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Comment by reagency | Hacker News Reader

The billions of people suffering from non age-related maladies and mistreatments aren't well served by devoting yet more resources to the health concerns of the wealthiest.

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Um? Of the hundreds of millions suffering due to aging, most are desperately poor. Of the 100,000 who will die today, most are desperately poor. The wealthier people of the world have access to better palliative treatments, better support networks, or even treatments at all; they are marginally better off as they head towards a death they do not want. Aging is very much a health concern of the poor, and the poor suffer more from it. Doing something about that starts with creating the treatments.

Treatments to repair the root cause cell and tissue damage that leads to degeneration will be mass-produced infusions when realized, since everyone ages due to the same underlying reasons. They will not be very expensive, their price trajectory looking like that for drugs today, assuming the regulatory environment remains consistent over the decades ahead. Ultimately they will be as cheap as older medications are today. But to get to that point you have to start by creating the treatments.

Well put. I'm happy to face the frailties of old age if I can just spend the hear-and-now trying to do something that matters for people less fortunate than me.

If we ever got to a point where some people had greatly extended their lives and/or eliminated death for themselves whilst others still faced premature death from a basic lack of the necessities of life, well then, we'd be an even more narcissistic race than I originally thought.

Isn't this argument along the same lines of why explore space while people are starving on earth? There are 7 billion people on the planet.

We all shouldn't simply sit by idling until all the basic problems are fixed. Solving the "basic necessities" problem might be more economic related or come down to creating technology to create cheap, clean energy, for example.

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Im not advocating sitting by idling. I just think it reflects our innate priorities when we put so much effort into extending our own lives when it doesn't take as much effort to greatly extend someone else's life who is less resourced than I am.

You are talking in generalities. What is "so much effort?" If a hundred thousand people work on a problem and spend 10 billion dollars, for instance, are we really depriving the less resourced? The U.S. spends $60 billion on pet food.

http://www.americanpetproducts.org/press_industrytrends.asp

We spend billions on bottled water:

http://www.businessweek.com/debateroom/archives/2008/09/bott...

Shouldn't we drink tap water and use the money saved to get water to people in need?

All reflections of a pretty weird state of affairs if I take a step back and try to look at things objectively. I guess achieving big strides in longevity for a wealthier few would just be an extension of the trend.

Bill Gates had this to say: "It seems pretty egocentric while we still have malaria and TB for rich people to fund things so they can live longer. It would be nice to live longer though I admit"

Not the authoritative word on the issue but interesting considering he has the opportunity to do either yet is focussing on malaria, TB etc

One of the top charities in GivingWell is to help stop malaria. You should donate. Nets go a long way and they're really cheap. I bought 20 nets last year. We don't need Bill Gates for that, right?

http://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities

By doing really difficult and expensive medical research over decades, we will discover many things that help many of the 7 billion people, increasing to 9 billion, on the planet. Knowledge isn't something that stays locked up forever, and which only rich people have access to it.

Age related research will benefit over 10 billion people in this century. Most of us will get old.

Yeah, I had heard a rumour that approximately 10 out of every 10 people end up dying...

And in first world countries health insurances can often pay a fortune in the last couple of years of people's lives.

What's my dog supposed to eat.

I would argue that we need to explore space because of the situations the next 15 billion people on this planet will be facing, it isn't about the current 7 billion.

it depends, is there any reason for India to explore space when they could in ten years with the right plan bring electrical power to the 2/3rds that do not have it in India? Imagine the amount of jobs and economical growth such a plan could generate..

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