Thanks, lots of useful things here. I absolutely agree with your last paragraph.
I agree that looking more carefully at SENS would be the right move for a deeper investigation of the area. I think before that step it’s worth having some idea of roughly how valuable the area is (which is what I was very crudely doing).
I don’t put too much stock in the particular numbers I produced here. They make anti-ageing look just slightly less promising than the best direct health interventions we know of (hence indeed better than a lot of medical research), but the previous time I came up with numbers for this problem—for a conference talk—I must have been in a more optimistic mood, because my estimate was a couple of orders of magnitude better. I wouldn’t be surprised if the truth is somewhere in the middle.
I would like to see more people provide estimates, even if not carefully justified, as I think we can get some wisdom of the crowds coming through, and to understand which figures are the most controversial or would benefit most from careful research.
Thanks, lots of useful things here. I absolutely agree with your last paragraph.
I agree that looking more carefully at SENS would be the right move for a deeper investigation of the area. I think before that step it’s worth having some idea of roughly how valuable the area is (which is what I was very crudely doing).
I don’t put too much stock in the particular numbers I produced here. They make anti-ageing look just slightly less promising than the best direct health interventions we know of (hence indeed better than a lot of medical research), but the previous time I came up with numbers for this problem—for a conference talk—I must have been in a more optimistic mood, because my estimate was a couple of orders of magnitude better. I wouldn’t be surprised if the truth is somewhere in the middle.
I would like to see more people provide estimates, even if not carefully justified, as I think we can get some wisdom of the crowds coming through, and to understand which figures are the most controversial or would benefit most from careful research.