X-no-Archive:yes
This is a challenging issue.
For any project like this to work, it has to attract participants. This is
reflected for instance in the choices of platforms supported, since would-be
efforts have to make it fairly easy for users to participate. Perhaps those
who participate in distributed.net can share some information on the growth
and penetration that effort has seen, and why they think those numbers are
how things are. Imagine for a moment that instead of Intel sponsoring their
"cure" effort, it was Microsoft. Do you think that the reaction would be the
same? Or, if it were the OSS community, and the software was open-source,
how might that affect one's perceptions? Or the FDA itself? Who might you
not entirely trust with your CPU cycles?
How can these efforts attract participants? Obviously, by championing an
issue about which one cares. I don't think a stand-alone project attempting
to cure the heartbreak of psoriasis would enjoy quite a groundswell of
support that research on cancer and its treatments can attract (I find it
interesting that there are now at least two such efforts going). And, I
think that participants have to believe that their contribution will somehow
matter. Something has to attract us.
Parabon's answer was to promise to offer relatively small prizes for
participants. Is this a good thing, or a bad one? I am reminded of the
growth and apparent popularity of the "iwon.com" portal. Again, participants
have to believe that the effort could have some chance of success or some
meaningful result (I run seti@home in part because of my interest in
distributed processing while doubting that they will find a radio signal
from intelligent life elsewhere). So, to matter, Parabon has to continue to
exist, while not being funded by tax dollars or having a war chest of
profits from another commercial venture. So it becomes a commercial venture.
One of the ugly sides of this is that they could choose to have their engine
process data about most anything from things non-medical to things
personally objectionable (I'm sure we can all imagine efforts we would
definitely NOT want to assist). And chances are my attention to this will be
too analogous to my PC usage - none of my own personally useful cycles will
be spent on it. Apparently, Parabon needs to address this concern, since
they are in fact hired to crunch numbers for medical research, and users may
not want to participate in any other efforts.
I am reminded of the recent discussion of for-profit company's use of organ
donors. We think of hearts and livers and lungs being used to save a life,
or corneas being used to greatly improve someone's quality of life. We do
not think of bone being ground down for dental filling, and the body being
stripped of anything anyone can find a use for, which seems grim, macabre,
and disrespectful to the deceased and their families. These for-profit
companies point out that they have to make a profit to do what they do, and
they are doing more good than non-profit efforts, because they can do so
with their profits.
It is a challenging issue.
Greg Stigers
http://www.cgiusa.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Wirt Atmar [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2001 6:19 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: OT: SETI as opposed to Cancer Research
Glenn, the family curmudgeon, replies:
> Until someone comes up with a better approach, I'll stick with SETI.
> Just my opinion.
The "better" approach:
http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20010403corp.htm
Wirt Atmar
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