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Yes, we can take preventable diseases as an example instead, if you prefer.

JoshTriplett 11y ago
That sentiment was already expressed in the article, in the form of the tigers and snakes. There are far too many small-scale distractions that people find appealing to focus on, whether because they seem more approachable or because they're the actual culprit in the death of specific people.
- pavlov 11y ago
  Hunger and diseases are not "small-scale distractions". Every year about 3 million children under five die of hunger-related causes. Is that not another dragon, one that specializes in babies and toddlers? If this dragon is easier and cheaper to slay than the other, why not fight it first?
  - JoshTriplett 11y ago
    Depends on what approach you favor to fight the dragon. I tend to favor solutions that simultaneously solve those problems as well, along with many others. However, if you primarily favor the SENS approach, then I certainly agree that hunger is a large-scale orthogonal problem that needs proportionally large attention. Disease, on the other hand, is not a single problem, and does not have a single solution. Any one individual disease is far smaller of a problem. (Even cancer, though the research on SENS is will likely need to address that one anyway in the course of figuring out how to eliminate cell death without creating cancer.)
    - Zarkonnen 11y ago
      Everything I've read on the topic of aging suggests that it too, is not a single problem with a single solution. There is no "senescence switch" that can be turned off. Our bodies break down in a myriad of ways, and to "kill the dragon", we have to deal with all of them. This is a massive sleight of hand on part of this article: describing the fix for aging as a single event.
  - reasonattlm 11y ago
    And 3 million of malaria, and 38 million due to aging. Enormous sums are spent on removing the former, very little on removing the latter. None of the priorities are correct, and it isn't even a matter of resources going to one or the other to get it done first - it's a matter of convincing people to direct more than the present tiny fraction of a fraction of a fraction of overall resources to these goals. Early stage medical research funding and programs aimed at prevention of poverty are both small potatoes in comparison to the throughput of the alcohol industry or the professional sports edifice, for example. In a world in which the beer and the circuses are a massive expenditure, there is plenty of room to convince more funding for things that actually matter without taking from one beneficial program to prioritize another.
    - Zarkonnen 11y ago
      I'm all in favour of funding for anti-aging research if the money gets taken out of our beer and circuses budget. What I object to is the way the article insists that aging is some kind of low-hanging fruit we could pick if only we realized it, and describes all other problems in the world as distractions.

That sentiment was already expressed in the article, in the form of the tigers and snakes. There are far too many small-scale distractions that people find appealing to focus on, whether because they seem more approachable or because they're the actual culprit in the death of specific people.

pavlov 11y ago
Hunger and diseases are not "small-scale distractions". Every year about 3 million children under five die of hunger-related causes. Is that not another dragon, one that specializes in babies and toddlers? If this dragon is easier and cheaper to slay than the other, why not fight it first?
- JoshTriplett 11y ago
  Depends on what approach you favor to fight the dragon. I tend to favor solutions that simultaneously solve those problems as well, along with many others. However, if you primarily favor the SENS approach, then I certainly agree that hunger is a large-scale orthogonal problem that needs proportionally large attention. Disease, on the other hand, is not a single problem, and does not have a single solution. Any one individual disease is far smaller of a problem. (Even cancer, though the research on SENS is will likely need to address that one anyway in the course of figuring out how to eliminate cell death without creating cancer.)
  - Zarkonnen 11y ago
    Everything I've read on the topic of aging suggests that it too, is not a single problem with a single solution. There is no "senescence switch" that can be turned off. Our bodies break down in a myriad of ways, and to "kill the dragon", we have to deal with all of them. This is a massive sleight of hand on part of this article: describing the fix for aging as a single event.
- reasonattlm 11y ago
  And 3 million of malaria, and 38 million due to aging. Enormous sums are spent on removing the former, very little on removing the latter. None of the priorities are correct, and it isn't even a matter of resources going to one or the other to get it done first - it's a matter of convincing people to direct more than the present tiny fraction of a fraction of a fraction of overall resources to these goals. Early stage medical research funding and programs aimed at prevention of poverty are both small potatoes in comparison to the throughput of the alcohol industry or the professional sports edifice, for example. In a world in which the beer and the circuses are a massive expenditure, there is plenty of room to convince more funding for things that actually matter without taking from one beneficial program to prioritize another.
  - Zarkonnen 11y ago
    I'm all in favour of funding for anti-aging research if the money gets taken out of our beer and circuses budget. What I object to is the way the article insists that aging is some kind of low-hanging fruit we could pick if only we realized it, and describes all other problems in the world as distractions.