This sort of thing just screams of narcissism. When you're rich, famous, and smart, it's pretty hard to accept the fact that you're eventually going to die and you can't take any of it with you.
Peter Thiel Planning to Live 120 Years
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Re: Peter Thiel Planning to Live 120 Years
#12He's not concerned about cancer, but he takes human growth hormone to limit risk of... bone injuries? Am I out of my mind or is this a several-orders-of-magnitude confusion of relative risks?
It's not as clear-cut as that. The risk of losing muscle leading to bone failure leading to inability to exercise leading to general decline in health leading to premature (if your goal is 120 years) death is very high, bordering on certainty. So increasing your risk of cancer by a few percentage points for a significantly improved shot at an extra few decades may not be quite as crazy as it seems at first blush. [UP…
As far as I know HGH doesn't increase the risk or cancer, but it speeds it up if there is one, it's a growth hormone after all.
Re: Peter Thiel Planning to Live 120 Years
#13He's not concerned about cancer, but he takes human growth hormone to limit risk of... bone injuries? Am I out of my mind or is this a several-orders-of-magnitude confusion of relative risks?
He has based his decision off of a cure for cancer coming sooner than aging mitigation. It is just a choice between a possibly cancerous but healthier/stronger body later in life, or a lower chance of cancer but a higher chance of death from the risks associated with losing muscle mass. Although it is really just a preference, I find predicting one's cause of death and trying to choose the optimal health choices an interesting topic.
Re: Peter Thiel Planning to Live 120 Years
#14I feel like the cure to cancer is simply early detection. Imagine some sort of device you could put in your toilet that could analyze your urine or some sort of painless blood test in your tooth brush that can let you know years before symptoms that you have cancer. I think cheap, early and often screenings will be what revolutionize health.
Why hasn't this been done?
Re: Peter Thiel Planning to Live 120 Years
#15This sort of thing just screams of narcissism. When you're rich, famous, and smart, it's pretty hard to accept the fact that you're eventually going to die and you can't take any of it with you.
It also becomes a legitimate problem that a rich innovators become interested in solving. Nothing wrong with that.
Re: Peter Thiel Planning to Live 120 Years
#16I feel like the cure to cancer is simply early detection. Imagine some sort of device you could put in your toilet that could analyze your urine or some sort of painless blood test in your tooth brush that can let you know years before symptoms that you have cancer. I think cheap, early and often screenings will be what revolutionize health.
Why hasn't this been done?
Presumably because we are yet to find a way to detect cancer, years earlier, in bodily fluids.
Re: Peter Thiel Planning to Live 120 Years
#17Ya well, best of luck. I hope he does it.
Unless (like so many people elderly people around today), his mind stops working decades before his body goes. Then I'm not sure what the point would be. It might be better to keep it all together and die a bit earlier as a complete person. Personal preference I guess.
Re: Peter Thiel Planning to Live 120 Years
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not as clear-cut as that. The risk of losing muscle leading to bone failure leading to inability to exercise leading to general decline in health leading to premature (if your goal is 120 years) death is very high, bordering on certainty. So increasing your risk of cancer by a few percentage points for a significantly improved shot at an extra few decades may not be quite as crazy as it seems at first blush. [UP…
As far as I know HGH doesn't increase the risk or cancer, but it speeds it up if there is one, it's a growth hormone after all.
This is a little fuzzy. It's likely that most organisms of a meaningful size have _some_ number of cancerous cells, so I'm not sure that distinction is as crisp as your phrasing. As for cancer risk, there is some reason to believe a connection, but as with most complex medical questions, there is only so much certainty, even in large studies, until we understand detailed mechanisms.
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-67... https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/endocrj/52/5/52_5_571/_...
Re: Peter Thiel Planning to Live 120 Years
#19Yeah, I wouldn't bet on it.
For every guy attempting to "live forever" I see a guy scared as hell of death. That is, a person that has left the realm of the common living humans a long time ago.
Brings to mind Michael Jackson, sleeping in an oxygen chamber and doing who knows what to avoid disease et al - and then dying in his fifties. Or Howard Hughes, the list is long.
Of course death is kind of scary, but being scared of death in that way is not healthy (first and foremost psychologically). It's more important to live (fully) than it is not to die.
If the "cure for death" comes, it won't be through BS individualistic lifestyle experiments such as this, it would be as a scientific breakthrough, like the cure for various diceases.
I also dislike the "screw you, I'll outlive you with my money and my access to stuff" inherent element in this.
Re: Peter Thiel Planning to Live 120 Years
#20The headline, here, should be:
"Founders Fund is investing in a number of biotechnology companies to extend human lifespans."
This is a useful and interesting piece of information.
Thiel's belief that's he going to buy his way out of being hit by a bus tomorrow is silly and it's really hard to not make wise-ass comments about it...