Longreads

[Not single-page] A reflection on a mother's life, and how advancements in medicine have extended our life expectancy, and have made it more difficult for us to die:

"ME: 'Maybe you could outline the steps you think we might take.'

DOCTOR: 'Wait and see.'

NEUROLOGIST: 'Monitor.'

DOCTOR: 'Change the drugs we’re using.'

MY SISTER: 'Can we at least try to get a physical therapist, someone who can work her legs, at least. I mean … if she does improve, she’s left without being able to walk.'

NEUROLOGIST: 'They’ll have to see if she’s a candidate.'

ME: 'So … okay … where can you reasonably see this ending up?'

NEUROLOGIST: 'We can help you look at the options.'

ME: 'The options?'

SOCIAL WORKER (to my sister): 'Where she might live. We can go over several possibilities.'

ME: 'Live?'"

To many, Milner’s success is not just too much and too fast in a land of too much and too fast but … but … and here people start to petulantly phumpher … somehow unfair: Here’s an outsider who has handed out money at outrageously founder-friendly terms—paying huge amounts for relatively small stakes, essentially buying exclusive access to the most desirable companies on the web! It is his outsiderness that seems most irritating and even alarming. How is it that an outsider has spotted opportunities that the Valley’s best investors missed? Does Milner’s success suggest that the rest of the world is starting to horn in on what has been, to date, as American as apple pie—the Internet future and Internet riches?