The Cure for Death Means Billionaires Will Live Forever—and Be Rich Forever

The corporation comparison is apt: over their very long or immortal life, these “citizens” have extended their influence to capture government and eliminate competition. On the other hand, they also bring efficiencies and wealth to shareholders. Since most billionaires get their wealth through corporations, I expect them to act similarly.

My own protocol which i think deals with a lot of issues relating to aging by encouraging gene expression is quite inexpensive. The main cost is blood tests, but they are not needed for the low end.

Some of the proposed therapies are prohibitingly expensive. They may also not work.

There is therefore an issue of public acceptance, but i dont see that as the main problem

Like Mike I enjoy philosophical discussions, but they must remain abstract or non-stop flame wars erupt. We could have a rule that current events are off limits, but events over 100 years ago are fair game. We might all agree that WW1 was a horrific tragedy that neither side won. Unfortunately discussion of the American Civil war still causes flame wars most of the time and that was over 150 years ago. Back on topic–we are already ruled by a gerontocracy in much of the west. Nancy p, Donald p, Joe B, and Mitch m. All older folks, but not necessarily the wisest of the wise. Would lige extension extend the gerontocracy? Is the younger generation any better?

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We’ll probably get access to them too one way or the other, I’ll hope.

But another part of me is full of glee that a random Internet site has just made an entire class of dystopias impossible. If there is a miracle drug out there that makes you super-smart or reverses aging or something, and for some reason like an evil conspiracy or just bad luck it never “made it”, someone on Longecity will have taken it within a week of it first being mentioned online. And if they report that they think it worked, a couple hundred people will figure out hare-brained and probably illegal ways to get some.

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What do I care if billionaires are able to extend their lives more easily than I am? It’s none of my business what they do with their money. In fact, I’d do the same thing if I were a billionaire.

How is complaining about rich people going to help anyone else live longer? I’d rather focus on stuff I actually have control over.

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No sir. The white hat hackers will level the playing field. The open source community will eventually bring the secrets to the public, at affordable prices.

This is an interesting idea that I think we may want to explore more. My first thought when seeing this was that it seems unlikely that white hat biohackers are ever going to be able to duplicate the well-funded labs and clinical trials of the biotech and pharma industries, but then again perhaps they wouldn’t have to.

It might help to look at the different potential classifications for longevity therapeutics, and I’m sure this will change over time, but right now a rough way to look at it might be something like this (other approaches and ideas are welcome):

  • Small Molecule Drugs (like rapamycin).
  • Blood Factors / Blood Services (e.g. plasmapheresis)
  • Stem Cells / Biologicals (proteins / peptides, mRNA products, etc.)
  • Cellular Reprogramming
  • Gene Therapy

Its interesting to think about how treatment options may evolve over time, and potentially counteract the tendency for these therapies to primarily benefit the very wealthy. And its interesting to consider how countervailing trends or scenarios could play out to “level the playing field” a bit. I’m assuming most of the visitors here are not the billionaires.

So I don’t view this discussion as an adventure in political philosophy. I’m more interested in the pragmatic issue of what actions people may be able to take, or will likely take, to counter this potential issue, and get access to these therapeutics that may be out of their price range (in the USA).

Small Molecule Drugs: As we’ve seen with rapamycin, many longevity drugs may be generic (or soon be generic - like SGLT2 inhibitors), and available at moderate costs in the US, and at low cost from other countries like the India pharmacies. The good news is that many new drugs are priced differently in different countries, so people can share pricing as people do here to find the best value locale. New drugs are more challenging and tend to be very expensive. And, pretty much all the longevity drugs will first come out for specific disease conditions… e.g. heart disease, sarcopenia, etc… There may be groups of biohackers that can copy and produce some drugs, but I have not heard of much in this area. Another strategy people might use is to try to identify existing drugs that target the same pathway as a new drug might do. Some drugs will be available from the lab supply companies and increasingly people may be taking this avenue - as people are already doing with 17-alpha estradiol, IRISIN, etc. - and perhaps identifying reliable lab supply groups off-shore.

Blood Factors / Blood Services (e.g. plasmapheresis) - this type of thing would seem to perhaps have a lower barrier to entry than the typical pharmaceutical (new drug development) endeavor. There are already many of these places in central and south america that are not limited by much regulation - so places like minicircle and other longevity clinics that are popping up around the world. It would seem that in the Longevity field, more and more medical tourism will be a factor; both on the high end where people are getting early access to specific gene therapies, etc., and on the lower end, where people just want lower cost plamapheresis, etc. It seems that these types of products and services might be more amenable to reverse-engineering and coping, and thus duplicated at a lower cost outside the US, where costs of living are lower, and thus service pricing can be lower. Of course, there are increased risks in these scenarios due to the lack of regulation. Some examples of these: Longevity Clinics: What They Are, Services & More . At some point we’ll have to develop a database of all the off-shore longevity clinics, their services/prices, and ratings from customers. I’m hearing from more and more people who are visiting and getting services at these sites.

Stem Cells / Biologicals (proteins / peptides, mRNA products, gene therapy, stem cells, etc.) - another area that, depending on the manufacturing requirements, may lend themselves more easily to either serious biohackers or duplication in lower cost countries. There are quite a few (and increasing) biohacker collectives / labs being formed in many cities with highly educated workforces and so this is a potential avenue for some groups of people: BioCurious (Santa Clara, CA): https://biocurious.org/ , CounterCulture Labs, Berkeley CA: https://www.counterculturelabs.org/ and others: These Bay Area biohackers tried to disrupt health care. New doc shows what went wrong.. Ultimately, any city with a strong biology/science/medical academic center would be able to duplicate this type of effort.

And as these longevity therapeutics become more validated, I’m sure we’ll see different countries taking different approaches to providing them to their populations just as we see today with different countries pursuing different healthcare system approaches. For a wealthy country with an aging population (Germany, Italy, Japan, Singapore, etc.) it would seem make a lot of sense to provide these therapies and drugs freely to their populations so that people can avoid typical late-life disease and medical costs, and push those expenses out while also allowing people to work longer and be effective in the workforce longer. And then of course, if one country starts to do this there will start to be a black market in the drugs, as those drugs are shipped to other countries.

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Let’s take a look at the past then…

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The open info may come from the funded scientists themselves. It has already happened in the field of Covid vaccine development. Drs. Maria Bottazzi and Peter Hotez (Baylor College of Medicine, TX) have developed a patent-free vaccine, which is being produced in India. India administered 70 million doses of what they call Corbevax, in August 2022. To date, there have been no reported adverse reactions.

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I just want to ask a simple question (I don’t need an answer, just think about it). Are you going to buy whatever is within your means to increase your life/health span? I am. So, at what income level do we say ‘we’re going to do it, but you can’t’?

Many are against the rich and them getting more rich. But the fact is that without the rich some of the larger studies and innovations may never take place. Look at the Metformin trial going on, the government didn’t take an immediate shine to it happening as they didn’t see aging as a disease. The bottom line is usually (not 100% of the time, but usually) to get big dollars it has to show how it’s going to make big dollars.

And why don’t people look at the other side? The rich, as a subgroup, are the largest consumer of anti-depressants. I don’t see big pharma denying sales to them because they’re such bad people. They take the money when it suits them and then poo-poo the rich when it makes great press. I would also bet that if any one of us found a personal supplement regimen that was pure gold, and a billionaire offered to back us to bring it to the public, we would accept the offer. If I’m wrong about that I accept it, but I don’t think I am.

I’m not rich by any means, but I wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to be so. On top of that, if I did get rich bringing an incredible new supplement regimen to market, I sure wouldn’t want anyone saying I couldn’t take it.

Don’t beat me up, it’s just my two cents which, admittedly, may only be worth one cent.

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Name a technology that first was not financed by the richest, but ultimately massively benefited the masses.

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Do you think that if a life-extending drug demonstrated strong evidence that it would extend the typical human life by 10 or 15 years, it should be covered by health insurance?

If an anti-cancer drug that increases the lifespan of cancer patients by 3 to 5 years is covered by health insurance, why should it be covered by health insurance vs. life extension drug for “healthy” people not be covered when it provides equal or better lifespan increases?

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I suspect that if we could live till 200 or more yrs if we are healthy, that might be OK, but an ever-increasing share of the world’s money will become devoted to clinging onto just a few more years of existence. Ultimately we must face the fear of death and realize that it’s not “The End”, but instead a transition to a different state of matter, energy, etc. whatever you believe. When we come to the end of our 200-300 yrs of existence, we will still be facing the same question; shall I keep going on? and it’s also OK to not go the whole distance as well.

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Well, there was Insulin…

On 23 January 1923, Banting, Collip and Best were awarded U.S. patents on insulin and the method used to make it. They all sold these patents to the University of Toronto for $1 each. Banting famously said, “Insulin does not belong to me, it belongs to the world.” He wanted everyone who needed it to have access to it.

Source:

At some point you have to wonder if the scientists doing all the basic science and academic research that will lead to longevity therapies, might get a little pissed off if they can’t afford the treatments their research ultimately results in (for themselves, their parents, their kids, etc.). I would not be surprised to see some “leakage” of IP (intellectual property) into the broader biohacker community from academics and corporate researchers who want more people to benefit from this science.

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If it’s one out of xxxxxxx I’d say humanity benefits enormously from the wealthy leading the way with new technology.

Back to learning. Thanks for having this resource.

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Yes
Look at Insulin today {2023] in the US.

The news a few years ago.

Their are people that do not have insurance CAN NOT afford the cost of purchasing Insulin in the US. And when some tried to go to Canada to purchase these people where given a hard time to bring back the product to the US.

Forum members do this now with purchasing compound’s.

People that known{of future compound’s] will do the same and or self manufacture.

To the question "should Insurance Company pay for “life-extending drug demonstrated strong evidence that it would extend the typical human life”…

Yes, they should.

The fact is insurance is a business and they do not like paying money out. Like a Bank…

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As Buffett would point out, since 2000, 52% of companies in the Fortune 500 have either gone bankrupt, been acquired or ceased to exist. As Buffett would point out, you can’t bet on a company 30 years into the future. Japan dominated the list of top companies in the '80s but they’re pretty spare in those lists today. Tech is becoming increasingly disruptive. Plus, there’s a flippancy of many of them. They didn’t need the discipline to grow over a longer period of time to the same size, like companies that did so decades ago. Ellison’s submissiveness here is striking: Elon Musk’s Texts Shatter the Myth of the Tech Genius - The Atlantic
Sure, some will be with us still, but I’m not one to say, “I would rather die than live if it means they get to live too.”
Also, if they know they’re going to live a really long time, maybe they’ll care more about the shape of the Earth 100 years from now, and worry that the polluting or exploitation they engage in could be illegal in the future and make their assets unsustainable.

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Are we talking an extension of lifespan or healthspan? Right now the problem is too many people are living longer but are not “living” longer. Not to be cruel, but what’s the point of extending the lifespan of someone who is bedridden/

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All the life extension drugs identified so far do both… See here Rapamycin Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

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I think its bullish for long-termism. Much more likely that the ultrawealthy will be better stewards of civilization if they believe they could live much longer.

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Thanks Admin, interesting topic. BUT the info I’ve gotten through health channels and via media friends has always been; “Medically; the curse of being famous getting the worst out comes…”. Meaning the famous hook up with high roller (allopathic, std of care) Drs and get line-jumped onto some fadish and uber expensive experimental treatment, skipping over (in my guessing) higher efficacy treatments. Just pick a list of the famous who died from cancer and dig into their treatment plans. “fruit-o-vore” ?? WTF!

Anyway, my first thought reading this title is, well maybe, just maybe some trickle down helps to us citzen-scientists self experimentors. N of 2 works for me. :slight_smile:

Also ponder this; a side benefit given the curse of being famous may be in play we may benefit from learning what does NOT work faster. :-\

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