I’m not sure if this comment will stand for long here, because the questions I’m about to ask are probably mostly of interest just to me.
Christina, wen you say you’d be more interested in funding “life extension research,”(LER), I’d like to know what your vision of LER is, specifically? What kinds of technologies do you think realistically offer you a chance at indefinitely, or even moderately extending your healthy lifespan? When do you think they might be available, and with what restrictions (if any) and at what likely cost? How long do you think it is likely that advances in LER will be able to extend your lifespan—including as incremental bridges to increasingly better technologies? Finally, how much of your income are you currently contributing to LER, and if I could ask, to what kinds of LER are you contributing money?
Many thanks. I’m really quite interested in the answers to these questions.
As an aside, I’d be fascinated to conduct a comprehensive survey of lesswrong members to establish the demographics not just with respect to cryonics and LE, but across the board, and in a robust way.
Most of LessWrong would be fascinated too, I daresay! We’ve had a few attempts at surveys previously; nothing extremely rigorous and (as far as I recall) usually only focused on already-outstanding features—so we might be missing an opportunity to discover surprising regularities in our makeup.
I can’t speak to your situation, per se. I can only tell you that in my experience (managing and marketing in both the for-profit and NPO sectors), comprehensive demographic information was very valuable. Since I don’t know the agenda of LessWrong in detail, I can’t say if, for instance, knowing the income distribution and the markers for charitable giving amongst LessWrongers would be of use. These typesof data help you to define the kinds of projects you can reasonably hope to fund, and thus reasonably hope to market to your demographic. Markers for giving were very reliable in my experience—today, given the economy, I don’t know.
Beyond money, a well constructed survey will almost invariably reveal all kinds of insights, not just about your members, customers or readers, but about your own operation—how it is perceived, what people like but aren’t getting, and sometimes, insights into your own psychology and approach that you didn’t previously have. The key words here are “well designed,” because it is surprisingly hard to do a comprehensive survey and get most of the questions you that you want answered, answered. And to avoid bias in the way the questions are phrased, or even in the order in which they appear in your survey. While I can’t prove it, I think it likely that intelligent use of survey information, gathered in the 1980s, was in part responsible for the brief period when Alcor membership growth was nearly exponential. While such data will never do that for you absent many other things being done “right,” they can, IMHO, amplify the effect of good management and marketing.
I’d like to know what your vision of LER is, specifically?
My vision of life extension is something that allows maximum and average lifespan to increase significantly. The most effective way to do this would be to cure aging. Also I think drastically increasing the effectiveness for heart disease, cancer treatments, and Alzheimer’s will be important (although these might also be significantly decreased by any treatment that reverses the aging process itself). I think the mechanism that will eventually drastically increase human lifespan should ultimately be some sort of nanotechnology that can repair damage to the cells. I think Aubrey de Grey may have some good ideas on what to repair from what I’ve read about his work (Mostly what I know about his research is in the Ending Aging book he wrote with Michael Rae, and from various internet articles).
What kinds of technologies do you think realistically offer you a chance at indefinitely, or even moderately extending your healthy lifespan?
I don’t think that any current technologies are likely to help for anything except possibly modestly increasing my lifespan by perhaps a couple decades at best. On the other hand, given the rate at which medicine is advancing, I feel some optimism that this could increase in my lifetime. I continue to watch advances in this area with great interest.
When do you think they might be available, and with what restrictions (if any) and at what likely cost?
I don’t really know, but I hope that there will be something I can take advantage of in my lifetime. Since I am very risk averse, I prefer to invest in medical interventions that are better understood. I prefer to avoid ones that are poorly understood, given that they could make my situation worse instead of better (by definition, if they don’t work, they have made my situation worse since they have drained some amount of time and resources from me.) On the other hand, I am open to the idea of putting some money into making poorly understood treatments into better understood ones.
How long do you think it is likely that advances in LER will be able to extend your lifespan—including as incremental bridges to increasingly better technologies?
I do not know enough to guess, but if I had to pick a number that looked likely, I’d say to 150. At this point, I don’t know what type of technology would give me that option, just that something probably will. If I’m lucky, this will be a large underestimate.
Finally, how much of your income are you currently contributing to LER, and if I could ask, to what kinds of LER are you contributing money?
Currently less than 1% (I was not in the habit of donating money to any cause at all for most of my life, but in recent years I have started working on changing this). For life extension research, I have been contributing money here.
Incidentally, the message board Help seems to have disappeared for me (can’t find it under the comment box anymore), so I wasn’t able to markup your questions.
I’m not sure if this comment will stand for long here, because the questions I’m about to ask are probably mostly of interest just to me.
Christina, wen you say you’d be more interested in funding “life extension research,”(LER), I’d like to know what your vision of LER is, specifically? What kinds of technologies do you think realistically offer you a chance at indefinitely, or even moderately extending your healthy lifespan? When do you think they might be available, and with what restrictions (if any) and at what likely cost? How long do you think it is likely that advances in LER will be able to extend your lifespan—including as incremental bridges to increasingly better technologies? Finally, how much of your income are you currently contributing to LER, and if I could ask, to what kinds of LER are you contributing money?
Many thanks. I’m really quite interested in the answers to these questions.
As an aside, I’d be fascinated to conduct a comprehensive survey of lesswrong members to establish the demographics not just with respect to cryonics and LE, but across the board, and in a robust way.
Most of LessWrong would be fascinated too, I daresay! We’ve had a few attempts at surveys previously; nothing extremely rigorous and (as far as I recall) usually only focused on already-outstanding features—so we might be missing an opportunity to discover surprising regularities in our makeup.
I can’t speak to your situation, per se. I can only tell you that in my experience (managing and marketing in both the for-profit and NPO sectors), comprehensive demographic information was very valuable. Since I don’t know the agenda of LessWrong in detail, I can’t say if, for instance, knowing the income distribution and the markers for charitable giving amongst LessWrongers would be of use. These typesof data help you to define the kinds of projects you can reasonably hope to fund, and thus reasonably hope to market to your demographic. Markers for giving were very reliable in my experience—today, given the economy, I don’t know.
Beyond money, a well constructed survey will almost invariably reveal all kinds of insights, not just about your members, customers or readers, but about your own operation—how it is perceived, what people like but aren’t getting, and sometimes, insights into your own psychology and approach that you didn’t previously have. The key words here are “well designed,” because it is surprisingly hard to do a comprehensive survey and get most of the questions you that you want answered, answered. And to avoid bias in the way the questions are phrased, or even in the order in which they appear in your survey. While I can’t prove it, I think it likely that intelligent use of survey information, gathered in the 1980s, was in part responsible for the brief period when Alcor membership growth was nearly exponential. While such data will never do that for you absent many other things being done “right,” they can, IMHO, amplify the effect of good management and marketing.
I’d like to know what your vision of LER is, specifically?
My vision of life extension is something that allows maximum and average lifespan to increase significantly. The most effective way to do this would be to cure aging. Also I think drastically increasing the effectiveness for heart disease, cancer treatments, and Alzheimer’s will be important (although these might also be significantly decreased by any treatment that reverses the aging process itself). I think the mechanism that will eventually drastically increase human lifespan should ultimately be some sort of nanotechnology that can repair damage to the cells. I think Aubrey de Grey may have some good ideas on what to repair from what I’ve read about his work (Mostly what I know about his research is in the Ending Aging book he wrote with Michael Rae, and from various internet articles).
What kinds of technologies do you think realistically offer you a chance at indefinitely, or even moderately extending your healthy lifespan?
I don’t think that any current technologies are likely to help for anything except possibly modestly increasing my lifespan by perhaps a couple decades at best. On the other hand, given the rate at which medicine is advancing, I feel some optimism that this could increase in my lifetime. I continue to watch advances in this area with great interest.
When do you think they might be available, and with what restrictions (if any) and at what likely cost?
I don’t really know, but I hope that there will be something I can take advantage of in my lifetime. Since I am very risk averse, I prefer to invest in medical interventions that are better understood. I prefer to avoid ones that are poorly understood, given that they could make my situation worse instead of better (by definition, if they don’t work, they have made my situation worse since they have drained some amount of time and resources from me.) On the other hand, I am open to the idea of putting some money into making poorly understood treatments into better understood ones.
How long do you think it is likely that advances in LER will be able to extend your lifespan—including as incremental bridges to increasingly better technologies?
I do not know enough to guess, but if I had to pick a number that looked likely, I’d say to 150. At this point, I don’t know what type of technology would give me that option, just that something probably will. If I’m lucky, this will be a large underestimate.
Finally, how much of your income are you currently contributing to LER, and if I could ask, to what kinds of LER are you contributing money?
Currently less than 1% (I was not in the habit of donating money to any cause at all for most of my life, but in recent years I have started working on changing this). For life extension research, I have been contributing money here.
Incidentally, the message board Help seems to have disappeared for me (can’t find it under the comment box anymore), so I wasn’t able to markup your questions.
There was a fairly in-depth LW survey a couple years back.