Not living to (say) 150 is humanity's greatest problem?? And you're serious??
Ever stop to think of world hunger? Malnutrition still is the global leading cause of mortality in the world. And you're arguing to crowdsource a solution to aging which is supposedly "humanity's greatest problem" because us first-worlders can't live to 150, because having their genes fortified (or whatever) most certainly is not going to do much good for those that simply can't get enough nutrients.
This is only a problem to that tiny privileged part of humanity that has no worries whatsoever about the two lowest levels of the Hierarchy of Needs. And you must be well aware which side of the fence you're on, how many there are suffering on the other side, and you have the gall to pose THIS as humanity's greatest problem?
No. I don't easily use a "but the starving kids in Africa have it so much worse" argument, except in this case it's directly relevant.
And don't get me wrong, I'm not against longevity research, cancer research or any kind of medical advances but at least they don't fucking claim they're solving a greater problem than fucking World Hunger.
Aging kills something of the order of 100,000 people every day, about twice as many people as all other causes put together: hunger, violence, accidents, etc.
The majority of those deaths are amongst the poor. Aging also causes great suffering for hundreds of millions of people on a daily basis. The majority of those people are also poor - the poor suffer far more greatly than the wealthy because of degenerative aging due to their comparative lack of access to what palliative treatments do exist.
If not for aging, the poor might have a far better chance of bettering their lot in life - they'd have no imposed time limit on working their way out of poverty, no need for large families to support them in their old age, and so forth.
So your hair shirt view of the world is completely wrong. Aging is the greatest problem, and like all universal problems falls most heavily on the poor.
That's an interesting point about large families...birth rates would probably fall pretty dramatically.
Another potential benefit is that really long-lived people might take a longer-term view on other problems. It'd probably change the global warming debate pretty significantly, for example, if everybody right now had a life expectancy of a thousand.
I can't help solve the world's hunger problems when I'm dead, so in my opinion humanity's greatest problem is death.
Related: in this TED talk[1] Aubrey de Grey makes the assertion that extending life by another 20 years or so is an incredible feat because in that added 20 years science will figure out how to add 20 more, etc.
Ever stop to think of world hunger? Malnutrition still is the global leading cause of mortality in the world. And you're arguing to crowdsource a solution to aging which is supposedly "humanity's greatest problem" because us first-worlders can't live to 150, because having their genes fortified (or whatever) most certainly is not going to do much good for those that simply can't get enough nutrients.
This is only a problem to that tiny privileged part of humanity that has no worries whatsoever about the two lowest levels of the Hierarchy of Needs. And you must be well aware which side of the fence you're on, how many there are suffering on the other side, and you have the gall to pose THIS as humanity's greatest problem?
No. I don't easily use a "but the starving kids in Africa have it so much worse" argument, except in this case it's directly relevant.
And don't get me wrong, I'm not against longevity research, cancer research or any kind of medical advances but at least they don't fucking claim they're solving a greater problem than fucking World Hunger.