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I wonder if Gates might support longevity research now. He wants to save lives and improve the human condition. Ending Malaria is great, ending aging would be t

I wonder if Gates might support longevity research now. He wants to save lives and improve the human condition. Ending Malaria is great, ending aging would be the greatest thing ever.

Hitton 6y ago
No, it wouldn't. Either it would be only for rich and create extreme resentment or it would lead to extreme overpopulation, that would lead to things like one-child policies, reproduction lotteries, eugenics etc. all of which would create resentment again.
jeroenhd 6y ago
Ending aging would only serve to make the rich immortal while the poor still suffer. I think it would create the biggest distance between the common folk and the elite that history has ever known. Even if such technology would be available to the entire world, it would still not solve the issue of overpopulation and the pollution associated with it. Why invest into making a few thousand immortal when you can help billions with much simpler anti-malaria programs?
- PavleMiha 6y ago
  I agree with you that abolishing malaria is probably a better place to put our resources, but I disagree that ending ageing would only make a few thousand rich people immortal. There's nothing to say that the treatments would be that expensive. It's possible we find cheap therapeutics, or expensive ones that we can make cheap and accessible. Ageing related deaths are higher than malaria deaths, and ageing places a huge burden on all our systems.
  - InitialLastName 6y ago
    Can you imagine the demand curve for an anti-aging treatment? You're right that it's possible the therapeutics will be cheap to produce, but the price that the wealthy would bear for such a treatment would lead to dramatically more revenue than you could make from setting it at a price that more than half of the world could bear. No fiscally responsible entity would make something like that affordable to the entire world in the modern era.
    - PavleMiha 6y ago
      Couldn't a lot of the countries that have single-payer systems negotiate better prices that more people could afford? Isn't this what happens with other life-saving therapies at the moment? The economics of health care costs confuse me because yeah, demand for staying alive is somewhat infinite, but at some point governments seem like they should be able to tell pharma companies they can either take what's offered or get nothing at all and have the governments ignore their patents.
kumarvvr 6y ago
I am personally against research for ending aging. I do wish that everyone live long, healthy happy lives, but as a species, longer living human beings will eventually destroy earth, and eventually themselves.

I wonder if Gates might support longevity research now. He wants to save lives and improve the human condition. Ending Malaria is great, ending aging would be the greatest thing ever.

Hitton 6y ago

No, it wouldn't. Either it would be only for rich and create extreme resentment or it would lead to extreme overpopulation, that would lead to things like one-child policies, reproduction lotteries, eugenics etc. all of which would create resentment again.

jeroenhd 6y ago

Ending aging would only serve to make the rich immortal while the poor still suffer. I think it would create the biggest distance between the common folk and the elite that history has ever known. Even if such technology would be available to the entire world, it would still not solve the issue of overpopulation and the pollution associated with it. Why invest into making a few thousand immortal when you can help billions with much simpler anti-malaria programs?

PavleMiha 6y ago
I agree with you that abolishing malaria is probably a better place to put our resources, but I disagree that ending ageing would only make a few thousand rich people immortal. There's nothing to say that the treatments would be that expensive. It's possible we find cheap therapeutics, or expensive ones that we can make cheap and accessible. Ageing related deaths are higher than malaria deaths, and ageing places a huge burden on all our systems.
- InitialLastName 6y ago
  Can you imagine the demand curve for an anti-aging treatment? You're right that it's possible the therapeutics will be cheap to produce, but the price that the wealthy would bear for such a treatment would lead to dramatically more revenue than you could make from setting it at a price that more than half of the world could bear. No fiscally responsible entity would make something like that affordable to the entire world in the modern era.
  - PavleMiha 6y ago
    Couldn't a lot of the countries that have single-payer systems negotiate better prices that more people could afford? Isn't this what happens with other life-saving therapies at the moment? The economics of health care costs confuse me because yeah, demand for staying alive is somewhat infinite, but at some point governments seem like they should be able to tell pharma companies they can either take what's offered or get nothing at all and have the governments ignore their patents.

kumarvvr 6y ago

I am personally against research for ending aging. I do wish that everyone live long, healthy happy lives, but as a species, longer living human beings will eventually destroy earth, and eventually themselves.