Example 1: “After a 2-year-old mouse is rejuvenated to allow 3 years of additional life, society will realize that human rejuvenation is possible, turn against deathism as the prospect of lifespan / healthspan extension starts to seem real, and demand a huge Manhattan Project to get it done.”
A quick and dirty Google search reveals:
Cost of Manhattan Project in 2012 dollars: 30 billion
I think this is a good point, but I’d mention that real U.S. GDP is ~7 times higher now than then, aging as such isn’t the focus of most pharma R&D (although if pharma companies thought they could actually make working drugs for it they would), and scientists’ wages are higher now due to Baumol’s cost disease.
The point was, Pharma is spending enormous sums of money trying to fight individual diseases (and failing like 90% of the time), and people are proposing a Manhattan project to do something far more ambitious. But a Manhattan project is in the same order of magnitude as an individual drug. IOW, a Manhattan project won’t be enough.
In any case, 3 years of additional life to a mouse won’t be enough, because people can always claim that the intervention is not proportional to life span. What will do the trick is an immortalized mouse, as young at 15 years as it was at 0.5.
A quick and dirty Google search reveals:
Cost of Manhattan Project in 2012 dollars: 30 billion
Pharma R&D budget in 2012: 70 billion
http://www.fiercebiotech.com/special-reports/biopharmas-top-rd-spenders-2012
http://nuclearsecrecy.com/blog/2013/05/17/the-price-of-the-manhattan-project/
I think this is a good point, but I’d mention that real U.S. GDP is ~7 times higher now than then, aging as such isn’t the focus of most pharma R&D (although if pharma companies thought they could actually make working drugs for it they would), and scientists’ wages are higher now due to Baumol’s cost disease.
The point was, Pharma is spending enormous sums of money trying to fight individual diseases (and failing like 90% of the time), and people are proposing a Manhattan project to do something far more ambitious. But a Manhattan project is in the same order of magnitude as an individual drug. IOW, a Manhattan project won’t be enough.
In any case, 3 years of additional life to a mouse won’t be enough, because people can always claim that the intervention is not proportional to life span. What will do the trick is an immortalized mouse, as young at 15 years as it was at 0.5.