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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 08/10/2012 21:21, Dave Sill wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAM5aL2f9gtCeGW20cYrtqDmZmgtM3S=z21DWONwNM13VXdb6OA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">On Sat, Oct 6, 2012 at 5:35 PM, Anders Sandberg <span
dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:anders@aleph.se" target="_blank">anders@aleph.se</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
So in terms of deaths, fixing (or even denting) ageing,
malnutrition, infectious diseases and lifestyle causes is a
far more important activity than winning wars or stopping
terrorists.</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
<div>Except that if you applied the war budget to anti-aging,
nutrition, fighting disease through medication and vaccination,
and lifestyle improvement, you'd save far more lives than just
the war casualties averted. <br>
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</blockquote>
<br>
Yep. Although there is an interesting issue of how much money a
domain can handle. Putting a trillion into antiparasitic treatment
in tropical countries (currently the best value for money, according
to Giving What We Can) will be far more than those project need or
can channel effectively: beyond a certain amount they will likely
have done all treatments needed, and something else would be more
cost-effective. The US government putting a lot of money into
nanotechnology into the 90s made the field big, but also caused
borderwork that ousted the original ideas in favour of less
ambitious goals. And of course, too much money floating around can
encourage waste and corruption.<br>
<br>
Figuring out the right amount to spend on different projects is an
interesting challenge. I seem to recall Aubrey de Grey saying that
his limit was somewhere around a hundred million, quite likely much
lower: he is aiming at proof-of-concept work and making the
SENS-approach credible. Once that is done money will come naturally.
For reducing xrisks I think the limit is even lower: a few tens of
million would be enough to keep FHI and similar groups developing a
proper theory and understanding of what ought to be done (since to
be honest, we do not have the crucial considerations worked out
yet), and once that is done the real money might need to come into
play for actual fixes - whatever they are. Meanwhile energy fixes
might already be capable of handling big money, although I am a bit
concerned about their leakiness.<br>
<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Anders Sandberg,
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Faculty of Philosophy
Oxford University </pre>
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