Apparently, Peter Thiel Is Very, Very Interested in Young People's Blood
According to the article, ...
More than anything, Peter Thiel, the billionaire technology investor and Donald Trump supporter, wants to find a way to escape death. ... if there's one thing that really excites Thiel, it's the prospect of having younger people's blood transfused into his own veins. ... according to Thiel, it's a potential biological Fountain of Youth - the closest thing science has discovered to an anti-ageing panacea.
[...] After decades languishing on the fringes, it's recently started getting attention from mainstream researchers, with multiple clinical trials underway in humans in the U.S. and even more advanced studies in China and Korea.
[...] In Monterey, California, about 120 miles from San Francisco, a company called Ambrosia recently commenced one of the trials. Titled "Young Donor Plasma Transfusion and Age-Related Biomarkers," it has a simple protocol: Healthy participants aged 35 and older get a transfusion of blood plasma from donors under 25, and researchers monitor their blood over the next two years for molecular indicators of health and ageing. The study is patient-funded; participants, who range in age from late 30s through 80s, must pay $8,000 to take part, and live in or travel to Monterey for treatments and follow-up assessments.
I thought I would bring this development to the attention of the Soylent News community. I also have a question. The article claims that the practice is known as parabiosis. But Wikipedia says "parabiosis is a class of techniques in which two living organisms are joined together surgically and develop single, shared physiological systems, such as a shared circulatory system." This definition seems to include the relevant 1950s rat experiments. But I believe it does not cover the Monterey experiment, nor the kinds of human treatment that Thiel and others are seeking. Am I right about this? And if so, is there better word to use?
Also, feel free to comment any fictional examples you know of. Did Montgomery Burns ever partake, for example?
[Continues...]
Want to stay/get younger? Inject plasma from a younger person...
Now a startup has launched a "clinical trial" to test the antiaging benefits of such treatment...but it's pay-per-view. Writing in Science today, Jocelyn Kaiser reports on the ethical, and other, aspects of this project. From her article, "Young blood antiaging trial raises questions":
[...] The company, Ambrosia in Monterey, California, plans to charge participants $8000 for lab tests and a one-time treatment with young plasma. The volunteers don't have to be sick or even particularly aged--the trial is open to anyone 35 and older. Karmazin notes that the study passed ethical review and argues that it's not that unusual to charge people to participate in clinical trials.
To some ethicists and researchers, however, the trial raises red flags, both for its cost to participants and for a design that they say is unlikely to deliver much science. "There's just no clinical evidence [that the treatment will be beneficial], and you're basically abusing people's trust and the public excitement around this," says neuroscientist Tony Wyss-Coray of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, who led the 2014 young plasma study in mice. [In which injecting old mice with the plasma portion of blood from young mice seemed to improve the elderly rodents' memory and ability to learn.]
[...]
To bioethicist Leigh Turner at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, the study brings to mind a growing number of scientifically dubious trials registered in ClinicalTrials.gov by private, for-profit stem cell clinics. The presence of such trials in the database confers "undeserved legitimacy," he says.
The scientific design of the trial is drawing concerns as well. "I don't see how it will be in any way informative or convincing," says aging biologist Matt Kaeberlein of the University of Washington, Seattle. The participants won't necessarily be elderly, making it hard to see any effects, and there are no well-accepted biomarkers of aging in blood, he says. "If you're interested in science," Wyss-Coray adds, why doesn't such a large trial include a placebo arm? Karmazin says he can't expect people to pay knowing they may get a placebo. With physiological measurements taken before and after treatment, each person will serve as their own control, he explains.
[Ed Note: The second sub was added about 15 minutes after the first story went live on the main page.]
Related Stories
Unregulated herpes experiments expose 'black hole' of accountability
Recent revelations that a U.S. researcher injected Americans with his experimental herpes vaccine without routine safety oversight raised an uproar among scientists and ethicists. Not only did Southern Illinois University researcher William Halford vaccinate Americans offshore, he injected other participants in U.S. hotel rooms without Food and Drug Administration oversight or even a medical license. Since then, several participants have complained of side effects.
But don't expect the disclosures after Halford's death in June to trigger significant institutional changes or government response, research experts say. "A company, university or agency generally does not take responsibility or take action on their own to help participants, even if they're hurt in the trial," said Carl Elliott, a professor in the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota. "These types of cases are really a black hole in terms of accountability." The federal government once scrutinized or even froze research at universities after learning of such controversies. Now, experts said, the oversight agencies tend to avoid action even in the face of the most outrageous abuses.
Experts said the U.S. regulatory agencies are especially unprepared to deal with off-the-grid experiments like Halford's. He recruited subjects through Facebook and in some cases didn't require signed consent forms, or informed participants outright that the experiments flouted FDA oversight. These patients, many who struggle with chronic, painful herpes, proceeded anyway in their quest for a cure. After Halford's offshore trial, Peter Thiel, a libertarian and adviser to President Donald Trump, pitched in millions of dollars for future research.
Previously: Hopes of Extended Lifespans Using Transfusions of Young People's Blood
University Could Lose Millions From "Unethical" Research Backed by Peter Thiel
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @11:31AM
[...]Peter Thiel, the billionaire technology investor and Donald Trump supporter, wants to find a way to escape death. ... if there's one thing that really excites Thiel, it's the prospect of having younger people's blood transfused into his own veins.
Back in my day, this type of people at least attempted to hide the fact that they were leeches, these days, they come right out and say it...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @11:35AM
I wonder what the next step will be? These fuckers will destroy their own organs by abusing them with hookers, blow and booze just because they have enough money to pay for a transplant 'of their choice'.
"Hey you, over there with the 'Please give, anything helps - disabled vet' sign on the corner, wanna make 100 bucks? What if I give you 90 bucks and you give me your liver? Deal? Good, for 80 bucks I get your liver, yeah? Here's 70 bucks... as a single 50 bucks bill."
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Tuesday August 02 2016, @11:53AM
These fuckers are also investing in technologies such as organ printing that will benefit everybody on the transplant list.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @12:02PM
except for amputees, because they don't have an arm or a leg anymore, which is what this will cost!
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday August 02 2016, @12:06PM
Only certain double, triple and quadruple amputees.
Early adopters will get access to functional organs and anti-aging therapies. More people will be able to afford access to more effective organs and therapies later on. That's the way it has always been.
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(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @12:16PM
More people will be able to afford...
Aannnnd you lost me... Are you Canadian? Or do you live in some other civilized country where health care is not equivalent to price gouging? Because based on how it's going here in the US of A, the only thing we're number one in, is the high cost of health care...
You'll get brought into the ER while unconscious and with some organ failure, they'll keep you alive for long enough (beds gotta be filled to make money), reprint a new organ for you (we gotta use this technology once we have it, it'd be a shame if it stood there unused) and implant it (otherwise that poor OR is just standing there, empty, gotta maximize occupancy, you see). And then for the remainder of your life, you'll be in debt to either the health insurance who ponied up the cost up-front but wants its money back or the hospital because your health insurance doesn't cover custom-printed organs but they gave you one anyway. And there's no way for you to escape, because the newly printed organ's got a remote kill switch in it requiring you to present yourself with your 'payment facilitation officer' every week like you're a felon on parole! Welcome to serf-dom!
Now if only you were a {b|m}illionaire, you'd be able to afford this easily...
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday August 02 2016, @12:27PM
Anti-aging is preventative health care. It will reduce other health care costs.
Alzheimer's is a good example. It falls under the AmyloSENS category of Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence [wikipedia.org]:
http://www.alzheimers.net/resources/alzheimers-statistics/ [alzheimers.net]
If you implement anti-aging therapies in the population, you eliminate many years of lost productivity, remove the need for costly assisted living, and eliminate the huge expense of end-of-life health care.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday August 02 2016, @01:09PM
Look, you're a reasonable person. Since when has health “insurance” been about reducing healthcare costs? The more expensive healthcare is, and the more healthcare people need, the more they can skim off the top.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday August 02 2016, @01:49PM
Are there anti-competitive forces in health care that don't want to see anti-aging succeed? Sure. Will they manage to stop this? Not necessarily. Thiel and other Silicon Valley transhumanist types we love to bash will fund and sell anti-aging therapies if other industries refuse to. They also have the lobbyists necessary to reduce industry-supported FDA barriers. If it can't get done in the U.S., they will just move the research and drug production overseas, and you will see a new form of medical tourism.
The ability of citizens to manipulate DNA and synthesize drugs and chemicals in small labs is also getting better.
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/08/01/488255920/fda-approved-knock-offs-of-biotech-drugs-could-safely-save-big-bucks [npr.org]
Look, something that goes against the trend of expensive health care. DIDN'T EXPECT THAT DIDYA
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(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday August 02 2016, @02:55PM
Fair enough, I didn't expect that! Color me double surprised to see that it was a provision of Obamacare to boot!
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Tuesday August 02 2016, @04:55PM
The AC up-thread hinted at the answer.
In a system of universal health-care, you prioritize based on need, not cost. (Though cost consideration does come into it eventually).
They will always be sick people. No need to engineer problems
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 02 2016, @06:21PM
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Tuesday August 02 2016, @08:10PM
No, more like you get priority access to the expensive machine if your life is on the line. But there are only so many expensive machines to go around.
In a universal health-care system it is understood that some people will cost more money than others. However, nobody chooses to have an expensive life-threatening illness.
Mandatory insurance coverage is one thing that Obamacare got right. From my limited understanding, the whole system seem like an awkward compromise though.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday August 02 2016, @10:57PM
Mandatory insurance coverage is one thing that Obamacare got right.
I was cautiously optimistic that this was a good idea. I had thought (and still do…) that the free market and the infusion of healthy young people would have driven down costs.
Holy shit was I wrong. Everybody believes the “basic care is too expensive!” meme blindly, so insurance companies are getting away with a hell of a racket. I've never had my premiums go up so fast. I used to have a plan that was one grade under a Cadillac plan! I absolutely don't buy it for one damned second that getting tons of healthy young people insurance somehow necessitates raising premiums and deductibles. It's a total scam, and I imagine there's gobs and gobs of Hollywood-style accounting enabling it.
The employer mandate was another screw up. What that changed is that instead of merely avoiding having hourly employees go over $limit_x (40 hours), employers have had to create a new class of part time worker who is absolutely forbidden from going over $new_limit (29.5 hours). Before “part time” meant that there was no guarantee you'd get hours, but if you were a good employee you'd probably work between 38 to 42-ish hours per week.
I think we need single payer if the alternative is an increasingly broken fucking mess that screws over the middle class, but I'm sure that somehow not even that could fix the spiraling costs.
The art of self-fulfilling prophecy at its finest!
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday August 03 2016, @12:52AM
A single-payer system still has mandatory coverage. I just did not feel awake enough to explain the nuances.
Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] summarizes the Canadian system as:
Generally, doctors are paid a set fee-for-service.
What you describe does sound like a scam. Young people tend to not need expensive healthcare except for trauma injuries. Premiums should go down if young people are required to sign up. Although, with universal health-care, they are no longer allowed to exclude you for pre-existing conditions. So it may balance out somewhat.
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Wednesday August 03 2016, @02:16AM
No explanation necessary. Sleep well! The only thing I haven't looked into in detail are the differences between Canadian vs. UK vs. German, etc. I guess what I'm hoping for with single payer is some reigning in of costs and the elimination of middlemen.
Pre-existing conditions one would think would be their chosen excuse, but it's not. It is literally that paying for everybody to visit their doctor once per year is breaking the bank.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 03 2016, @01:22AM
I was cautiously optimistic that this was a good idea. I had thought (and still do…) that the free market and the infusion of healthy young people would have driven down costs.
And the US didn't get enough young people to infuse because they aren't stupid. Forcing a bunch of healthy people to pay for known sick people via insurance is great for the sick people, not so great for the healthy people.
I think we need single payer if the alternative is an increasingly broken fucking mess that screws over the middle class, but I'm sure that somehow not even that could fix the spiraling costs.
I'd take this supposed choice more seriously, if the latest group to break the current US health care system weren't those advocates [cnn.com] for single payer.
A third video emerged Wednesday of MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, one of the architects of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, insulting voters and suggesting their ignorance was exploited by those pushing passage of the health care law.
and
That video, from the University of Pennsylvania in 2013 (which you can see here) featured Gruber saying, "If you had a law which said healthy people are going to pay in -- if you made it explicit that healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed, OK? Just like how people -- transparent -- lack of transparency is a huge advantage. And basically, you know, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever. But basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass."
Elsewhere he brags [cnn.com] that the Cadillac tax is actually a stealth means to eliminate the employer tax break on health care plans.
In one of the videos that surfaced in recent days in which the man described by the Obama campaign as having helped to write Obamacare describes the many ways voters he calls stupid were easily misled about the bill by those pushing it, Gruber says the Cadillac tax will do exactly what the president pledged it would not -- dissuade employers in general from providing insurance for its employees. "Economists have called for 40 years to get rid of the regressive, inefficient and expensive tax subsidy provided for employer provider health insurance," Gruber said at the Pioneer Institute for public policy research in Boston in 2011. The subsidy is "terrible policy," Gruber said.
Here, we have a key architect of this key health care bill admitting that he knew ahead of time that of various problems and hid those things from the public for their own good, supposedly. It doesn't strain credulity in my opinion that the creators of this bill attempted to break US health care enough to make single payer appealing to the US voter. For our own good, of course.
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Wednesday August 03 2016, @02:08AM
Wow. That's pretty hilarious actually. I wouldn't doubt that some perverse single-payer system where Americans pay trillions and accept a standard of care that's worse than any other developed nation is what the lizard people are going for.
I mean, don't get me wrong. I think all that needed to happen was for employers to stop subsidizing health insurance. A big part of my current difficulty with “religious/feminist objection!” are that people think they're suddenly paying more because I'm getting crap for free since, well obviously, omg free Obamacare sex changes! I don't think we had “religious objection!” before Obamacare.
I don't want anybody paying for my meds. I have a job and can buy them myself. They're routine, generics are available, and it's not life-threatening. I just want people to shut up and take my money.
My resignation is that I have no idea how on earth to salvage the insurance model of healthcare delivery at this point. I know you hate socialism more than I do, but I just get so sick of all the ineptly designed social programs we do have. Something about people learning that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday August 02 2016, @07:40PM
The longer people live, the longer you can get money from them. The whole point of this treatment is to make you live longer.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by OrugTor on Tuesday August 02 2016, @04:42PM
(Score: 1) by OrugTor on Tuesday August 02 2016, @04:46PM
duh
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @05:22PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @05:18PM
I thought Canadians are only billed when they go to a private doctor.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 02 2016, @05:44PM
You'll get brought... [hysterical sci fi dystopia deleted]
Well, you just made a straw man, so making straw organs ought to be pretty cheap.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday August 02 2016, @04:15PM
Affordability is going the wrong way in the U.S. lately. Costs of common treatments have been tripling or *hrm, we don't have a word for costing 80 times what it used to...)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday August 02 2016, @04:21PM
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/08/01/488255920/fda-approved-knock-offs-of-biotech-drugs-could-safely-save-big-bucks [npr.org]
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(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday August 02 2016, @04:45PM
If they get approved and not blocked in courts, they save gowawful amounts of money. But currently there's all the foot dragging the law allows. Meanwhile, the FDA granted an exclisive on a 19th century generic medication [nejm.org] (available as herbal medicine for over 1000 years) and general healthcare costs have outpaced inflation for over a decade..
Perhaps if we chop up the FDA for firewood and put a new administration in it's place.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday August 03 2016, @10:14AM
Heck Erzsébet Báthory was doing this back in the 16th century. They walled her up in a tower for it after she'd gone through several hundred young people.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @11:44AM
This is the guy who destroyed gawker for reporting on his business failures (6 billion dollars he lost trying to manage a hedge fund). He wants to be a leech, he just doesn't want anyone calling him out on it in public. Also, he founded palantir [wikipedia.org] to secretly track people for the CIA. He's about as destructive and toxic as a man can get.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @12:26PM
Not that I'm a big fan of Thiel, but you don't think he might hate Gawker because they outed him as a gay man??
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @12:54PM
I do not. Because they did not. He outed himself in a 2003 profile in the new yorker.
He was also openly gay in his daily life, it was only a "secret" to people who didn't know him personally, just like anyone's sexual orientation is a secret to people who do not know them. His supposed outrage over being incidentally mentioned in a positive light as part of a larger story about silicon valley's positive attitude towards gay people is misdirection.
But even if he had been outed, killing the entire company is completely disproportionate. The damage he suffered as a result was negligible.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Tuesday August 02 2016, @05:56PM
He outed himself in a 2003 profile in the new yorker.
The founder of Gawker said that. [adweek.com]
I looked for the New Yorker article but didn't find it, nor any reference to it, on the Web. I found a New Yorker piece from 2011 that says:
[...] Thiel didn’t come out to his friends until 2003, when he was in his mid-thirties. “Do you know how many people in the financial world are openly gay?” he asked one friend, explaining that he didn’t want his sexual orientation to get in the way of his work.
--http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/11/28/no-death-no-taxes [newyorker.com]
The author of the 2007 Valleywag article “Peter Thiel Is Totally Gay, People” said [nytimes.com]
I did discuss his sexuality, but it was known to a wide circle who felt that it was not fit for discussion beyond that circle.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Tuesday August 02 2016, @06:31PM
He outed himself in a 2003 profile in the new yorker.
I just got access to The New Yorker's full archives, but it seems like they only have content from after ~2006 indexed for internal searching. At least, that's the earliest piece it's giving me about Thiel. Do you have a specific citation so that I can see what this article actually said without combing through a whole year of The New Yorker? If you do, I'll share the relevant quote (if any) here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @07:08PM
Their search is fucked up. Search for Thiel in the default sort by relevance mode and you'll see some hits going back into the 80s at least (not that thiel though).
Switch to sort by date and the hits stop in 2006.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @12:38PM
I thought you were gonna say that the media back in your day was subtler about the phrasing it chooses, but oh well..
(Score: 3, Funny) by theluggage on Tuesday August 02 2016, @11:46AM
Also, feel free to comment any fictional examples you know of. Did Montgomery Burns ever partake, for example?
I seem to recall that Prof. Farnsworth in Futurama bought a pint of stem cells with his tax rebate...
But also, I'm sure that there is some niche fictional genre about immortal beings getting sustenance from (not exclusively, but often young & attractive people's ) blood but I can't quite put my finger on it... my mind has been a bit fuzzy since this weird bite mark appeared on my neck.
Is the treatment more effective if the donor was wearing a low-cut nightdress?
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday August 02 2016, @12:03PM
"I seem to recall that Prof. Farnsworth in Futurama bought a pint of stem cells with his tax rebate..."
He does, in the episode "Three hundred big boys" he uses his tax refund in the form of a Tricky-Dick-Fun-Bill to buy stem cells. In other episodes he also admits that he keeps Amy around because she shares his blood type. In one of the later movies it is revealed that in one of his secrets safes he has blood, tissue and stool samples of all his employees.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday August 02 2016, @12:43PM
Is the treatment more effective if the donor was wearing a low-cut nightdress?
Everything's more effective with that outfit.
Paranormal fiction (I think that's its official name?) is just thinly skinned pr0n for (mostly) women anyway.
(Score: 1) by stretch611 on Tuesday August 02 2016, @12:58PM
Season 2 episode 22, "Blood Feud" - Burns gets a transfusion from Bart's blood. He feels much more energitic aftwerwards.
Also, Season 8, episode 10, "The Springfield Files" - Burns gets regular transfusions "for staying young". It does not necessarily come from "young people" but, compare to burn's age It is most likely to be relatively younger.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @03:03PM
Hey, aren't there supposed to be geeks here?
Heinlein, 1941
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah's_Children [wikipedia.org]
Excerpt:
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday August 02 2016, @07:56PM
There were dozens of movies made in the 70's about this sort of thing. Look up Hammer Films (or the Karnstein Trilogy). Lots of cleavage and, um, lots of cleavage.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday August 02 2016, @11:48AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategies_for_Engineered_Negligible_Senescence [wikipedia.org]
It's not going to cover all of the SENS targets, so the longevity benefit will be limited, if there is any. If the trial does pan out, the modest benefits would easily be worth it to a billionaire. The future of medicine is preventative and rejuvenative.
And while it is fun to portray the rich as vampires who will suck the blood of the poor to maintain eternal youth, some sort of cell line would eventually be created instead to meet the demand, since shortages and regulators could be a problem.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by Dunbal on Tuesday August 02 2016, @11:56AM
7 billion people and counting on the planet - what we really need is to extend our life-span. Yes, that was sarcasm. I'm guessing this is going to be one of those "for rich people only" things.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday August 02 2016, @12:02PM
Old and tired disinformation. BUUUUUUUURP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsNNUEx5OkU [youtube.com]
If you don't have the time to watch the whole thing, I'll get you the timestamps later.
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(Score: 2) by Open4D on Wednesday August 03 2016, @08:47PM
Yes please, if you'd be able to get them without too much effort.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday August 05 2016, @03:48PM
00:00:10 [youtu.be] - Introduction
00:04:10 [youtu.be] - Why have we not had success against the diseases of old age?
00:05:20 [youtu.be] - What is aging?
00:07:00 [youtu.be] - Why is it important to define aging? (categories of disease)
00:09:26 [youtu.be] - People get the categories of disease wrong
00:11:00 [youtu.be] - Geriatrics vs. Gerentology, and the complexity of metabolism
00:14:40 [youtu.be] - Maintenance approach
00:16:32 [youtu.be] - Problem of aging described in 7 categories of damage
00:18:19 [youtu.be] - How to fix the damage?
00:19:17 [youtu.be] - Credibility of SENS
00:21:10 [youtu.be] - Pace of progress
00:22:58 [youtu.be] - Accumulation of molecular waste products
00:25:45 [youtu.be] - Longevity of humans, "longevity escape velocity"
00:28:40 [youtu.be] - People will be forced to confront this, soon
00:29:45 [youtu.be] - Basic objections to life extension addressed
Q&A
00:33:26 [youtu.be] - What does it mean for people who are say, aged 80, today.
00:34:48 [youtu.be] - Overpopulation?
00:38:52 [youtu.be] - Telomeres: Aging vs. cancer tradeoff
00:40:26 [youtu.be] - Aubrey shit talks Google/Alphabet subsidiary Calico
00:43:08 [youtu.be] - Will everybody get access to these therapies? Will it be affordable?
00:45:15 [youtu.be] - Will humans be able to psychologically handle "immortality"?
00:46:46 [youtu.be] - Why should Grandma want to live "forever" when she believes in God?
00:48:12 [youtu.be] - Will these developments have a big impact on how people think (like the development of nuclear weapons)? Will society adapt?
00:49:40 [youtu.be] - Are people prepared for this?
00:51:57 [youtu.be] - More about the longevity escape velocity.
00:55:25 [youtu.be] - How would increased funding speed up this research?
00:56:30 [youtu.be] - How can a scientist help achieve life extension?
00:58:09 [youtu.be] - What is your opinion about transhumanism, mind uploading, cyborgs, etc.?
01:01:11 [youtu.be] - Short answer on philosophical arguments related to life extension.
01:01:50 [youtu.be] - Optimism? Why does today's medicine not measure up?
01:07:05 [youtu.be] - Longevity based on your lifestyle/environment?
01:09:29 [youtu.be] - Would offspring inherit longevity benefits?
01:11:46 [youtu.be] - Longevity for animals?
01:13:33 [youtu.be] - Dictators forever? Term limits? Opportunities for the young?
01:15:22 [youtu.be] - Can these therapies be used cosmetically?
01:17:34 [youtu.be] - Age of giving birth. Will people run out of things to do/achieve?
(Score: 1) by Open4D on Friday August 05 2016, @05:42PM
Thanks! Very detailed info.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @12:07PM
Rates of population growth are unsustainable. But not in the way you are thinking. Once a society achieves enough wealth, fertility rate drops below replacement levels. At that point you need to find some way of creating new workers to replace the people who age out. Immigration from less wealthy countries is the historical method. But that's also unsustainable because we are running out of poor countries. China in particular is super fucked with a billion+ population there just aren't enough potential immigrants from poorer countries to fill the gap as the chinese age out. Automation can help, but not significantly because while robots are great for dedicated manufacturing tasks, they are still many decades away from doing generalized service work. Extending human lifespans and thus the years of employability is another approach.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday August 02 2016, @12:18PM
Confusing wealth with income inequality.
Also demographic replacement means the civilization will collapse. Obviously the rise of civ A was because of the people in civ A not the mere dirt on the ground. So replacing the population of civ A with civ B who never discovered the wheel, means civ A will collapse.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @03:42PM
Not necessarily. Neandertals are thought to have picked up techniques like jewelry and makeup from their interactions with homo sapiens, and would likely have never come up with them on their own. During the replacement process, unless you wait until civ A has already completely collapsed before civ B moves in (which then isn't a replacement via immigration, its a new civilization settling on old ruins), you have a period where its both civ A + B, and during this time civ B picks up many of civ A's techniques, allowing civ A to continue on if in diminished form. It is in fact this exact process which has made America great and caused it to thrive, adding and integrating many other cultures rather than stagnating as a single homogenous group. The trick is that you have to start integrating civ B while civ A is not already in massive decline, otherwise civ B can "destroy" civ A by replacing them rather than integrating.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @09:14PM
that sounds familiar...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 03 2016, @01:33AM
Well these savages have picked up explosive, beheading and AK-47 techniques.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @07:26PM
> Obviously the rise of civ A was because of the people in civ A not the mere dirt on the ground.
Literal repudiation of that unsupported assumption: Guns, Germs and Steel [wikipedia.org]
The book attempts to explain why Eurasian civilizations (including North Africa) have survived and conquered others, while arguing against the idea that Eurasian hegemony is due to any form of Eurasian intellectual, moral, or inherent genetic superiority. Diamond argues that the gaps in power and technology between human societies originate primarily in environmental differences, which are amplified by various positive feedback loops. When cultural or genetic differences have favored Eurasians (for example, written language or the development among Eurasians of resistance to endemic diseases), he asserts that these advantages occurred because of the influence of geography on societies and cultures (for example, by facilitating commerce and trade between different cultures) and were not inherent in the Eurasian genomes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @12:10PM
Of course it will be for the wealthy and politically powerful. 'sarcasm' Didn't you know they are a better breed of human compared to the poorer masses? 'sarcasm'
Never mind there is a positive biological benefit to a finite lifespan, chief among them is allowing the offspring a better chance of survival.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday August 02 2016, @12:16PM
Yes, never mind that, since it isn't relevant to most humans anymore.
Next you'll be telling us we need natural selection.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Tuesday August 02 2016, @05:16PM
The old generation dying off is how radical new ideas get accepted.
I would not rule out the role of evolution; even in modern society.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday August 02 2016, @05:56PM
Relying on time and old age to change society is the way of cowards, and will obviously be subverted by anti-aging. If you really want change, you need to slaughter the elites now. If there is not enough popular support to do that, then things aren't bad enough yet.
Less violent solutions to solving that "problem" include periodic mandatory retirement and term limits.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Tuesday August 02 2016, @08:13PM
I was not just referring to the elites. Social values change a surprising amount over 3 generations.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday August 02 2016, @08:27PM
And again, if you require biological planned obsolescence to force change on social issues or power structures, you are going to have a problem.
Let's say that life extension therapy is perfected, keeping users youthful and healthy indefinitely. Would you attempt to ban it for ethical reasons? Failing that, would you refuse to take such therapies yourself (assume they cost as little as $1/day altogether in this scenario)?
If you answered "yes" to the first question, you are going to get into a fight I don't think you will win. If you answered "yes" to the second question, you and others morally opposed to life extension will die, leaving the rest of people more pro-life extension.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by theluggage on Tuesday August 02 2016, @12:35PM
7 billion people and counting on the planet - what we really need is to extend our life-span. Yes, that was sarcasm. I'm guessing this is going to be one of those "for rich people only" things.
From the Devil's advocate department:
I think there's a distinction to be made between lifespan extension (...at which we have already been spectacularly successful, doubling the typical human lifespan from its 'natural' state) and anti-ageing. People are now far more likely to be living into their 80s and 90s but at the huge expense - to then or to society - of having to treat all the debilitating, but non-fatal, long-term effects of ageing. We're stopping people dying "early" only for them to end up needing a decade or two of extensive & expensive care (and possibly poor life-quality). Effective anti-ageing treatments could drastically reduce that cost, increase the supply of skilled and experienced labour and, even, reduce the birth rate (you don't need kids and grandkids to guarantee your comfort in your 80s).
Also, given human nature, it may be that even plutocrats will be a bit more inclined to think of long-term consequences when the future at stake is theirs and not their hypothetical grandchildren's...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @03:43PM
Well, sortof. For human adults there has been basically no improvement in lifespan. The big success in the last hundred years or so, is a massive reduction of infant and child mortality, to the point that almost all children in developed nations survive to become adults. This is what brings the average "life expectancy" way up for everyone.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Tuesday August 02 2016, @04:28PM
Well, sortof. For human adults there has been basically no improvement in lifespan.
Sure, infant mortality is the biggest change, but I think its wrong to say there's no other improvement. There's some stats on "life expectancy at age x" here [infoplease.com] and its quite clear that the expectancies are going up across the board. (I lost another link saying that the number of centenarians is rising) It's self evident that many people are now surviving heart disease etc. in middle age that would have been death sentences a few decades back and going on to live into their 70s and 80s.
Anyway, however you cut the stats, the "ageing population" is a thing, and even a reduction in child mortality (not to mention the number of mothers dying in childbirth) ends up with more people reaching old age. Averages do make sense sometimes.
(Score: 2) by skater on Tuesday August 02 2016, @04:35PM
My problem: Hey, we're all living longer, yay! Oh, but wait, now we have to increase the retirement age... You can't retire at 62 any more, you have to wait until you're 67. And a half. I could be Duncan McLeod, but I'm going to have to have a full time job forever, too.
When do we get to take advantage of all of this technology, and get more free time?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @06:47PM
Increasing the retirement age is good because it keeps laborers working longer, it increases the competition among them, so we can pay them lower wages. Ultimately we want to eliminate state-run pensions. Join us. [neoliberals.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by looorg on Tuesday August 02 2016, @11:57AM
"Did Montgomery Burns ever partake, for example?"
Yes and No. As far as I can recall Burns never drank the blood of children, in a normal episode. In (Halloween) Treehouse of Horror 4 Burns is a vampire so we can assume he drinks the blood of children cause he (or someone else) turns Bart into a vampire, not sure if we see him drink blood or not but Bart turns into a vampire to so I guess he (or someone else) does - but there are weird plot twists as per usual at the end and it is revealed that Burns isn't the main vampire. But in Season 2 episode 22 he does get a blood transfusion from Bart and that lets him live. So he has gotten blood from a child to live or extend his life.
(Score: 2) by Open4D on Tuesday August 02 2016, @12:28PM
Maybe partake was a bad choice of words on my part. I was just referring to the kind of transfusion-based system that Thiel is interested in, not drinking.
Yes, that's probably the episode I was thinking of. Thanks.
(Score: 1) by stretch611 on Tuesday August 02 2016, @01:02PM
Bummer, you beat me to it... after i posted about it on a different thread.
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=14808&cid=383105 [soylentnews.org]
However, I did remember the Springfield files (Season 8 episode 10) where Burns get regular treatments. (but not from a Simpson's blood.)
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Tuesday August 02 2016, @12:14PM
Is people not living long enough really a problem? If it turns out that living longer is as simple as injecting plasma from a young donor then that will be so easy and cheap that everyone can get it, at least in the western world. They'll set up blood donation schemes where we pump the young for blood and then feed it into the (productive-) elderly or middle age (largely depending on effect). Question is I guess how much do they need, how often - how often do you need a refill to stay "young"? How much does it extend your lifespan? Is it so that you just inject and keep on living forever or will organ failure or what not still take you out eventually?
But the population would probably explode in size and that would have dire ramifications for the entire planet - they would probably have to bring back that 1 child per family policy from China and implement it earth wide.
That said as far as experiments go is it really crazier then say the people that cryo-freeze themselves (or their heads)? I would put that much further down on the crazy scale then just injecting plasma. But people still apparently go with the freezer thing to.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by takyon on Tuesday August 02 2016, @12:21PM
Birth rates are continuing to drop across the planet, and the planet can support much more humans than it does now.
Anti-aging will increase the amount of time people can do productive work, possibly indefinitely, while minimizing the need for expensive medical care and assisted living.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hyperturtle on Tuesday August 02 2016, @01:24PM
I would think this could also be direct treatment for torn ligaments or broken bones, preventative maintenance--like in people genetically likely to develop various diseases or arthritis.
Even if it did not 'extend lifespan', it could help repair damage accumulated over the years that the host body is already too old to properly heal -- who knows, the stem cell treatment may even result in new younger cells sticking around and replacing, as opposed to just appending, cells in the body. It wouldn't be a perfect cure, but I'd take a marginal improvement in anything and call it a win, even if it doesn't marginally improve actual life span.
People groan and moan about too many people and not enough resources and I do not argue with that. I do argue with the context of we can have no nice things because someone else is breeding too much. At least let me get treatments to improve the quality of life as it diminishes with age... and if you have to, make it so I can't have kids anymore, and it may be a worthy trade, even if I do not live significantly longer. I'd rather have mobility and less pain/freedom of movement and have the opportunity to more easily enjoy life, than possibly be bed ridden but my life saved due to miracle invasive surgery that unfortunately requires around-the-clock care at great expense. (probably... we'll see a future with the potential for both... kept alive beyond natural means and bed ridden)
They say youth is wasted on the young, and that you can't take 'it' with you. I wouldn't mind spending some of my 'it' to keep me feeling younger, even if I am not actually made 'younger' overall. I'd even donate blood or plasma or whatever; I imagine that the blood from yourself 20 years prior kept frozen (or breeding in a bottle without the negative effects of 20 years of daily abuses) would be even better for oneself than someone else's -- it's just a matter of appropriate storage.
Even if this manages to prevent diseases of the elderly, someone in charge will fight over the fact it requires costs to invest in such a return. It'll take some champions of accounting to describe the benefits of spending now for the future shareholders to see a benefit. Considering the need for next quarters results, society would probably prefer to just exploit young people directly because that is always cheapest to do (besides ripping off the elderly, of course.)
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday August 02 2016, @08:04PM
Birth rates are continuing to drop across the planet, and the planet can support much more humans than it does now.
Only if your view of an optimum life is living in a factory producing more and more humans. In my opinion we have passed the point where further increases in population means a lowering of the quality of life of everyone.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday August 02 2016, @08:33PM
Great, so you don't think that global population will plateau (without life extension, it may even peak and decline), and you think that life extension is unsustainable (people will still die of non-aging causes, and others will refuse life extension or kill themselves).
What are you going to do if these therapies pan out and enable indefinite, youthful, healthy lives at a low cost? Are you going to ban them? Good luck with that. You want to start a war or two and trim the population a bit? Better not involve the nuclear powers.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday August 02 2016, @08:44PM
Great, so you don't think that global population will plateau
It may or may not. I'm saying we are already past the point where continued growth of the human population makes this a better planet to live on. It may be my age, but I do not see us gaining as much as we are losing, even with all the toys technology brings us.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by takyon on Tuesday August 02 2016, @08:56PM
I actually do think that a few more billion people could improve things. It means more cultural output and greater potential audiences for creative work. It means a larger pool of scientists and engineers that are doing research, some of which might help the growth to be sustainable (agriculture, solar/fusion, etc.)
It means more global economic output and a larger number of billionaires, some of whom will fund science and other big projects that might not be attempted otherwise.
In general, it means a greater number of ideas being thought up and shared (and the proportion of Internet users is rising).
Having a population at 12 billion rather than 3 billion, along with some of the other changes we've seen, could be what is needed to save the planet. If that isn't the case, then we will see a "correction".
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 03 2016, @12:42AM
Population rates are already locked in. World population is going to plateau at 11 billion so you will get your few extra billion ... Almost all In Africa.
Amazing Hans Rosling video will make it all clear but skip to minute 20 if in a hurry
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FACK2knC08E [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday August 04 2016, @08:43PM
There's a world beyond the internet, and much of it is being trampled and destroyed by the mania for growth.
(Score: 2) by Non Sequor on Tuesday August 02 2016, @11:35PM
If you can pull it off, it will be at a higher energy cost per life year. I also have some suspicion that the formative experiences of childhood that are carried into adulthood are an aspect of how human society responds to new developments and that we would be losing something in a model of human development that pushes the ratio of children to adults very low.
Write your congressman. Tell him he sucks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @01:10PM
Transfusion brings in stem cells from the donors bloodstream, thus helping repair organ tissues and postpone their failure. Once the organism's stem cell reserve starts dwindling, either because of life filled with often needed repairs (sun exposure, frequent injuries, frequent inflammations, damage from chronic infections, excessive sports and/or muscle building training, radiation damage, toxic substance exposure or abuse, excessive calories intake, lack of essential protective nutrients in diet, ... ) or through some unavoidable natural wear process, aging shows.
Now, the important question is: Is frequent donating of blood robbing donors of their precious stem cells? Is there a way to recuperate the loss?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Bobs on Tuesday August 02 2016, @02:19PM
No, this is hokum. The current science does not support this. (IANAB: I am not a Biologist.)
Stem cells are not floating around in your blood and a blood transfusion will not give you new / any stem cells.
FYI: ..."Specialized blood cells do not live very long, so the body needs to replace them continuously. Blood stem cells do this job. They are found in the bone marrow of long bones such as the femurs (thigh bones), and in the hips or pelvis, the vertebrae (backbones) and the rib cage. They can also be obtained from the umbilical cord blood and the placenta at birth." From http://www.eurostemcell.org/factsheet/blood-stem-cells-pioneers-stem-cell-research [eurostemcell.org]
Basic blood is a transport mechanism - it does not regrow your liver, muscles, veins, etc. A simple transfusion will not suddenly give you new hair if you are bald, eliminate wrinkles in your skin, strengthen your heart, etc.
If a simple blood transfusion from another person has any of the above beneficial biological effects that means they have discovered a completely novel biological mechanism.
And there is a reason why people pay to collect and store a newborn babies' placenta blood with stem cells - because the stem cells aren't there in your regular blood after birth.
If they find a novel process, and compensate people fairly for taking their blood then I have no problem with it.
Seems like a good business - buy blood for a few bucks a bag, sell it for $666 / bag. ($8k for 12)
100 clients is $800k/year.
Good luck to all involved.
FYI: More about unusual blood transfusions in Northern California beach towns: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/lost_boys/ [rottentomatoes.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gravis on Tuesday August 02 2016, @12:21PM
this sounds like yet another case of a billionaire finally realizing that he's just as mortal as the rest of us and is doing everything he can to cling on to life. the cold hand of the reaper will grab him just like the rest of us.
i do find it funny that some people have a true fear of death rather than the instinctual aversion to death.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday August 02 2016, @12:39PM
I find it funny when I read the same ignorant comments on the subject time and time again.
It's obvious that death due to aging is not an equal playing field (genetics and differing lifestyle factors play a role). It is also obvious that aging damage can be fixed and that aging can be reversed.
The rich billionaire is putting up an oversized amount of money to invest in basic research that may not even extend his life. Future generations will get far more benefit out of anti-aging research than Peter Thiel is likely to get.
Some of us believe that there is no afterlife. So unless we have lost the will to live and are ready to commit suicide, there is no reason to accept death, especially when the possibility of a youthful indefinite lifespan exists.
The research will get pursued whether or not you support the anti-aging angle. Want a cure for Alzheimer's? That's an anti-aging therapy since it involves clearing out accumulated cell junk.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday August 02 2016, @01:33PM
Umm, no, it isn't. Rich people have been trying to do just that for a very very long time, and still have not come up with a single Lazarus Long. Experiments have been done to try to undo the deterioration of DNA, which seems to be the major cause of aging, but so far at least the effect of that is to create a lump of cancer.
What is absolutely true is that there are a lot of things you can do to reduce the effects. Keeping your mind and body active, intentional exercise, and a good diet will go a long way. For example, my grandmother takes full advantage of her nursing home's health programs, which is a big part of why she can travel around the world and walk around unassisted at age 90. But even so, there's deterioration going on, and she's not as mentally sharp as she used to be.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday August 02 2016, @01:40PM
I've already posted way too much in this thread. I'll let you choose whether you want to educate yourself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsNNUEx5OkU [youtube.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday August 02 2016, @02:06PM
Your video, linked Wikipedia pages, etc are all pointing to the efforts of rich people to do research that could potentially unlock a method of anti-aging, through organizations like the Methuselah Foundation. However, they definitely don't have a solution in place right now, because if they did it would be getting splashed across the front pages of every newspaper in the country and every rich person on the planet would be beating a path to their doorstep. The best they have are some experimental ideas.
In short, anti-aging can't be all that effective, because if it were Donald Trump would look at least 20 years younger than he actually does.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday August 02 2016, @02:32PM
Some things worth doing aren't easy.
For one, I don't believe drug/protein/chemicals are the best way to achieve the SENS goals. Instead, I would prefer to see nanobots used. That's a technology in its infancy rather than an undiscovered drug. However, initial anti-aging therapies can be expected to be less effective, yet extend lifespans long enough for some people to live to see better generations of the therapies/technology.
Two, stuff like the story you are commenting on are gaining media attention. But like any health science story, there will be less attention paid during the research phase and much more when the therapies are ready for the general population. It should probably stay that way.
Three, no billionaire can skip years or decades of R&D. They can help speed it up by contributing their cash. While the therapies aren't "effective" (due to not existing, beyond a few trials like this one), the major areas of aging damage have been identified, which is a good step towards actually solving the problems.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by pnkwarhall on Tuesday August 02 2016, @01:44PM
[...]there is no reason to accept death, especially when the possibility of a youthful indefinite lifespan exists.
Denying our mortality is a perversion in those old enough that they should have learned better. Pin your hopes on technology and you will be bitterly disappointed.
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Tuesday August 02 2016, @01:59PM
Linear thinking at its worst. Of course things will just remain the way they were in grandpa's time! Or like they were 1,000 years ago! Death due to aging is just a natural part of life! Just like frequent deaths due to childbirth! And cholera!
Aging is damage. Damage can be fixed. If you don't understand this, then you might as well oppose any funding for a cure for Alzheimer's.
Peter Thiel is 48. He will have less of a chance to escape "mortality" than a billionaire who is currently 38 years old. Or possibly a poor kid who is just 8 years old. He can't improve his chance at a 150 year+ lifespan as much as being born decades later would. But he can invest some of his money in basic research that improves health outcomes for everybody.
Indefinite lifespan != immortality. You could still die from a mass shooting, train derailment, meteor strike, supervolcano. I doubt you will have much time to be bitterly disappointed if the death is sudden.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Wednesday August 03 2016, @12:31PM
i have no problem with people investing anti-aging research. what i find funny is that young billionaires are never the ones that invest anti-aging research, it's only the billionaire that ignores the inevitability of death that then becomes obsessed with staying alive about half-way through their life.
that's the joke! you don't have to accept death because death is coming for you no matter how hard you fight it.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday August 03 2016, @12:51PM
And that's simply not true. I might last beyond the heat death of the universe, converted to some quantum energy form. Or destroy time and live in the current moment forever.
(Seriously though) We'll take it one milestone at a time. If you can live to 1,000 and 10,000 years old and access the technology available by then, you have a decent chance to make it to 10 billion years old. That's plenty of time to figure out if the expanding universe can be altered, reversed, halted. If you can achieve and commit to an equilibrium that allows you to live past 1 trillion, 1 octillion years, or whatever, with no intervention needed to replenish energy/resources or counteract the expanding universe, then you are essentially immortal. As for what to do with that time, mind wiping and inserting yourself into random simulations is one idea.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Snort on Tuesday August 02 2016, @01:37PM
Like a hatchet job on Thiel. You know like the media does. Take a small factoid and blow it all out of proportion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @04:19PM
Poor little thiel, such a nice guy https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook [theguardian.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @02:08PM
Just three weeks ago we were talking about a study [soylentnews.org] that showed the younger the blood donor, the higher the risk of mortality in the recipient.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday August 02 2016, @02:11PM
Humanity has been searching for immortality or at least greatly extended life spans since Biblical times at least. The Bible has people who supposedly lived for several centuries, and the implication is that our life spans are shorter now to punish us for sinning or some such. Tolkien ran with that idea with his Numenorean men whose life spans declined from near 500 years to 200 or less, and who lost their paradise in retaliation for pushing for immortality in defiance of divine advice and commands. Greek mythology has a character who used a wish to gain immortality but was tricked and because he didn't say anything about not aging, shriveled from aging until becoming a cricket. Then there are the legends around Ponce de Leon and the Fountain of Youth. Quite a lot of moralizing about the subject.
But what I wonder is if longer life spans are good or bad for other reasons. Shouldn't animals have evolved to live longer if it is such a benefit to the survival of the species? It seems an awful loss to continually drop the members who remember and know the most, and for the young to have to learn everything all over again. Animals spend a huge amount of resources raising and teaching their young. Another downside is the lack of long term thinking, so often decried in the poor management of corporations, stock purchasing decisions, and now, slow, creeping problems such as Climate Disruption and threats of the nuclear weapons sort.
With our rise, life is at a huge crossroads. It may indeed be Childhood's End for life though not as envisioned in Clarke's novel. We've gained so much power and knowledge that we can't afford to strive to the max anymore, use any and all available means to triumph over rivals, we have to exercise restraint. So far, we have done so with nuclear weapons. A policy of making as many babies as possible, a Baby Boom, in order to feed the tribe or nation's war machine with a continuous supply of fresh, replacement soldiers ("cannon fodder") is one of those maximum strivings we can no longer feel free to do, not if we are to survive.
And yet there are benefits to the "Funeral Option" as so eloquently put by US officials when the troublesome Kim Il-sung was the aging leader of North Korea. Shorter life spans enable faster adaptation to a changing world, including faster evolution. Forgetting can be beneficial, when it is wrong ideas, wrong thinking, and out of date information that end up being dropped.
I find it interesting that plants can live much longer than animals, with life spans that put Methuselah to shame. Also interesting is that life, both plant and animal, slows down when resources are extremely limited, and one byproduct is longer life.
(Score: 2) by mrchew1982 on Tuesday August 02 2016, @05:57PM
You skipped the holy grail infatuation, drinking from a cup for immortality... then there's the resurgent holy blood/holy grail (sans graal) theories, which seem oddly apropos to the current discussion.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Tuesday August 02 2016, @07:09PM
But what I wonder is if longer life spans are good or bad for other reasons. Shouldn't animals have evolved to live longer if it is such a benefit to the survival of the species?
You're assuming that evolution has found that single, most optimal design. This is patently false. There's plenty of examples even in human anatomy of blatantly "stupid" design decisions (such as one particular nerve which takes a completely nonsensical route), which only make sense when you look at how they came to be that way through evolution from simpler lifeforms. We see the same thing in human designs and organizations and software; a clean-sheet redesign would clean out the "cruft" and be more optimal, but we don't do that because that takes extra effort than simply reusing the thing we already have.
It's very likely we've evolved to have the lifespans we have simply because that's how it turned out, and nature didn't figure out a better way. Remember also, we are extremely complex lifeforms, and part of the tradeoff there is aging, and part of this is likely a byproduct of cancer-protection mechanisms.
Also remember that we were evolved to attempt to have the best chance of survival in an environment where we had no access to medical services at all. This is precisely why we scar when we're injured; it would be better to take longer to heal, but do so without a scar, but we don't do that because our body wants to close the wound ASAP to reduce the risk of infection. But now we have these things called "bandages" and "Neosporin" that can prevent infection, but how do we reprogram our bodies to account for that, instead of just assuming we still live in a dirty cave or mud hut and that we might go swimming at any time in a river that might have pathogens in it? Modern technology has changed our environment, but our biology hasn't caught up yet.
Animals spend a huge amount of resources raising and teaching their young. Another downside is the lack of long term thinking, so often decried in the poor management of corporations, stock purchasing decisions, and now, slow, creeping problems such as Climate Disruption and threats of the nuclear weapons sort.
Animals (including us) were evolved to learn just enough to survive: how to catch some food, what local plants not to eat, etc. Creating corporations, trading stock, worrying about climate change, and building nuclear weapons were not part of the plan; we managed to do all that on our own due to some accident which gave us bigger brains than we really needed for survival with a Bonobo-like existence. We didn't really need thinking on the timescales you're thinking of back in our hunter-gatherer days; we needed to understand seasons, where to find food, and how to migrate when conditions changed, and that was about it. We really didn't need to think more than a few years out. We also had kids in our teenage years, so keeping our population size stable wasn't a big problem. That's all changed now, so a significantly longer lifespan would definitely be helpful for us as a species.
Shorter life spans enable faster adaptation to a changing world, including faster evolution.
Shorter life spans also mean you keep losing your most experienced people too quickly. Evolution works much too slowly to keep up with what humans are trying to do (such as travel in space). And older people can and do learn new things, and certainly do forget old ones.
(Score: 2) by nyder on Tuesday August 02 2016, @02:28PM
I think the youth should be down with this. A billion dollar per pint. Bleed the fucking rich dry. Because they are bleeding your generation dry.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @02:36PM
Without a mandatory union that would never fly. Since essentially everyone could sell their blood, the sustainable profit margin would be negligible. People would be lucky to get more than the cost of round-trip bus fare for a single donation.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Tuesday August 02 2016, @02:38PM
I'm pretty sure the free market (which Peter Thiel is a champion of) would drive the cost down. Not every poor kid is going to hold out for $1 billion per pint. Some will settle for $10,000 per pint, or maybe $500 per gallon.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @02:32PM
He will realize the advantages of bone marrow transplants over transfusions. Just the way the Mountain Men did:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_100_(TV_series) [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 4, Informative) by OwMyBrain on Tuesday August 02 2016, @03:20PM
There is actually quite a bit of prior art on this type of thing. I can recall one study in particular, though that dealt specifically with female blood, especially if the female had not yet engaged in sexual intercourse. It's slightly different in that study, as the blood was applied topically. Also, the sample size was rather small, limited to but one member of the Hungarian nobility. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Tuesday August 02 2016, @04:45PM
The breakthrough must include making telomeres maintain their length so we can repair ourselves. If done on stem cells extracted, being modified and returned, even current compiled people can benefit.
The real benefits will begin when this is done on the first cell of a new human, for they will live better and longer than any of us.
I shall name him Khan.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday August 02 2016, @05:37PM
Quick question (this might make a good poll question on Soylent?).
Which is more obscene:
1. allowing old people to pay young people for sexual favors?
2. allowing old people to pay young people for their blood?
I suppose the worst might actually be:
3. allowing old people to pay young people for their organs
4. allowing old people to pay young people for their vital organs
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday August 02 2016, @07:59PM
What's wrong with young people selling music instruments to old people? :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday August 02 2016, @08:59PM
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 1) by YeaWhatevs on Tuesday August 02 2016, @06:51PM
Gross, but it fits in the fictional category.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 02 2016, @07:07PM
sounds like a plot to "Blade V"!
can't we instead just invent "personality recorders" so that dying people can be stored and go on living digitally forever -or- until the badly maintained Grid (you know because "COST!") springs a leak?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 03 2016, @03:41AM
There's a great episode about young blood on radiolab: http://www.radiolab.org/story/308403-blood/ [radiolab.org]
skip to 33:00