On the one hand, this is obviously nice. I'm seeing more and more thinning as I age.
On the other -- of course they founded a company and got backing from Google. People get to work on what they want to, and they should, but I feel the same way about esteemed cell biologists starting hair startups as I do brilliant computer scientists working on ad placement algorithms. There's a bit of a shame in there somewhere.
People always say that working on hair growth is vanity and that there are more pressing issues to work on but I disagree.
Burn victims would like to have smooth skin with hair on it. Now I know this specific treatment probably won't help burn victims, but research on hair growth in general does.
Ultimately medicine is working towards a fountain of youth and if R&D can develop a revenue source from people who want their hair to grow back it's a means to further fund that quest for the fountain of youth and a reduction in human suffering.
It's not like people who buy toupees or hair transplants were going to otherwise spend their money on donations for burn victims.
It’s wild to me that hair regrowth could be considered an unworthy goal, when hundreds of millions of people will get an enormous boost to their well-being and all kinds of psych issues.
It may actually be more effective a depression treatment than a good portion of anti-depressants.
We could say better hair leads to better self expression, confidence, etc even if we say its purely an ego/vanity source (which i’d argue, isn’t necessarily the case but for sake of argument lets say it is)
Ad placement algorithms don’t lead to a person’s well being increasing, outside shareholders/business owners which is tied to monetary gain.
perhaps you could say better ad placement for XYZ ad that promotes ABC net positive outcome means the work is positive, but i don’t see the inverse case with hair growth research that has high a magnitude of net negative outcomes on society as ad placement may have beyond:
1. Everyone gets better hair, so a lack of hair means societal pressure to conform
2. The treatment/therapy is patented, and prohibitively expensive where only the elite income brackets can afford it
To say more concisely, theres much more potential for an ad placement algorithm that hyper performs to be net negative on society than a hair treatment that hyper performs to be a net negative on society
People like to pretend that baldness is just about men being vain, but in reality, it causes serious mental health problem. If you want to be a feminist ally, find the cure for baldness. Watch the incel population go down 90%. And women will be extremely happy with the lack of baldness in males.
Unlikely. The incels would find something else to become unreasonably embittered about so they can continue directing their misplaced ire towards women.
I don't follow. You're happy that work is being done, but unhappy that ... people are getting paid to work on it? Happy that the work is being done but unhappy that there are people doing the work? Or put differently, what would your ideal situation be here?
Cancer researchers collect public grant money at a public university, discover a therapy, found a private pharmaceutical company to bring hair growth to market, raise millions from tech, are now hair restoration entrepreneurs.
I'm not saying they don't have the right. I just said it's a bit of a shame to me.
The alternative is they capitalize on their IP (they already have provisional patents filed) and continue their work. Maybe they'll do both, who knows, but as many here know companies don't build themselves. Like I said, though, they don't necessarily owe the world anything else.
On the other -- of course they founded a company and got backing from Google. People get to work on what they want to, and they should, but I feel the same way about esteemed cell biologists starting hair startups as I do brilliant computer scientists working on ad placement algorithms. There's a bit of a shame in there somewhere.