Mortality is a very old problem, and lots of smart people have spent lots of time thinking about it. Perhaps the best intervention anyone has come up with is harm reduction via acceptance. That’s the approach I’m taking personally. Denial is popular, but isn’t very rationalist and seems to lead to more overall suffering.
I’m not working on promoting this approach because it’s literally thousand of years old and that’s not a good personal fit. But I support and respect people who do.
Smallpox is also a very old problem, and lots of smart people had spent lots of time thinking about it, until they’ve figured out a way to fix it. In theory, you could make an argument that no viable approaches exist today or in the foreseeable future and so harm reduction is the best strategy (from the purely selfish standpoint, working on the problem would still help the people in the future in this scenario). However, I don’t think in practice it would be a very strong argument, and in any case you are not making it.
If you’re say 60+ than yes, anti-aging is not a realistic option and all you have is cryonics, but most of the people in the community are well below 60. And even for a 60+ years old, I’d say that using the best currently available interventions to get cryopreserved a few years later and have a slightly higher chance for reanimation would be a high priority.
Yes, there are a number of interventions available that could delay death by a few years. For example, my copy of “Ageless: The New Science of Getting Older Without Getting Old”, which is almost a year old, ends with a short list:
Don’t smoke
Don’t eat too much
Get some Exercise
Get seven to eight hours of sleep
Get vaccinated and wash your hands
Take care of your teeth
Wear sunscreen
Monitor your heart rate and blood pressure
Don’t bother with supplements
Don’t bother with longevity drugs yet
Be a woman.
Do these count? When you say “relatively few people [are] doing the available interventions on the personal level” are these the interventions you’re talking about?
Yes and no. 1-6 are obviously necessary but not sufficient—there’s much more to diet and exercise than “not too much” and “some” respectively. 7 and 8 are kinda minor and of dubious utility except for in some narrow circumstances so whatever. And 9 and 10 are hotly debated and that’s exactly what you’d need rationality for, as well as figuring out the right pattern of diet and exercise. And I mean right for each individual person, not in general, and the same with supplements—a 60-year old should have much higher tolerance for potential risks of a longevity treatment than a 25yo, since the latter has more less to gain and more to loose.
Mortality is a very old problem, and lots of smart people have spent lots of time thinking about it. Perhaps the best intervention anyone has come up with is harm reduction via acceptance. That’s the approach I’m taking personally. Denial is popular, but isn’t very rationalist and seems to lead to more overall suffering.
I’m not working on promoting this approach because it’s literally thousand of years old and that’s not a good personal fit. But I support and respect people who do.
Smallpox is also a very old problem, and lots of smart people had spent lots of time thinking about it, until they’ve figured out a way to fix it. In theory, you could make an argument that no viable approaches exist today or in the foreseeable future and so harm reduction is the best strategy (from the purely selfish standpoint, working on the problem would still help the people in the future in this scenario). However, I don’t think in practice it would be a very strong argument, and in any case you are not making it.
If you’re say 60+ than yes, anti-aging is not a realistic option and all you have is cryonics, but most of the people in the community are well below 60. And even for a 60+ years old, I’d say that using the best currently available interventions to get cryopreserved a few years later and have a slightly higher chance for reanimation would be a high priority.
Yes, there are a number of interventions available that could delay death by a few years. For example, my copy of “Ageless: The New Science of Getting Older Without Getting Old”, which is almost a year old, ends with a short list:
Don’t smoke
Don’t eat too much
Get some Exercise
Get seven to eight hours of sleep
Get vaccinated and wash your hands
Take care of your teeth
Wear sunscreen
Monitor your heart rate and blood pressure
Don’t bother with supplements
Don’t bother with longevity drugs yet
Be a woman.
Do these count? When you say “relatively few people [are] doing the available interventions on the personal level” are these the interventions you’re talking about?
Yes and no. 1-6 are obviously necessary but not sufficient—there’s much more to diet and exercise than “not too much” and “some” respectively. 7 and 8 are kinda minor and of dubious utility except for in some narrow circumstances so whatever. And 9 and 10 are hotly debated and that’s exactly what you’d need rationality for, as well as figuring out the right pattern of diet and exercise. And I mean right for each individual person, not in general, and the same with supplements—a 60-year old should have much higher tolerance for potential risks of a longevity treatment than a 25yo, since the latter has more less to gain and more to loose.