficiency rather than effectiveness. Information is to be used and its value can be inferred from its utility in driving the overarching goal of longevity and its supporting goals of energy and computation.

Google is neither the world’s saviour nor its protector and so it has no obligation to extend or modify its stated mission, but I believe that its founders did and do have the intention of making the world a better place to the best of their ability. We should in no way be limited to our past selves.

Covid provides us with an opportunity to drive the virtualisation of all health and medical information because of its public utility now when all systems are overwhelmed. And Africa which lacks the bloated over-regulated detrimentally enforced healthcare policy framework of much of the world can benefit enormously from an electronic platform for healthcare that is available to both consumers and providers at no cost.

Google excels at freeware in exchange for large datasets. It is a technology-driven organisation with a good reputation and the means to scale.

Africa lacks many things, but it does not lack poverty, disease and disability.

So, Google, would you at all be interested in extending your mission and in so doing make an appreciable difference to the burden of disease and disability in Africa?