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If you agree with the sentiments in this piece, then the best way to help make the end of aging come about in the real world is to materially support ongoing ea

If you agree with the sentiments in this piece, then the best way to help make the end of aging come about in the real world is to materially support ongoing early-stage research into the repair of the known causes of aging. The best way to do that is to make a donation to the SENS Research Foundation, an organization with a stellar track record of helping to unblock languishing fields of research - such as senescent cell clearance - and convincing other funding sources to join in or strike out on their own in the resulting research programs: http://sens.org http://sens.org http://sens.org/donate http://sens.org/donate

JoshTriplett 11y ago
Personally, while I'm entirely in favor of all reasonable efforts to eliminate aging, and I think it quite likely that SENS could buy us more years, maybe even centuries, I don't think SENS is a complete solution to the problem of mortality. Not least of which because if we eliminate aging but not mortality, the leading causes of death will become accidents, and people are no less dead when hit by a bus. Plus, SENS eliminates the hard boundary at ~120, but doesn't ensure that we actually get there, and I don't relish the whack-a-mole fight against a thousand random diseases (even if we sensibly prioritize those lower than eliminating aging). So, personally, I'd suggest donating at least as much to to efforts like MIRI rather than (or in addition to) SENS. My main hope for SENS is that it will buy us enough years for MIRI to give us a trillion more.
- DennisP 11y ago
  According to estimates I've seen, if accidents are the only cause of death and we maintain our current accidental death rate, we get an average lifespan of about a thousand years. Assuming people become more cautious, it could extend to five thousand. To actually achieve that we'd need to be good with infectious diseases, cancer, acquired auto-immune disorders, etc. But a lot of this stuff hits older people harder anyway. So I'm thinking I'll stick with SENS and related efforts for now, and if I make it through the next century or two, I'll have another millennium or two to support mind upload research.

JoshTriplett 11y ago

Personally, while I'm entirely in favor of all reasonable efforts to eliminate aging, and I think it quite likely that SENS could buy us more years, maybe even centuries, I don't think SENS is a complete solution to the problem of mortality. Not least of which because if we eliminate aging but not mortality, the leading causes of death will become accidents, and people are no less dead when hit by a bus. Plus, SENS eliminates the hard boundary at ~120, but doesn't ensure that we actually get there, and I don't relish the whack-a-mole fight against a thousand random diseases (even if we sensibly prioritize those lower than eliminating aging). So, personally, I'd suggest donating at least as much to to efforts like MIRI rather than (or in addition to) SENS. My main hope for SENS is that it will buy us enough years for MIRI to give us a trillion more.

DennisP 11y ago
According to estimates I've seen, if accidents are the only cause of death and we maintain our current accidental death rate, we get an average lifespan of about a thousand years. Assuming people become more cautious, it could extend to five thousand. To actually achieve that we'd need to be good with infectious diseases, cancer, acquired auto-immune disorders, etc. But a lot of this stuff hits older people harder anyway. So I'm thinking I'll stick with SENS and related efforts for now, and if I make it through the next century or two, I'll have another millennium or two to support mind upload research.