My speculation would be that billionaires would rather not be in the guinea pig frontline. But would rather see novel interventions tested on others first.
And also that they’d be rushing to market to make both more $Billions and gain kudos of backing a winning strategy.
My guess is that the first person to reach 150 years of age won’t be a billionaire, but rather someone who signed up for a research study
Agreed, but there is a special class of wealthy, powerful billionaires who do have “guinea pigs”: Absolute Monarchs and Dictators. Do I need to name them? There are probably about a dozen such leaders:
• Dignified absolute monarchs (Saudi, Brunei).
• Ruthless authoritarian dictators (North Korea, Syria, Belarus).
• Primitive/barbaric warlords (Congo militias, Kony, Taliban types).
• The Chinese special case – not one man, but a vast, centralized state where wealth and power are so immense that things can slip through the cracks (think Wuhan flu). Experiments can scale to a level no other system can match.
So yes, our own dearly-beloved billionaires are playing in the longevity game. But compared to the dragons and monsters out there — monarchs with absolute power, dictators with no restraint, warlords with no conscience, and a state-giant like China — they almost look tame.
Having dedicated human experimentation farms can give you data on safety but efficacy still takes decades to evaluate.
True. But imagine being an aging dictator staring at the end. What would I think of the Yamanaka factors? With unlimited power, I could buy or manufacture all I wanted. If I were in my 80s, I wouldn’t wait decades — I’d run a one-year crash program of extreme tests on human “volunteers”… and only then take the “cure” myself.
Morally it’s monstrous, no question. Yet those ruthless shortcuts could shave years off development, and history shows that even terrible experiments sometimes leave data behind that leaks out and helps others.
Our billionaires may play rough with money and science, but next to tyrants who command life and death, they look almost civilized.
Thinking about it, one could theoretically modify human embryos to induce progeria and implant them into several hundred/thousend women. This would provide you with an (imperfect) model of rapid human aging but provide much quicker results for any lifespan extension effect.
Yes - the first people adopting most of the new longevity therapies are going to be people like us, people with higher risk/reward tolerances, signing up to participate in the clinical trials.
Keep in mind, that the vast majority of new therapies fail for some reason (bad side effects, efficacy, etc.) during early clinical trials. And even if a drug is approved by the FDA, this only means it worked for a few months for a few thousand people - you have no idea of the long term costs/benefits - so there is still risk. So it would be stupid to start taking things too early, especially if you’re a billionaire. You’d be wrong most of the time, and likely suffer the consequences of early testing of many drugs and therapies. Of course if you’re getting really old and desperate and you’re a dictator, you may take some greater risks (but are unlikely to be successful).
See:
The grim baseline is well known. In 2015, it was estimated that only one in every 5,000 compounds (0.02%) discovered and tested preclinically would get approved; of the drugs started in clinical trials in human participants, only 10% would secure FDA approval. In a later analysis of the period between 2014 and 2023, Citeline estimated the average likelihood of approval (LOA) for a new Phase I drug to be 6.7%, an all-time low. According to Citeline, the leading cause of failure remains the “Phase II hurdle,” with a 28% completion rate compared to Phase I (47%) and Phase III (55%).
Source: Star Scientist’s Claim of ‘Reverse Aging’ Draws Hail of Criticism (WSJ) - #38 by RapAdmin
There is IMO no real shortage of interventions with a known safety profile.
Progeria is a pretty imperfect model for human aging, from my understanding. And you wouldn’t need to implant them… see Renewal Biotech: Highlights from the 2023 Longevity Summit - #8 by RapAdmin
and, on Progeria, from ChatGPT:
Excellent question — progeria (specifically Hutchinson–Gilford Progeria Syndrome, HGPS) is one of the most studied “accelerated aging” disorders, but it doesn’t simply recapitulate all aspects of normal human aging. Some processes overlap (positive correlates) while others are absent or divergent (negative correlates).
Positive Correlates (shared with normal aging)
HGPS patients show features and molecular changes that parallel normal aging — often appearing decades earlier:
Cardiovascular changes
- Progressive atherosclerosis, vascular stiffening, and loss of vascular smooth muscle cells.
- Increased risk of stroke, myocardial infarction, and other cardiovascular events.
→ Mirrors one of the main causes of death in older adults.Dermatologic changes
- Skin atrophy, loss of subcutaneous fat, alopecia, and nail dystrophy.
- Resemble the thinning skin, hair loss, and brittle nails of elderly individuals.
Musculoskeletal changes
- Joint contractures, osteolysis, decreased bone mineral density, osteoporosis-like features.
- Similar to sarcopenia and osteoporosis in elderly populations.
Facial morphology (“progeroid facies”)
- Thin skin, prominent veins, small jaw, pinched nose — reminiscent of aged appearance.
Cellular hallmarks of aging
- DNA damage accumulation, nuclear abnormalities, increased reactive oxygen species, telomere shortening, and epigenetic drift.
- Progerin (mutant lamin A) interferes with chromatin organization, similar to changes seen in normal senescent cells.
HGPS patients lack or diverge from many features of normal aging:
No increased cancer incidence
- Unlike normal aging (where cancer risk rises sharply), HGPS patients rarely develop malignancy.
- Likely because progerin-induced defects push cells into senescence/apoptosis rather than uncontrolled proliferation.
Normal neurocognition
- Cognitive development and brain function remain intact.
- This contrasts with the high prevalence of dementia and neurodegeneration in natural aging.
No diabetes or age-related metabolic syndrome
- Glucose homeostasis is usually normal; HGPS patients don’t typically develop type 2 diabetes, unlike many elderly individuals.
Normal fertility development (pre-adolescence)
- Puberty is often delayed or incomplete, but the hormonal aging seen later in life doesn’t occur because lifespan is limited (usually teens).
Absence of common age-related diseases
- No increased risk of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, or most cancers.
- Doesn’t replicate the multi-organ functional decline characteristic of late-life aging.
Short stature and growth failure
- Children with HGPS show failure to thrive and short stature, which is not a hallmark of normal aging.
Domain Positive Correlates with Aging Negative Correlates / Divergences Cardiovascular Atherosclerosis, vascular stiffening, early MI/stroke — Skin/Hair Thin skin, alopecia, subcutaneous fat loss — Musculoskeletal Osteoporosis, sarcopenia-like features, joint contractures Short stature, early bone resorption (not elderly-like) Cancer — No increased risk (unlike normal aging) Neurologic — Cognition preserved; no dementia/Alzheimer’s Metabolic Some lipid abnormalities No type 2 diabetes or metabolic syndrome Growth — Severe growth failure in childhood Molecular DNA damage, telomere shortening, nuclear lamina defects Progerin accumulation (unique to HGPS mutation)
Bottom line:
HGPS is best thought of as a segmental progeroid syndrome — it reproduces some aspects of aging (especially vascular and connective tissue aging), but not others (notably cancer, neurodegeneration, diabetes).
You make a good point.I had dismissed the idea on the grounds that there aren’t particularly thriving biotech clusters in Kinshasha, Moscow etc.
But ethics is probably a bigger barrier/delay to longevity breakthroughs than talent. And so a psychopathic autocrat with near infinite resources, and an ability to steal IP might do well in the race.
I do wonder whether your average autocrat actually enjoys life, though. Even a psychopath/sociopath must get tired of a life lived in constant threat. Does Putin even want to be Putin forever?
And being a leader is pretty bad for your health. Just ask Mao’s dentist. Or look at Tony Blair’s before and after photos. On balance I think someone on this forum is more likely to win the race to 150 than an autocrat.
I don’t think that is necessarily the case. I start from a bias because I think I have worked out the fundamentals of the biochemistry at home with a mixture of reading, conversations with people, experimenting on myself and hearing the results of other people’s self experimentation.
In the end people need to have open minds. Dictators tend not to be in that position. Autocrats like say Trump are unlikely to make good decisions as to which research to priorities. Xi may be in a better position as at least he has some scientific knowledge.
I think a lot of the funding going into research is into popular dead ends (that includes all the ‘reprogramming’ which I think when it works works though enhanced autophagy with the transcription factor SOX2).
I do think that it is possible that radical (and dangerous) longevity experiments are being carried out in N. Korea by Chinese and/or Russian scientists. The N. Korean government treats prisoners as wild beasts (torture, forced mating, cruelty, etc), so I wouldn’t put it past them, especially now that Russia is buddy-buddy with Kim (40,000 troops into the Ukraine meat grinder!) N. Korean prisoners make perfect lab rats.
I have no proof, but it’s just purely speculation based on the dynamics between those 3 countries. Especially Russia (Putin) and N. Korea (Kim). Neither leader has respect for human life. Xi is a different type of person and would probably not consent to this as it would ruin his reputation and China’s. However, there are rogue scientists.
It would be highly ironic if longevity advances came from atrocity and pure evil.
I would not be surprised if they did this, but I don’t see them learning anything useful from it.
Are you saying that my alternative history imaginings … where nominative determinism led (Emperor) “Ming” Campbell to usurp power and build a (merciless) autocracy under which @John_Hemming became Minister for Immortality are unrealistic??
And if this is true, and I don’t doubt it either, you can only imagine how they treat animals in research.
It’s why I won’t buy any person products tested on animals there because I’m sure it’s beyond the scope of my imagination. Having better lipgloss is just not worth it to me.
“Xi is a different type of person and would probably not consent to this as it would ruin his reputation and China’s.”
But Xi is perfectly OK with running a thriving organ transplant market. After all, what’s the value of a Uyghur or a Falun Gong practitioner’s life! Maybe this is just a different kind of evil.
A cradle-to-grave controlled trial is impossible. But that doesn’t mean we can’t get evidence. The “death outcome” is the blunt, in-your-face metric, and if this were a national effort you could easily enroll 100,000 people in their 80s. In a group that size, survival differences would show up quickly.
Just as important are the secondary measures. Healthspan markers — mobility, cognition, cardiovascular and immune function — start to diverge long before survival curves spread apart. Those signals can tell us whether a therapy is meaningfully improving late-life health.
And remember, longevity itself has already been rising for decades — people are living longer now than ever. The interventions we’re talking about (rapamycin, acarbose, etc.) aren’t “treatments” for a recognized disease, but tools to address old-age frailty directly. With a shift in national mindset, you could imagine huge numbers of older people stepping forward to help humanity push this frontier — and many would be honored to do so.
Even in principle, I can’t agree with the sentiment that the billionaire class is not involved in initiatives related to life extension and even age reversal (a construct with a shaky foundation). As a category, these are aggressive risk takers who exact command and control over every facet of their lives. Practically speaking, I mentioned above my decade long association with such a person as a mentor and boss. I know for a fact the details of the institute he funded. Moreover, my association with him also gave me an opportunity to interact on the periphery with some of his billionaire friends, all of whom were also involved in various life extension initiatives. Fast forward to 2025 and we see Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, Yuri Milner, Larry Page, and Marc Andreessen actively involved in funding and promoting life extension and longevity research through large investments in biotech companies, R&D labs, and philanthropic ventures. Among the entities associated with these guys are Calico Labs, Methuselah Foundation, Retro Biosciences, BioAge Labs, Insilico Medicine, Unity Biotechnology, NewLimit, and Life Biosciences. In addition, Sovereign wealth funds (e.g., Saudi Vision 2030) are also becoming major players, seeking to make their nations global biotech hubs. All elite money and all first in line for benefits I have to say, though, just looking at these guys doesn’t suggest any home runs to this point.
Yes. Privately, I’m seeing conflation among ideas related to democratic process, rule of law, capitalism, and effects of corrupted capitalism as competition declines with the growth of mega-companies (mostly high tech, seven of which dominate the market) whose leaders behave as leaders of independent nations as they negotiate trade deals, manipulate public opinion and news and can essentially bribe their way to new domiciles with incentives to the landholding countries.
Somehow, this complexity is all balled up in the minds of some as “democracy.”
Are you writing all your answers with AI? (just curious)
I don’t personally like the em dash.
