The person-affecting (PA) view doesn’t make this a slam-dunk. PAness doesn’t signify that death in itself has negative value, so given your assumption ‘that there isn’t suffering at the end of life and people get replaced immediately’, on the base PA view, increasing lifespans wouldn’t in itself generate value. No doubt there are flavours of PA that would claim death *does* have disvalue, but those would need to be argued for separately.
The PA view doesn’t need to assign disvalue to death to make increasing lifespans valuable. It just needs to assign to death a smaller value than being alive. Unless you literally don’t care if people live or die or you think that dying is better than living, my argument holds.
Obviously there often *is* profound suffering at the end of life, which IMO is a much stronger argument for longevity research—on both PA and totalising views. Though I would also be very wary of writing articles arguing on those grounds, since most people very sensibly try to come to terms with the process of ageing to reduce its subjective harm to them, and undoing that for the sake of moving LEV forward a few years might cause more psychological harm than it prevented.
If we make LEV nearer we don’t increase the distress anti-aging therapies will cause to people at first. We just anticipate the distress.
My impression is that the PA view is held by a fairly small minority of EAs and consequentialist moral philosophers (for advocates of nonconsequentialist moral views, I’m not sure the question would even make sense—and it would make a lot less sense to argue for longevity research based on its consequences), and if so, treating it as having equal evidential weight as totalising views is misleading.
I guess so. I used the same style being used in the introductory articles to EA, which are pretty neutral, although they recognise the neutral view as probably superior. This doesn’t matter though, since, as I wrote, impact under the neutral view is actually bigger.
3) ‘Reminder: most of the impact of aging research comes from making the date of LEV come closer and saving the people who wouldn’t otherwise have hit LEV.’
This is almost entirely wrong. Unless we a) wipe ourselves out shortly after hitting it (which would be an odd notion of longevity), or b) reach it within the lifespans of most existing people *and* take a death-averse-PA view, the vast majority of LEV’s impact of it will come on the ripple effect on the far future, and the vast majority of its expected impact will be our best guess as to that
Financing aging research has only the effect of hastening it, so moving the date of LEV closer. The ripple effect that defeating aging would cause on the far future would remain the same. People living 5000 years from now wouldn’t care if we hit LEV now or in 2040. So this isn’t even a measure of impact.
EAs tend to give near-term poverty/animal welfare causes a pass on that estimation, perhaps due to some PA intuitions, perhaps because they’re doing good and (almost) immediate work, which if nothing else gives them a good baseline for comparison, perhaps because the immediate measurable value might be as good a proxy as any for far-future expectation in the absence of good alternative ways to think about the latter (and plenty of people would argue that these are all wrong, and hence that we should focus more directly on the far future. But I doubt many of the people who disagree with *them* would claim on reflection that ‘most of the impact of poverty reduction comes from the individuals you’ve pulled out of poverty’).
Longevity research doesn’t really share these properties, though, and certainly doesn’t have them to the same degree, so it’s unlikely to have the same intuitive appeal, in which case it’s hard to argue that it *should*. Figuring out the short-term effects is probably the best first step towards doing this, but we shouldn’t confuse it with the end goal.
If you are curious, Sarah Constantin recently wrote an analysis using the shorter term effects of aging research as a measure of impact. This one. Also, my next post is exactly on the shorter term impact. I think it’ll be published in a couple of weeks. It will cover DALYs averted at the end of life, impact on life satisfaction, the economic and societal benefits, impact on non-human animals.
The PA view doesn’t need to assign disvalue to death to make increasing lifespans valuable. It just needs to assign to death a smaller value than being alive.
It depends how you interpret PA. I don’t think there is a standard view—it could be ‘maximise the aggregate lifetime utility of everyone currently existing’, in which case what you say would be true, or ‘maximise the happiness of everyone currently existing while they continue to do so’, which I think would turn out to be a form of averaging utilitarianism, and on which what you say would be false.
If we make LEV nearer we don’t increase the distress anti-aging therapies will cause to people at first. We just anticipate the distress.
Yes, but this was a comment about the desirability of public advocacy of longevity therapies rather than the desirability of longevity therapies themselves. It’s quite plausible that the latter is desirable and the former undesirable—perhaps enough so to outweigh the latter.
This doesn’t matter though, since, as I wrote, impact under the neutral view is actually bigger.
Your argument was that it’s bigger subject to its not reducing the birthrate and adding net population in the near future is good in the long run. Both are claims for which I think there’s a reasonable case, neither are claims that seem to have .75 probability (I would go lower for at least the second one, but YMMV). With a .44+ probability that one assumption is false, I think it matters a lot.
Financing aging research has only the effect of hastening it, so moving the date of LEV closer. The ripple effect that defeating aging would cause on the far future would remain the same. People living 5000 years from now wouldn’t care if we hit LEV now or in 2040. So this isn’t even a measure of impact.
Again this is totally wrong. Technologies don’t just come along and make some predetermined set of changes then leave the world otherwise unchanged—they have hugely divergent effects based on the culture of the time and countless other factors. You might as well argue that if humanity hadn’t developed the atomic bomb until last year, the world would look identical to today’s except that Japan would have two fewer cities (and that in a few years, after they’d been rebuilt, it would look identical again).
Also, my next post is exactly on the shorter term impact. I think it’ll be published in a couple of weeks. It will cover DALYs averted at the end of life, impact on life satisfaction, the economic and societal benefits, impact on non-human animals.
It depends how you interpret PA. I don’t think there is a standard view—it could be ‘maximise the aggregate lifetime utility of everyone currently existing’, in which case what you say would be true, or ‘maximise the happiness of everyone currently existing while they continue to do so’, which I think would turn out to be a form of averaging utilitarianism, and on which what you say would be false.
Good points, although I’m not sure who would hold averaging utilitarianism. But yes, in this case prolonging life wouldn’t matter.
Yes, but this was a comment about the desirability of public advocacy of longevity therapies rather than the desirability of longevity therapies themselves. It’s quite plausible that the latter is desirable and the former undesirable—perhaps enough so to outweigh the latter.
I doubt that the damages of public advocacy would outweigh the good. Only if advocacy is really good at convincing people of the possibility of bringing aging under medical control, the large-scale distress you mention could happen. But then aging would become an issue under the eyes of everyone and funding would immediately spike up, along with policies to accelerate the process. If this happens, the supposed psychological distress would be a rounding error if compared even only with additional DALYs prevented at the end of life. Otherwise, if advocacy manages to convince people of the possibility of putting aging under medical but doesn’t bring additional money and talent in research, then yes the psychological damage would probably outweigh the positive impact. But is this a possibility? I don’t think it’s possible to convince a large fraction of the population and at the same time not cause resources to pour in the field. Then you could argue that research could be so ineffective that pouring resources into it wouldn’t accelerate anything. But I think this has a very low probability. Note also that in expectation even a very small hastening of the field would outweigh psychological distress.
Your argument was that it’s bigger subject to its not reducing the birthrate and adding net population in the near future is good in the long run. Both are claims for which I think there’s a reasonable case, neither are claims that seem to have .75 probability (I would go lower for at least the second one, but YMMV). With a .44+ probability that one assumption is false, I think it matters a lot.
At worst the PA view and the impersonal view have the same effect, so “it matters a lot” seems exaggerated to me. A totally unrelated idea would be introducing a discounting of impact because of these considerations, but it still wouldn’t be advisable using expected value.
Again this is totally wrong. Technologies don’t just come along and make some predetermined set of changes then leave the world otherwise unchanged—they have hugely divergent effects based on the culture of the time and countless other factors. You might as well argue that if humanity hadn’t developed the atomic bomb until last year, the world would look identical to today’s except that Japan would have two fewer cities (and that in a few years, after they’d been rebuilt, it would look identical again).
I think you are right here, but I still don’t think most of the impact would come from the ripple effects that hastening aging research would have on the far future. We don’t even know if the effects will be good or bad. In my view they would be probably just cultural and neutral cost-effectiveness wise.
The PA view doesn’t need to assign disvalue to death to make increasing lifespans valuable. It just needs to assign to death a smaller value than being alive. Unless you literally don’t care if people live or die or you think that dying is better than living, my argument holds.
If we make LEV nearer we don’t increase the distress anti-aging therapies will cause to people at first. We just anticipate the distress.
I guess so. I used the same style being used in the introductory articles to EA, which are pretty neutral, although they recognise the neutral view as probably superior. This doesn’t matter though, since, as I wrote, impact under the neutral view is actually bigger.
Financing aging research has only the effect of hastening it, so moving the date of LEV closer. The ripple effect that defeating aging would cause on the far future would remain the same. People living 5000 years from now wouldn’t care if we hit LEV now or in 2040. So this isn’t even a measure of impact.
If you are curious, Sarah Constantin recently wrote an analysis using the shorter term effects of aging research as a measure of impact. This one. Also, my next post is exactly on the shorter term impact. I think it’ll be published in a couple of weeks. It will cover DALYs averted at the end of life, impact on life satisfaction, the economic and societal benefits, impact on non-human animals.
It depends how you interpret PA. I don’t think there is a standard view—it could be ‘maximise the aggregate lifetime utility of everyone currently existing’, in which case what you say would be true, or ‘maximise the happiness of everyone currently existing while they continue to do so’, which I think would turn out to be a form of averaging utilitarianism, and on which what you say would be false.
Yes, but this was a comment about the desirability of public advocacy of longevity therapies rather than the desirability of longevity therapies themselves. It’s quite plausible that the latter is desirable and the former undesirable—perhaps enough so to outweigh the latter.
Your argument was that it’s bigger subject to its not reducing the birthrate and adding net population in the near future is good in the long run. Both are claims for which I think there’s a reasonable case, neither are claims that seem to have .75 probability (I would go lower for at least the second one, but YMMV). With a .44+ probability that one assumption is false, I think it matters a lot.
Again this is totally wrong. Technologies don’t just come along and make some predetermined set of changes then leave the world otherwise unchanged—they have hugely divergent effects based on the culture of the time and countless other factors. You might as well argue that if humanity hadn’t developed the atomic bomb until last year, the world would look identical to today’s except that Japan would have two fewer cities (and that in a few years, after they’d been rebuilt, it would look identical again).
Looking forward to it :)
Good points, although I’m not sure who would hold averaging utilitarianism. But yes, in this case prolonging life wouldn’t matter.
I doubt that the damages of public advocacy would outweigh the good. Only if advocacy is really good at convincing people of the possibility of bringing aging under medical control, the large-scale distress you mention could happen. But then aging would become an issue under the eyes of everyone and funding would immediately spike up, along with policies to accelerate the process. If this happens, the supposed psychological distress would be a rounding error if compared even only with additional DALYs prevented at the end of life. Otherwise, if advocacy manages to convince people of the possibility of putting aging under medical but doesn’t bring additional money and talent in research, then yes the psychological damage would probably outweigh the positive impact. But is this a possibility? I don’t think it’s possible to convince a large fraction of the population and at the same time not cause resources to pour in the field. Then you could argue that research could be so ineffective that pouring resources into it wouldn’t accelerate anything. But I think this has a very low probability. Note also that in expectation even a very small hastening of the field would outweigh psychological distress.
At worst the PA view and the impersonal view have the same effect, so “it matters a lot” seems exaggerated to me. A totally unrelated idea would be introducing a discounting of impact because of these considerations, but it still wouldn’t be advisable using expected value.
I think you are right here, but I still don’t think most of the impact would come from the ripple effects that hastening aging research would have on the far future. We don’t even know if the effects will be good or bad. In my view they would be probably just cultural and neutral cost-effectiveness wise.