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And are you doing something about it (donating/investing/working/etc) ?
by ddorian43 10y ago
And are you doing something about it (donating/investing/working/etc) ?
- ceejayoz 10y agoChances are anyone in a developed-world democracy is investing/donating via their tax dollars.
- JoshTriplett 10y agoNot very effectively or with the focus you might want, though.
- ceejayoz 10y agoI tend to believe the NIH is better at administrating grants than I am.
- JoshTriplett 10y agoI'd absolutely agree they're better than I am personally, since I'm neither a medical researcher nor an expert at evaluating medical research. But I don't believe they're better than an organization focused on solving a specific problem. As a random example of inefficiency: there's a lot more money going into research on specific degenerative diseases than into the causes and solutions for degeneration. Solve the root cause, not the symptoms.
- ejstronge 10y agoWhile the idea of pursuing a 'root cause' is attractive, in many cases, including the one you point out, there is not a clear cause to be attacked. Neurodegeneration is a pattern of response to multiple disease processes - we can only understand the response by studying the cases in which it arises. For the tech-minded crowd, this is like wanting to create responsive designs without actually making websites to demonstrate them.
- reasonattlm 10y agoThey're actually pretty terrible. It isn't a high bar to do better than the NIH when it comes to supporting new technologies. Almost all important early fundamental research, the high-risk part leading up to new knowledge and potential new technologies, is supported by philanthropy. The NIH really only funds follow-on work for things that are already known. In order to win a grant you have to have already proven your thesis. It is somewhat ridiculous. So if you want to delegate your vote, delegate it to a non-profit. Or invest in a startup in the field you care about. Anything other than giving to the NIH.
- Fomite 10y agoIronically, you skipped "Give it to a lab whose research you want to support."
- reasonattlm 10y agoTrue. In fairness, that's much harder to do at lower levels of money than either of the options I suggested, despite efforts like labcures.com. You need to know a lot more about the field than you'd need to know in order to give to a non-profit in the space.
- Fomite 10y agoTrue. Unfortunately, there's also a lot of spaces in science where there isn't a clear and direct non-profit necessarily working in the space and funding research.
- kirrent 10y agoBut the proportion of your tax dollar they're getting makes that a bit of a moot point if you were thinking about donating directly and making a tax deduction.
- JoshTriplett 10y agoI'm sad to see this downvoted. It's reasonable to try to turn expressions of support on a forum into action. For anyone who wants to support research into ending aging, age-related degeneration, and related diseases, I'd recommend supporting SENS (http://www.sens.org/ http://www.sens.org/).
- davesque 10y agoOff-topic: is your account named after the diatonic scale? I love the dorian scale.