I felt quite frustrated by this post, because the preponderance of EA discourse is already quite sceptical of anti-ageing interventions (as you can tell by the fact that no major EA funder is putting significant resources into it). I would in fact claim that the amount of time and ink spent within EA in discussing reasons not to support anti-ageing interventions significantly exceeds that spent on the pro side.
So this post is repeating well-covered arguments, and strengthening the perception that “EAs don’t do longevity”, while claiming to be promoting an under-represented point of view.
I regarded the post not really as a point about cause prioritization (I agree longevity research doesn’t get much attention, and I think possibly it should get more), but about rhetoric. “Defeating death” seems to be a common motif e.g. in various rationalist/EA fic, or the fable of the dragon tyrant. I just wanted some place which assembled the arguments that make me feel uneasy about that rhetoric. I agree that a lot of my arguments are not really novel intellectual contributions (just “saying the obvious things”) and tried to convey that with the start of the post. (It’s also quite possible there is some other post which captures what I’m trying to do here better, but that I was unaware of it.)
I do claim that it’s good to have articulations of things like this even if the case is reasonably well known (I don’t really know what the status of that is). I’m not sure whether you disagree with that. In any case from your response I think I didn’t do enough to convey the intended type signature of the post, and I’m sorry about that.
Thanks, Owen! I do feel quite conflicted about my feelings here, appreciate your engagement. :)
I do claim that it’s good to have articulations of things like this even if the case is reasonably well known
Yeah, I agree with this—ultimately it’s on those of us more on the pro-immortality side to make the case more strongly, and having solid articulations of both sides is valuable. Also flagging that this...
Would I eventually like to move to a post-death world? Probably, but I’m not certain. For one thing I think quite likely the concept of “death” will not carve reality at its joins so cleanly in the future.
I felt quite frustrated by this post, because the preponderance of EA discourse is already quite sceptical of anti-ageing interventions (as you can tell by the fact that no major EA funder is putting significant resources into it). I would in fact claim that the amount of time and ink spent within EA in discussing reasons not to support anti-ageing interventions significantly exceeds that spent on the pro side.
So this post is repeating well-covered arguments, and strengthening the perception that “EAs don’t do longevity”, while claiming to be promoting an under-represented point of view.
Thanks for voicing the frustration!
I regarded the post not really as a point about cause prioritization (I agree longevity research doesn’t get much attention, and I think possibly it should get more), but about rhetoric. “Defeating death” seems to be a common motif e.g. in various rationalist/EA fic, or the fable of the dragon tyrant. I just wanted some place which assembled the arguments that make me feel uneasy about that rhetoric. I agree that a lot of my arguments are not really novel intellectual contributions (just “saying the obvious things”) and tried to convey that with the start of the post. (It’s also quite possible there is some other post which captures what I’m trying to do here better, but that I was unaware of it.)
I do claim that it’s good to have articulations of things like this even if the case is reasonably well known (I don’t really know what the status of that is). I’m not sure whether you disagree with that. In any case from your response I think I didn’t do enough to convey the intended type signature of the post, and I’m sorry about that.
Thanks, Owen! I do feel quite conflicted about my feelings here, appreciate your engagement. :)
Yeah, I agree with this—ultimately it’s on those of us more on the pro-immortality side to make the case more strongly, and having solid articulations of both sides is valuable. Also flagging that this...
...seems roughly right to me.