4 ms·

Benefits 99% of humanity, as opposed to any other disease which benefits only that one.

• jodrellblank 17y ago
  Benefits only those who live long enough to suffer age related problems, and I doubt that's 99% of all humans born.
  • gte910h 17y ago
    "99% of all ________" is an idiom. I'm sure your nitpick is factually correct in the small. I doubt we'll ever get infant mortality down that low. However, you do get the "Comic book guy" award for picking apart an argument on a completely inconsequential detail. However, the point is MOST EVERYONE dies from something that's a result of getting older, and they'll benefit from age related research. Most cancers even can't actually progress until older ages, as younger peoples' immune systems are so much better they typically fight off the disease. Here's a pretty good TED talk on it. http://www.ted.com/talks/aubrey_de_grey_says_we_can_avoid_aging.html http://www.ted.com/talks/aubrey_de_grey_says_we_can_avoid_ag...
    • jodrellblank 17y ago
      If the measure is "donate to the cause that will benefit the most people" (which the inclusion of "will benefit 99% of people" suggests it is) then pulling apart "how many people will benefit" is hardly a nitpick of a completely inconsequential detail - it's a rebuke of the main detail. For all de Grey's antiaging speculation, Dean Kamen's external combustion water purifier has the potential to benefit poor people who die young this year, not rich people who live a long time 25+ years from now. On the "where should we donate money now" question, de Grey's ideas are very distant with no clear paths to their realization. And if you include speculative future technologies then Eliezer Yudkowsky's arguments for pushing AI development seem fundamentally more compelling than de Grey's argument for pushing antiaging research. Not that I can ever find specific Eliezer writings when I want to link to them :/