Interview, Podcast
#33 - Dr Anders Sandberg on what if we ended ageing, solar flares & the annual risk of nuclear war
- Current biomedical research indicates anti-aging interventions are more cost-effective than cryonics, with a shift in scientific consensus regarding aging's modifiability occurring within 10–15 years, though translating lab results to clinical applications is expected to take a significant timeframe.
- The speaker is willing to incur seven million dollars in debt if there is a probability greater than five percent that cryonics works, while considering Metformin starting in the 40s to reduce cancer and cardiovascular disease risks, with potential consideration of rapamycin or senolytics in the 60s.
- Aging is identified as a root cause for diseases like cancer and Alzheimer's, and while the WHO may have misprioritized it in 2019, implementing life extension could yield a "longevity dividend" where healthier older populations generate higher tax revenue and lower healthcare costs within 10 years.
- Extending life spans introduces risks of societal sclerosis, such as a "grey block" where older demographics vote against younger interests, potentially leading to instability, though mechanisms like term limits are proposed to prevent indefinite power retention by leaders.
- Political models suggest non-aging leaders would remain in power four years longer on average (a one-third increase over a 12-year tenure), but the speaker doubts this would fundamentally alter dictatorships or prevent revolutions, as most leaders lose power to internal conspiracies rather than death.
- Nuclear war risk is estimated at 0.1% to 1% per year after adjusting for observer selection effects, and solar flares with a 150-year return time could cause global grid failures by breaking expensive transformers that lack local reserves.
- The speaker advocates for cautious progression in human enhancement, suggesting trials where users allow monitoring to generate data, and opposes prioritizing the "anthropic shadow" argument that suggests nuclear peace implies low risk.
- Sex robots and persuasion technologies present potential societal risks regarding objectification, the automation of the "lust system," and the creation of supernormal stimuli, though the speaker argues for addressing root causes of objectification rather than banning technology.
- Sleep optimization is deemed valuable for reducing mortality risks, though the causal link is unclear and polyphasic sleep is considered incompatible with social life, while the speaker notes that most dreams are negative and learning to forecast requires better foundational knowledge.
- Listeners are directed to view Episode 29, and the speaker emphasizes that most individuals have several decades ahead, providing ample time in biomedicine to benefit from future research while acknowledging the difficulty of agreeing on the current state of the world or generating useful data on cognitive enhancements.