I haven't got this one figured out yet. When i tell people how little curing cancer and heart disease is worth in the grand scheme of extending human life expectancy (7 yrs), so that I can tell them why I see so much value in working on technologies that can lead to 8, or 10 yrs.
After reading "ending aging" I came to a conflict. curing cancer and curing heart disease appear to be major components of 2 of the 7 legs of SENS.
So I do I tell peopel we should be working on longevity instead of curing cancer or heart disease, and then transition into sens where curing cancer and heart disease are 2 major components?
I think the resolution is to devide out the part of SENS which have a higher than 7 years life expectancy increase when achieved.
Amongst the 7 legs, some of the legs are worth more life up front than others. It would be nice to see estimates for which of those legs will result in gains in life expectancy in excess of curing cancer or heart disease.
Another good metric by which to look at the legs of SENS would be which of the 7 legs is more easy to achieve in a short time frame? Then compound in, which of those legs already have the most working for them (stem cells).
Then you have to decide whether it's better to help push the ones that already have great funding, or whether it's better to try and address the ones that aren't getting looked at well already.
Would you be better off pushing stem cells and seeing benefit from it in your lifetime, or dying because progress didn't happen there or in any of the other places you put your effort (one of the other 7...)
Hard hard hard questions, and ones I'm entirely amazingly unqualified to address. Who to turn to?