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DanArmak comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 18, chapter 87 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Certainly what you propose is possible. But I don't feel that it's probable. The goal of making many or all people immortal is of immense value. The effort devoted before giving up should be commensurate. The theoretical proof that it is impossible should be extraordinarily strong before people ought to stop trying to refute it.
How many centuries does the world's greatest alchemist have to spend on one problem before it becomes more useful to do research and use his vast wealth to benefit humanity?
Oh, at least fifty or sixty.
More seriously, one can do both. Sure it's hard to perfectly and completely solve the problem of best using unlimited gold, taking into account appreciation etc. But on the margin, it's pretty clear the world could stand a few more billions given to charity without hurting the economy too much.
And, there's no evidence Flamel has used his vast wealth to benefit humanity - certainly not in proportion to that vastness. In a counterfactual world where Flamel spent a year out of every ten using gold to benefit humanity, we wouldn't see nearly as many good causes that could really use another million dollars.
Yeah, it is odd that we haven't seen evidence of the world being improved by large anonymous donations of gold. Maybe I was wrong to assume Harry was talking nonsense when he decided the stone creating gold was just a rumor.
In fact we haven't seen evidence involving large amounts of gold at all. Not just anonymous donations, but purchasing assets, hiring powerful people, bribing governments, setting up influential media, research institutes, factories...
Maybe Flamel is so old that he just doesn't comprehend the Industrial Revolution ideas of how one can translate money into power... but some ideas are as old as money and large governments. Or maybe he just thinks using a lot of money is somehow sinful or evil. Or maybe he's amazingly unambitious.
If Flamel had been an ally of Dumbledore when Voldemort kidnapped his brother, and could create infinite gold, then Moody wouldn't have told Dumbledore that ransoming him would empty their warchest, because their warchest would have been infinite. And if Flamel could and would do it now, then perhaps Dumbledore wouldn't insist as much on not ransoming Hermione.
You know, it's sounding more and more like Harry was right about the stone not actually making gold. Huh.