Why remove aging?
F.A.Q. ABOUT AGING RESEARCH
Isn’t aging normal and natural?
Yes, but many horrifying conditions such as cancer are also natural. This alone is not reason to overlook them.
We are already investing in aging-related treatments through cancer/heart disease research.
Chronic diseases such as cancer are essentially symptoms of aging and even if ‘cured’, would only marginally expand lifespan due to the comorbidity of chronic health conditions. Cancer is the result of accumulated cellular/DNA damage. The primary causes of this damage are the 9 aging-related processes listed earlier. Although billions of dollars are invested into cancer research, this is unlikely to prolong lifespan anywhere near the possibility of anti-aging therapies, since cancer therapies target the disease once it has already progressed sufficiently. By intervening earlier and stopping damage before it arises, we can target the underlying cause.
Overpopulation: the Earth cannot sustain a population of longer-living individuals.
Birth rates are falling in many countries and the WHO predicts the global population will peak at 9 billion before declining. A longer- living healthy population in the short term will actually help to stabilise the population size and mitigate the negative demographic effects an ‘aging’ population (of unhealthy individuals). In the longer term, there are of course be challenges depending on the effectiveness of the therapies. For instance, there may be trade offs between having children and using anti-aging therapies, to avoid overpopulation. But given the choice, many people would probably choose to not develop Alzheimer’s disease over having children. In addition, these new-Malthusian concerns are likely to be overestimated from a historical perspective, and with technological developments it’s quite likely we could sustain a larger population in the future.
There is no moral reason to expand lifespan.
In the same way that the increase in life expectancy from 50 to 80 in the past century was a moral development, so too will be the increase from 80 to 120 and beyond. Living longer allows people more time to exercise preferences, attain greater wellbeing and so on. An important point is that those who live longer generally have fewer chronic health conditions. For example, centenarians use up one third less of the healthcare expenditure than the average. So expanding lifespan generally involves a reduced number of years living with chronic disease.
It is not technically/scientifically feasible to slow or reverse aging.
We do not know for certain whether it is possible or not for certain to expand lifespan significantly, however promising work from the last decade or so suggests it is becoming increasingly likely. We have a basic understanding of the target pathways, and it is a matter of developing therapies and suitable biomarkers for human trials. However, more investment is needed in this field. It is very likely that we will have this technology at some point, and investing more now will help to bring this point closer in time.
Anti-aging therapies will perpetuate social inequality.
In the same way that many therapies from biotech companies come down in price, especially once the patents expire, so too will anti-aging therapies.
Aging is one of the greatest problems of moral urgency. The EA community must help to boost recognition of aging research as a severely under-prioritised cause area.