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Peter Thiel Planning to Live 120 Years

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Re: Peter Thiel Planning to Live 120 Years

#31

Post by fivedogit »

I find the desire that anyone would be this obsessively preoccupied with the desire to live either forever or an extraordinarily long time unsettling, but what I don't get is why stop at 120 years? The scientific signs pointing to the idea that humanity will eventually be able to halt the aging process altogether are compelling:

First, there are species of jellyfish and lobster (among others) that do not age. The mechanism of chromosomal deterioration isn't there. There are even plankton varieties that revert to a larval state after adulthood. Additionally, there are many life forms that, whether or not they actually age, are thousands of years old.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest-living_organism...

In other words, aging is far more elastic and non-linear than first meets the eye.

And it's easy to understand why we evolved to age and die: Clearing out older populations leaves more resources for newer, fitter ones (in the evolutionary sense). Death became advantageous, but it's not, from a biological perspective, necessary.

So if you combine these two ideas together -- things don't really need to die but it just so happens that humans do -- does anyone really believe that technology won't find a way to beat the aging process, either by genetic modification or maybe nano-level chromosome reconstruction? At some point it'll be as "correctable" as laser eye surgery.

The implications of halting aging are staggering, earthshattering... there is not enough hyperbole in the English language to do it justice. I just know I don't want to be here when it happens.

Re: Peter Thiel Planning to Live 120 Years

#32

Post by sparkzilla »

coldtea wrote: post #19

Yeah, 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 sc…

>Brings to mind Michael Jackson, sleeping in an oxygen chamber and doing who knows what to avoid disease et al

While Jackson was interested in the idea of getting an oxygen chamber (and was pictured inside of one) he never bought one. Instead, he released the photos to capitalize on the "Whacko Jacko" meme, keeping his name in the press that much more.

Re: Peter Thiel Planning to Live 120 Years

#34

Post by VLM »

coldtea wrote: post #21
selmnoo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moreover, people who say they don't eat sugar don't mean they'll never ever eat sugar in any amount. I don't eat sugar - but I'm okay with a desert once per month or something. I'm also willing to eat things which have minute amount of sugar on a regular basis.

Moreover, you have to eat some kind of sugar, or you'll die.

That's pretty much broscience unless substantial redefinition is made of "you" "have to" "sugar" and "die".

There's plenty of broscience to go around, I only eat roughly 1800s era quantities of sugar per year, compared to the American average being about 150 pounds/yr, so along with a bunch of people I say "zero" in general conversation but in reality its about 5-10 pounds/yr. Well under 10% the sugar consumption of "average american" so close enough to zero. But yeah I'll probably eat some kind of sugar until I die, just practically none. Last week I had a piece of family members birthday cake, how you folks eat that kind of stuff mystifies me, I practically puked it was so sickly sweet and the frosting was like a scoop of Crisco.

Re: Peter Thiel Planning to Live 120 Years

#35

Post by SapphireSun »

I think Mr. Thiel is overly optimistic that we'll have cancer licked in 10 years. Certainly some subtypes, but anyway... Mr. Thiel is in his 40s. In 10 years, he'll be nearly 60, which is weaker, but still a fairly healthy age. I don't think he's risking dying from falls and such quite yet.

After reading Atul Gawande's book on ageing, aside from cancer and muscle weakness, it seems that one of the biggest killers is the dissolving of your skeleton as you age. When your skeleton weakens (e.g. in osteoporosis and other conditions), that alone is dangerous from a bone snapping standpoint, but those minerals and proteins don't just disappear. The excess calcium, released toxins (e.g. previously trapped lead if you were exposed before, and just stuff that shouldn't be in your blood), bio active proteins, etc wreck havoc on your organ systems as they are released into your blood. I think he mentioned that even artheosclerosis can be caused by "hard water" in your blood.

I know there's a lot of research going on into this as well, but as a cause of morbidity, it may be relatively overlooked as only the physical aspect is usually acknowledged by the public.

I'd love to see a doctor weigh in on this. :)

Re: Peter Thiel Planning to Live 120 Years

#36

Post by dpweb »

"I’m hopeful that we’ll get cancer cured in the next decade." Believe that when I see it.

Seems to me we've solved the problem of near-instantaneous global communication, but little else of the myriad of human problems has been solved by the internet revolution.

We're nowhere with world peace and not sure we're that far along with diseases. In fact, the US health system in 2014 is generally considered a debacle.

I'm all for optimism and can-do attitude, but the wand waving away of really difficult challenges that has been coming out lately.. and it's SV culture the only ones doing it.

I hope he's right, but the cavalier attitude I just find very peculiar. This is immortality we're seriously discussing?

Re: Peter Thiel Planning to Live 120 Years

#38

Post by masklinn »

tomhschmidt wrote: post #3

>Thiel said he also follows a Paleo diet, doesn’t eat sugar, drinks red wine and runs regularly. But red wine has sugar in it...

No need to reach for red wine, paleo diets include nuts (fair amount of sugars) and fruits (full of sugar).

You can point the contradiction that a "paleo diet" doesn't allow red wine (or any kind of alcohol)

Re: Peter Thiel Planning to Live 120 Years

#40

Post by zo1 »

coldtea wrote: post #19

Yeah, 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 sc…

>"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."

I don't quite see what you're trying to say here. Are you saying that someone that is "scared as hell of death" is someone that's "left the realm of common living humans" (whatever that may mean)? Maybe you're implying that most living humans are not afraid of death? I'd posit that you're completely way off mark there, judging from the amount of afterlife/re-incarnation fairy-tales religions have been spinning for millennia in an effort to continue to swoon the masses.

>"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."

Wow, self-aggrandizing your opinions much? Bear with me here: This discussion, or comment (if you choose not to reply), was spawned as a result of conflicting opinions on what is important. He obviously values living forever/longer more than he does "living fully" as you put it. You simply stating the opposite opinion says nothing of the merits of his.

>"I also dislike the "screw you, I'll outlive you with my money and my access to stuff" inherent element in this."

I really hope this wasn't the basis for your entire post, as it sounds pretty petty at this point. Sure, he has money, lots of it. And he's using it to fund ideas he believes in, whether they eventually pan out for the betterment of mankind or not. And then you go around and criticize him for that? Are you saying he can't use his money how he wishes? Must he spend it the way you want? If so, what might that be? Some sort of grand scheme in helping people live "life fully"?

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