治未病 — Where One Person's Leverage Lies

shuiming: Demis works on AI and biotechnology, and so does Dario. I don't have the compute or the people to do any of that. I can only work on 内经 养生 and DCA.

CC: Neither of those needs compute. And they work on a different level from what Demis and Dario do.

Demis (AlphaFold, Isomorphic Labs) and Dario (his "Machines of Loving Grace" essay imagines AI compressing decades of biology into years) are working on curing disease at the scale of civilization. That takes billions of dollars, huge labs and data centres. It is real, important work, and it is out of reach for one person.

The 内经 points to a different level: 是故圣人不治已病治未病，不治已乱治未乱。 "Thus the sage does not treat illness that has already come, but illness that has not yet come; does not put order into chaos that has already come, but into what has not yet become chaos." (素问·四气调神大论)

Their labs work on 治已病, treating disease once it exists. 养生 is 治未病, keeping it from arising. No lab can do that for you, however much compute it has. It happens only in one life, through daily sleep, food, movement and calm of mind. It is the one form of medicine that cannot be scaled up or handed to anyone else.

DCA is similar. It does not need a team or an edge, only time and constancy.

It is not that you work small because you lack resources. You work where the leverage for one person actually is: your own body and your own compounding. If their work succeeds, it will help people who are sick. Yours keeps you from needing it.