“We’re not ready for the e/Acc × Longevity preference cascade” by Jackson Wagner

Anti-aging sentiment might go rapidly mainstream, in the same way AI Safety just did. Recently, the AI safety community has been enjoying a massive preference cascade that has rapidly moved AI x-risk concerns into mainstream political discourse Why did this happen? The basic idea seems like it should have been obvious for a long time: “IF we create self-improving machines that rapidly become much smarter than humans, THEN that seems like that story might not end well for the humans, so we should be very careful.” If the idea is so sensible, why are people only now endorsing it? Proximately, because of HuggingFace, Jacob Coxon, etc. But in a larger sense, clearly the trigger was that the premise (“IF we create self-improving machines…”) no longer strikes people as absurd. Instead, it seems worryingly plausible. This not only unlocks huge amounts of energy from many new people people thinking the “IF” half of the statement is likely, but also – weirdly, illogically– seems to furthermore cause lots of people to change their minds on the “THEN” half of the statement, too. Why did the flip happen so quickly? This is actually the case for lots of movements – [...] --- Outline: (00:12) Anti-aging sentiment might go rapidly mainstream, in the same way AI Safety just did. (03:03) The labs are probably working towards this. (04:12) Although perhaps a cascade wouldn't happen or would come too late to matter. (06:53) A longevity preference-cascade would be great! Except, by default, the energies unlocked might flow directly into e/acc :( (11:12) Of course I'm not saying we should oppose medical cures! (12:21) So then what SHOULD we do? The original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: September 21st, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/BKc4xrqN4mdXoprzy/we-re-not-ready-for-the-e-acc-longevity-preference-cascade --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.