Worthy charities

[archerships]

terrencechan asked for suggestions of charities worthy of donation. Never one to pass up an opportunity to tell others how to spend their money, here's what I suggested.



Every day, 150,000 die from aging. In other words, more people die from aging every two days than all the people who died in the Asian tsunami, the worst natural disaster in modern history. And unless we do something about it, most likely, you and everyone you love will also die from aging.

Historically, there was not much we could do about aging. As a result, most people have become complacent, or even glamorize death.

But resigned fatalism is no longer warranted.

There are two charities that I think are doing great work in this area: Alcor and the Methusaleh Foundation.

First, the case for Alcor. As medicine advances, we can expect cures for aging, cancer, heart disease, and most other major causes of death. Unfortunately, most of us were probably born too early to take advantage of those technologies.

But suppose that you could somehow halt the process of dying, that you could go into suspended animation. Then you could wait as long as was necessary for science to come up with a cure for whatever was killing you, plus repair the damage caused by the cryopreservation process itself.

Suspended animation, aka cryonics, the cryopreserving of human beings in the hopes of their future reanimation, exists today. However, it is a field still in its infancy. The dollars devoted to research in this field have been minuscule, despite the enormous potential payoff.

Yet, despite extremely poor funding, some advances have been made. One of those advances is vitrification, which has proven promising in the rabbit kidney model. By introducing a high enough concentration of antifreeze, instead of forming ice crystals, the fluid within an organ will vitrify (form a glass). According to rabbit kidney studies, this is much less damaging than ice crystallization.

Alcor is currently raising money for their whole body vitrification research. The whole body vitrification research intends to translate the research that has been done in the rabbit kidney model to whole human cryopreservation. If they're successful, it will mean much less damage for current patients, and a big step forward in the long slog toward demonstrating working suspended animation. Any donations to this research will be matched up to $100 K by Bina and Martine Rothblatt if you pledge before January 31, 2006.

You can read about the scientific case for cryonics here:

http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/caseforcryonics.html

Alternatively, you could donate to Methusaleh Foundation's Methusaleh Mouse Prize:

The Methuselah Mouse Prize (MPrize), is the premiere effort of the Methuselah Foundation and is being offered to the scientific research team who develops the longest living Mus musculus, the breed of mouse most commonly used in scientific research. Developing interventions which work in mice are a critical precursor to the development of human anti-aging techniques, for once it is demonstrated that aging in mice can be effectively delayed or reversed, popular attitudes towards aging as 'inevitable' will no longer be possible. When aging in mice is shown to be 'treatable' the funding necessary for a full-line assault on the aging process will be made available. This is the true power of the Methuselah Mouse Prize, to demonstrate a proof of principle, and give hope to the world that decline in function and age-related disease are no longer guarantees, for us, or for future generations, if we work together now.

The nice thing about the Methusaleh Mouse Prize is that it only pays for results -- if no one increases the mouses lifespan, the prize isn't paid.

If you want to leverage your charitable dollars, I can't think of any better charities. If either is successful, it will mean vastly increased lifespans for millions and eventually billions of people.

Including, perhaps, your own.

Comments

[girl-on-a-stick.livejournal.com]

Why do you think extending our lifespan is a good idea?

i mean this as a sincere question, not being sarcastic or flippant, honest

[crasch.livejournal.com]

1. I like being alive. I like watching movies, surfing the internet, making love, talking walks. I want to continue to doing those things. To paraphase Nietsche, "What is the purpose of a song? To get to the end of the song? Or to enjoy the song as you're playing?" I enjoy the song of life, and I want the music to keep playing as long as possible.
   
2. There are far more things I want to do and achieve than I will have time for in my "natural" life. I want to be a pilot, cause revolutions, make movies, travel around the world, travel in space. The longer I live, the more of those things I get to do.
   
3. Death seems quite wasteful. People work for decades to gain the knowledge and motor skills to be competent in their fields, then they grow old and die. The new generation must go through the same long, painful process all over again. If people lived longer, less time would be wasted on learning the basics, and more time would be spent on innovating and creating something new.
   
4. When memory dies, history repeats itself. Those who lived through the predations of Nazi Germany, the Communist dictatorships, and all the other political monsters of the 20th century are old and dying. Soon, no one living will remember. As a result, fresh victims, innocent of history, will fall prey to the same old monsters.
   
5. More people will take the long view, if they will actually live long enough to enjoy the view themselves. Many of the knottiest problems--the national debt, social security, global warming, pollution, deforestation, species loss--result when people incur long-term costs in exchange for short-term benefits. After all, if you'll be long-dead anyway when the bill comes due, why should you care how much your descendants will have to pay? If, on the other hand, people expect that they personally will suffer, they'll be much more likely to take those long term costs into account.
   

Assuming you were in good health, why would you want to die?

[girl-on-a-stick.livejournal.com]

It's not so much that I want to die, but the world is over-populated enough as it is and I question the effect of a dramatically longer lifespan on the earth. My reasons for wanting to live are the same as yours, but I wonder if it's best for the good of the earth and humanity.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

If you could be persuaded that increasing lifespans were correlated with stable or even declining population size, would you support anti-aging/suspended animation research?

[girl-on-a-stick.livejournal.com]

Let's see that evidence.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Another reason:

Aging is painful and ugly. White, strong teeth become yellow, cracked, and fall out. Clear, smooth skin becomes wrinkled and spotted. Strong legs and arms become brittle and weak. Even simple exercises, like walking across a room, leave you breathless and tired. You lose your hearing, sight, taste, control over your bowels, and eventually, your mind. You can't read, you can't watch TV, you can't carry a conversation. You may not remember dear friends or even the faces of your own children. Cancer eats away your bones . In the end, you'll probably die, gasping for breath, as pneumonia cuts off your oxygen.

I would personally rather avoid this process as long as possible.

[ehintz.livejournal.com]

I would personally rather avoid this process as long as possible.

Amen to that.

[mindwalker.livejournal.com]

Great idea. I donated!

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Cool! Which one?

[mindwalker.livejournal.com]

The Methusaleh Foundation. I'm also a big fan of Alcor, but haven't funded a suspension yet because I'm hesitant to shell out that much money for life insurance. I should do it soon though; that stuff doesn't get cheaper as one gets older (at least for the time being)!