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wadavis comments on Open thread, 18-24 March 2014 - Less Wrong
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Laser eye surgery (LASIK) is being suggested by several people on LessWrong, who suggest it is a costly procedure that has high likelihood to improve your life. I do not think this is a good trade-off across a life time, because presbyopia.
Almost all humans experience presbyopia. This is age-related deterioration in the ability of the eye to adjust focus. In history, the biggest effect for most people is reduced ability to read, but now it also is affecting the ability to use computers.
If you have myopia (short sight), you can not see distant objects without distance glasses. However, myopia means that you will retain the ability to focus at close distance for longer as presbyopia develops.
So LASIK surgery is not only trading money for better distance vision: if it works, you get better distance vision but also you get worse close vision as presbyopia develops.
How long will you live in each condition?
According to last year's survey, the mean age is 27.4 (stdev 8.5). Presbyopia usually develops from age 40. Let us disregard the possibility of uploading because the mean date for the singularity is 2150. Life expectancy for a 27-year-old US male is 50 years. This is likely an underestimate. It is a period life expectancy, not a cohort life expectancy, and we do expect future improvements in longevity. It is, too, a population average. LessWrongers are smarter and better educated than average, which is associated with longer life. We will nonetheless use it for illustration.
So, very roughly, the trade for an average LessWronger considering LASIK is reduced need for glasses for 13 years against increased need for glasses for 37 years, or longer. Also, I guess that most LessWrongers with myopia spend much more time reading and using computers than doing tasks that require distance vision. I also guess they value those activities more.
Therefore this does not seem a good trade to me even if it were free of cost and risk.
Have I made a mistake? Has anyone more data? I know old people with presbyopia and I know young people with LASIK but I do not know anyone who has both. I guess some people on LessWrong have LASIK, but very few or no people have presbyopia, so I expect no people here with both. I guess that in universities there are faculty members who have both so I will ask on my next visits. Sometimes it seems even that all faculty members have myopia!
Please keep us updated on your findings and decisions.
I'm also looking at a cost-benefit of LASIK and watching the reports on early adopters. High chance of an improved quality of life versus a small chance of significantly reduced quality of life. So this is how risk aversion feels like from the inside.
I have spoken to an optician as in reply to other message in this thread.
I have also asked at a computer science department in a European university. It was funny! Everybody in the department except some grad students had myopia. Many of the older faculty also had myopia. But nobody had LASIK. Sorry I did not count properly. My visit was for other reason. However, I can say the modal mode of vision correction was glasses for distance vision and taken off for reading or computers. There were also some people with varifocal glasses. There were also some people with contact lenses for distance vision and reading glasses for reading or computers.