I’m definitely in favour of further consideration of this. However, I’d like to see the case for curing infectious diseases considered alongside the case for researching anti-ageing interventions.
It seems plausible that developing a successful anti-ageing intervention (a) would have an impact larger in scale than one for infectious disease (because it would be cross-cutting against the risk of cancer, heart disease, stroke, dementia, worsening mobility etc) (b) is more neglected (unlike research into treatments for specific diseases of ageing) (c) would also reduce deaths from some infectious diseases (e.g. influenza, Covid) (d) is much more risky/uncertain in terms of tractability
Not opposed to EA anti-aging research, but my intuition would be targeting infectious disease allows for more rapid iteration and proof of concept because the solutions are easier to publicly demonstrate in the short term. So I think it provides better training for EA methods (which could in turn enhance aging research).
Also, infectious disease affects poor people disproportionately and as such there’s more likely to be a market failure and undersupply of resources rather than aging, which is a proportional problem between the rich and poor.
Most likely infectious diseases also play a significant role in aging- have seen some research suggesting that major health inflection points are often associated with an infection.
I like your post and strongly agree with the gist.
DM me if you’re interested in brainstorming alternatives to the vaccine paradigm (which seems to work much better for certain diseases than others).
I’m definitely in favour of further consideration of this. However, I’d like to see the case for curing infectious diseases considered alongside the case for researching anti-ageing interventions.
It seems plausible that developing a successful anti-ageing intervention (a) would have an impact larger in scale than one for infectious disease (because it would be cross-cutting against the risk of cancer, heart disease, stroke, dementia, worsening mobility etc) (b) is more neglected (unlike research into treatments for specific diseases of ageing) (c) would also reduce deaths from some infectious diseases (e.g. influenza, Covid) (d) is much more risky/uncertain in terms of tractability
Not opposed to EA anti-aging research, but my intuition would be targeting infectious disease allows for more rapid iteration and proof of concept because the solutions are easier to publicly demonstrate in the short term. So I think it provides better training for EA methods (which could in turn enhance aging research).
Also, infectious disease affects poor people disproportionately and as such there’s more likely to be a market failure and undersupply of resources rather than aging, which is a proportional problem between the rich and poor.
Most likely infectious diseases also play a significant role in aging- have seen some research suggesting that major health inflection points are often associated with an infection.
I like your post and strongly agree with the gist.
DM me if you’re interested in brainstorming alternatives to the vaccine paradigm (which seems to work much better for certain diseases than others).