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So you wanna build an aging company

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81–88 of 88 posts

Re: So you wanna build an aging company

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from being an unpopular opinion, it's also a rather stupid one. I can think of no better way to say it. Virtually every technology currently used by the majority of human beings in the world to make their lives better in some way started as a privilege of the wealthy, but the tendency of a timespan between it going from that to something widely and affordably affordable has historically not only held ground but…

Immortality is not just another technological advancement. It entrenches power permanently and creates a world of slaves who will never escape the grip of their masters. Democracy would permanently die and the rule of law would be whatever the overlords decide. Imagine an immortal Caligula. Do you want Elmo to be your permanent master, for example?

Dude, let's not jump the gun here. If a fear of an entrenched immortal oligarchy is your justification for the idea of forbidding billionaires from funding medical innovations that extend life and health-span, you're being a huge bit too optimistic, to the point of absurdity.

We'll be struggling, failing and incrementally advancing with medical advancements that merely stave off the vast hellscape of age-related and degenerative diseases for a moderately longer healthy life long, long before we discover a way to enable a reality of immortal billionaires.

That aside, even if we did, I have my massive doubts about the inevitability of all you predict. The vast range of technologies already available to billionaires today would make a medieval king or Roman emperor salivate at having them with dreams of total control, yet if anything, the technologies they do have (and which states have), have only increased the complexity and Swiss cheese nature of the modern world in the direction of also expanding basic freedoms and instabilities of power of all kinds for more people than ever, often directly at the cost of former power monopolies.

What's more, right now, both massively wealthy states and huge corporations administer much of what happens in the world, and both could arguably claim to have much more power, resources and even in a certain way near immortality than any hypothetical immortal billioniare oligarch as per your prediction, yet hysterics aside, I don't see either totally killing off democracy at all.

People still protect, governments still change and fall, big companies still go bankrupt or lose market share, and no one power center is nearly as in charge as some paint it to be. If it were, you wouldn't be predicting, you'd be speaking in the present tense perhaps.

Either way, the groundwork of you fear already exists in a fashion, and it's not creating quite the total boogeyman you're trying to depict.

Don't let sci fi guide your perception too much, reality is so much more complex and counterbalanced all over the place.

Re: So you wanna build an aging company

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is a very specific, high-effort kind of ... whack-a-mole, borne entirely from our hubris and our fear of death. Yep. Welcome to like 99% of cutting-edge medicine, stretching back into prehistory. > But we all know who holds the purse strings on these initiatives, and it isn't charitable organizations funded by bereft families. There aren't many ailments that affect rich folks but don't affect any poor folks. I'd…

The ailments peculiar to the rich (gout notwithstanding) are largely ameliorated by functional immortality, but these ameliorations are greatly diminished by universal immortality. Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment and then rethink again whether you want to give these people unlimited time to cosplay as Sauron.

I want to give everyone unlimited time. The elimination of involuntary death should be one of mankind's top five priorities.

Anyway, go away deathist. Shoo, troll.

Re: So you wanna build an aging company

#83
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Virtually every single advancement in science, engineering, and technology disproportionately benefits the wealthy, because they already own everything. That's a great reason to fight against the massive imbalance of wealth distribution, but a terrible reason to halt all human progress.

Hang on there a moment—you missed a few things: 1. Life-extension research, which is what I take umbrage with, is not "all human progress." It is a very specific, high-effort kind of gene therapy whack-a-mole, borne entirely from our hubris and our fear of death. 2. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough, but research for _aging gracefully_ is fine by me. I genuinely hope we beat Alzheimer's. But we all know who holds the pur…

"It's important that you must die, so that the rich can also die" -- you. Can you really not come up with better solutions to psychopaths having too much power than everyone must die?

One intuition pump that always works well in these discussions is to imagine that death is already solved, and all your worst nightmares are true. So we live in a world where a small number of humans own and control everything forever. What is your proposed solution? Kill everyone who is old? Really? That's the best you got? Literally just force everyone to die?

We already live in a world where most people's lives are made shit by the whims of a few rich psychopaths, it's just that right now the specific set of rich psychopaths randomly changes every so often. So? Why is that better? Why does it matter to me that the boots on my neck belong to Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos instead of John D. Rockefeller and Cornelius Vanderbilt?

Re: So you wanna build an aging company

#84
post #53

I think there's a fundamental disconnect here: the article says that you should be focusing on strategies that, for the most part, make aging more dignified. The goal shouldn't be even curing cancer. And maybe that's right. But the reason billions of dollars are poured by SFBA VCs into aging research is probably just that they're getting older, they don't want to die, and they figure that they can put some of their m…

It would be interesting if one of those anti-aging moonshots succeeds but the treatment to stop aging only works if you had a pre-treatment that has to occur before puberty.

I'd pay a fortune for eternal youth for my kids or grandkids. Kids are the most expensive investment most people will ever make, this seems like a no brainer.

By comparison, a vaccine to prevent polio did little to help the many people who were already afflicted with it, and we never did develop a cure, but at this point the disease is nearly eradicated and there is little need for a cure. It would be cool if someone came up with a cure, but resources should logically keep being focused towards vaccinating the last of the vulnerable.

Re: So you wanna build an aging company

#85

I think there's a fundamental disconnect here: the article says that you should be focusing on strategies that, for the most part, make aging more dignified. The goal shouldn't be even curing cancer. And maybe that's right. But the reason billions of dollars are poured by SFBA VCs into aging research is probably just that they're getting older, they don't want to die, and they figure that they can put some of their m…

Because growing old is a privilege denied to many. Maybe focus on the kids first?

Child mortality rates are lower than they have ever been. They are basically zero in the developed world, and falling quickly throughout the developing world already. It's mostly a solved problem. Where it remains high, it's typically a symptom of other problems which prevent people from accessing adequate food and medicine. These circumstances almost always have their unique nuances that prevent them from being simply addressed by a single large effort, instead demanding a unique response informed by experience with the local conditions.

Adding a single healthy year of life to every American who lives to be over 70 would add about twice as many healthy person-years than reducing the US infant mortality rate to zero. Reducing the world infant mortality rate to zero would be equivalent to adding roughly two healthy years to the lifespans of those who make it over 70.

Re: So you wanna build an aging company

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't this be an anti-aging company? Aging is bad and not aging is good.

Is aging bad though? Seems like natures way of helping humanity evolve. As individuals it may seem bad. As a species, keeping old ideas in the form of ossified biology around seems like a bad idea. For example: see 70-80 year old politicians ageist assault on future generations. Physics is ageist and its march towards entropy unstoppable. Anti-aging is just more first worlders who can ignore externalities thanks to f…

By that logic, why not just execute everyone over 35? They're just slowing down human progress.

Aging doesn't exist because it benefits us, we did not choose 70-80 to be the ideal lifespan, and my back doesn't continuously ache to give new ideas a chance to spring forth.

Re: So you wanna build an aging company

#87

Unpopular opinion: Any medical intervention that delays or defeats the aging process will disproportionately benefit the wealthy, and is therefore unethical. The last thing a healthy democracy needs is millennium-old acolytes of Peter Thiel pulling the strings from the shadows.

What school of ethics holds that you should oppose medicine to treat yourself so that other people are also denied the benefit?

Re: So you wanna build an aging company

#88
As a co-founder of Ginkgo Health[1], this is a refreshing discussion to see.

The "Is this aging?" article perfectly articulates the philosophy that drove us to start the company. We saw a huge disconnect between the longevity industry's focus on hype and moonshots, and what the science actually shows is effective for improving healthspan. The article's point about focusing on frailty and sarcopenia is spot-on ; functional health is one of the most powerful and evidence-based levers we have to improve quality of life as we age.

That's precisely why we built Ginkgo Active. We wanted to create a genuine "geroprotector" that was accessible to everyone, not just a theoretical treatment for the wealthy.

When we responded[2] to the recent CMS RFI[3] on the Health Technology Ecosystem, we outlined this exact approach. Our goal is to provide a practical solution to functional decline and chronic disease, which are massive burdens on the healthcare system.

Here’s how our thinking aligns with the article's main points:

Focus on Function, Not Just Biomarkers: Instead of chasing clocks, we focus on delivering personalized exercise prescriptions designed to improve strength, balance, and cardiovascular health. Our AI platform uses over 170,000 rules from authoritative sources like the American College of Sports Medicine to create these plans. Prevention and Healthspan: Our platform is built to help people before they get sick, preventing or delaying the onset of 18 different chronic condition risk factors. This is about adding healthy years to life, which is the core of a real aging intervention. Accessibility and Equity: We believe this kind of preventative care should be a right, not a privilege. We intentionally designed our platform so that it doesn't require expensive wearables or equipment. Our goal is to provide the same expert-level care to everyone, regardless of their income or where they live.

We believe the first real, scalable product of the longevity industry will be one that improves healthspan for the many. That's the problem we're dedicated to solving.

[1] https://ginkgo.health

[2] https://www.regulations.gov/comment/CMS-2025-0050-0264

[3] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/05/16/2025-08...

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