ShannonFriedman comments on Who Wants To Start An Important Startup? - LessWrong

41 Post author: ShannonFriedman 16 August 2012 08:02PM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 14 August 2012 11:33:31PM 17 points [-]

Some non-nitwit (actual-economic-value-generating) startups I've heard proposed lately by people in this or related communities:

  • Kevin Fischer is interested in identifying useful sub-chemicals in certain legal psychoactive plants. Anyone with biotech, chemical-identifying training would be useful to him.
  • Mike Darwin (not LW-style rationalist, but cryonicist) says that his research and numerous other papers show that melatonin, among some other chemicals, is very effective at preventing cerebral-reperfusion ischemic injury which is the real killer in heart attacks and strokes, and for which there are apparently not currently approved medications.
  • Zvi Mowshowitz is now trying to refound a startup to provide evidence-based, rationalist-filtered medical care - evidence-based doctors as opposed to just evidence-based medical research that often gets ignored by actual doctors.
  • John Schloendorn is the most competent biotech guy I know. He was literally trying to cure cancer - by trying to duplicate the abilities of a 100%-cancer-immune strain of mice, in humans - when his startup ran out of money; and he has a lot of other low-hanging fruits on his list as well.
Comment author: ShannonFriedman 16 August 2012 04:11:44AM 4 points [-]

Colby asks - can you elaborate more about meletonin? What is he thinking should be made? How can this be turned profitable?

Is he saying that we should look into melatonin's effects more? What are you getting at? Can you explain in more detail about how this could be a business idea?