[ExI] Longevity Day and Longevity Month - October 2016

[Anders Sandberg]

On 2016-07-09 04:14, Mike Dougherty wrote:
>
> I took 30 days worth and didn't notice anything. Admittedly, I want 
> exactly sure what I should be paying attention to so to say that it 
> did not have a profound impact is not saying it had none.
>

I think this is a fundamental problem with self-experimentation in many 
domains - mainly anti-ageing, but also cognitive enhancement. How do you 
tell if it is working?

I have friends who do some pretty sophisticated things, yet they have no 
way of telling if they are actually improving. In one case a documented 
dose-dependent side effect is helping my friend check that the dose is 
in the published therapeutic range, but that is it.

Now, this is not intended as science, but rather for life improvement. 
But it seems to me that one needs to check that it actually does improve 
things in a measurable way for the cost/benefit ratio to be guessable. 
This is extra tricky for long-term effects, where you cannot even test 
with a placebo in reasonable time. Maybe the solution would be to try to 
do more online pooling?


-- 
Dr Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University