Comment by reasonattlm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by reasonattlm | Hacker News Reader

So far as I'm aware, the Gates Foundation does nothing in regard to the world's biggest problem, which is aging. Aging kills the most people, causes the greatest amount of suffering, causes the greatest loss of wealth and capital, falls most heavily on the poor without access to palliative medical technologies, etc, etc.

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2002/12/death-is-an-outra...

You'll see a number of mainstream foundations in the Methuselah Foundation lists, and those also support the SENS Research Foundation, working on the basis for ways to reverse the cellular and molecular damage that causes aging. The Gates foundation isn't there:

http://mfoundation.org/?pn=donors

But that's not entirely surprising: from the beginning, the Gates Foundation has been a very traditional Big Philanthropy operation. Wealth does not grant vision. Where there is innovation or stepping away from the norms it is of the incremental type, with none of what Peter Thiel calls "radical philanthropy". Is this is a criticism of Gates? Sure. But it's equally a criticism of everyone else. The Gates Foundation is doing what most people think Big Philanthropy should do. The blind spot for aging is near universal.

Sure, but we don't really know how to fight aging. However the things Bill Gates is tackling (polio, malaria) have known cures. You don't have to innovate time find a solution and innovate in executiong, only innovate in execution, which makes you much more likely to succeed.

Additionally solving childhood mortality issues will do wonders for the average life expectancy.

Something as simple as providing clean water can make a huge difference to life expectancy and quality of life. Another big need is sewer systems and toilets. So often we get caught up in trying to solve the problems we perceive in the First world, instead of the simpler, less glamourous projects that can make the biggest difference and cost less.

I'd put aging a lot farther down the list of big problems. I'd much rather him dedicate resources to stopping malaria in Africa, granting children and average people a shot at living, than to give money to extend grandma and grandpa's lives by a few more years.

What about extending the prime years of scientists, engineers, etc? More years of experience and wisdom to capitalize on and to reinvest their skills and knowledge into human progress. I for one would prefer that many of the brightest candles in humanity's past were still lit.

> So far as I'm aware, the Gates Foundation does nothing in regard to the world's biggest problem, which is aging

I'd say aging and, yes, death are two related things that have helped us evolve from organic Carbon molecules to a species that is thinking of colonizing other planets in the Solar system. And I also do believe that if "we" as a species (or an evolved species based on our own) ever are to go beyond our Solar System we would only do that if we let this process of evolution continue.

To say nothing of the fact that you cannot have a non-dying and increasing in numbers species such as ours without resorting to eugenics. Eugenics is bad.

Humans are not evolving (in the Darwinian sense). The closest thing is selection based on which parts of the population have the most children.

We are devolving in many ways: diseases that kill us or make us infertile are being treated so as to not kill us and make us infertile. With time, we might devolve to the point where we completely depend on modern medicine to survive and reproduce.

I was thinking more along these lines: http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/evolutionary-adapta... . And that is just about the last ~10,000 years (give or take a few thousands).

> With time, we might devolve to the point where we completely depend on modern medicine to survive and reproduce.

That's a possibility, of course. Then you have to wonder what happens if the social structures crumble or change dramatically and you do not have access to modern medicine anymore?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com