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lsparrish comments on SENS and Givewell: Conversation between Holden Karnofsky and Aubrey de Grey - Less Wrong
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I have a hard time imagining being motivated more by health than longevity -- I would don a cyber-suit that keeps me alive but elderly for a hundred years to be rejuvenated later. However, the above is consistent with championing regenerative antiaging medicine rather than attempting to develop better cryonics.
(Better cryonics won't result in better health in the near term, so it's weaker on that front. But if the goal is to minimize the number of people who die and stay dead, it seems more likely to work in the near term than regenerative medicine.)
The way we (people in general) use the word "health" is based on a concept of the body as a well-defined entity. It becomes less well-defined when there is a technological solution that is as unobtrusive to use as part of your natural body; for example, a tooth with a filling works pretty much just as well as one that never had a cavity to begin with, so we don't think of it as an ongoing medical problem.
The other advantage to anti-aging medicine is that it might be used by more people, even if only for irrational reasons.
What do you mean with irrational reasons? Looking good to the opposing sex is a quite rational reason.
I mean irrational reasons for not buying cryonics.
Well, for many people longevity is not valuable by itself, but only up to the exent that it enables them to enjoy more things they like. Poor health is a major quality of life destroyer, and indeed a significant number of severy ill people refuse treatment that would prolong their life without improving its quality. Some even actively commit suicide.
I suppose that people obsessed with immortaility fantasies find difficult to understand this.
That's sci-fi. There are no cyber-suits that keep you alive for a hundred years to be rejuvenated later. They don't exist now, and they are not expected to exist in the foreseable future.
Indeed. I doubt I would seek to extend my life under indefinitely poor conditions. I placed some limites on my illustration, e.g. elderly (not e.g. suffering intense and unremitting pain) and for a hundred years (not e.g. a thousand) for this reason.
It's not a difficult concept, so I don't know why you would think that about such people.
Archimedes once said that, given a long enough lever and a fulcrum to rest it on, he could move the world with his body... I suppose you think that's "sci-fi" as well? Lighten up! Thought experiments don't always have to be realistic to prove a point.