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How Venture Capitalist Peter Thiel Plans To Live 120 Years
HughPickens.com writes Bloomberg News reports that venture capitalist and paypal co-founder Peter Thiel has a plan to reach 120 years of age. His secret — taking human growth hormone (HGH) every day, a special Paleo diet, and a cure for cancer within ten years. "[HGH] helps maintain muscle mass, so you're much less likely to get bone injuries, arthritis," says Thiel. "There's always a worry that it increases your cancer risk but — I'm hopeful that we'll get cancer cured in the next decade." Human growth hormone also known as somatotropin or somatropin, is a peptide hormone that stimulates growth, cell reproduction and regeneration in humans and other animals. Thiel says he also follows a Paleo diet, doesn't eat sugar, drinks red wine and runs regularly. The Paleolithic diet, also popularly referred to as the caveman diet, Stone Age diet and hunter-gatherer diet, is a modern nutritional diet designed to emulate, insofar as possible using modern foods, the diet of wild plants and animals eaten by humans during the Paleolithic era. Thiel's Founders Fund is also investing in a number of biotechnology companies to extend human lifespans, including Stem CentRx Inc., which uses stem cell technology for cancer therapy. With the 70 plus years remaining him and inspired by "Atlas Shrugged," Thiel also plans to launch a floating sovereign nation in international waters, freeing him and like-minded thinkers to live by libertarian ideals with no welfare, looser building codes, no minimum wage, and few restrictions on weapons.
... or how long paleolitic people lived
And no doubt they will import labor and pay them subsistence, since no one in this floating nation will be willing to collect the trash. So we will have floating favelas.
Well, at least if it turns wrong no one will say it was unexpected...
I expect a cure for death within the next 15 years.
"no welfare, looser building codes, no minimum wage, and few restrictions on weapons"
How could this possibly go wrong?
Seriously, he's going to die like the rest of us. I've seen how far we've come in medicine and I see how far we haven't gotten yet. The body starts failing one way then another way and it just keeps piling up as you get 70-90 years old. Cancer is just one of many, many things that are likely to kill you before you're 120.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It doesn't cure stupid, that's for sure.
Or many of the other old age related diseases of which there is no treatment. Wishful thinking.
Got to love people's plans - Of course there is nothing stopping him from being hit by a bus, or other random thing that can get people.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
What's he going to get to do in 120 years that he - with all his money - can't do in 80?
Aim for digital immortality.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
By the way whats wrong with John Galt? Supposedly brilliant chap, and just because one stupid railroad executive refused to build a railroad track to his pet project he just gives up? For all that brilliance could he not build a railroad? John Galt was an idiot, so are the people who mistake that fiction to be their guiding philosophy.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
With so much of his time devoted to maintaining the caveman diet, there's a good chance Thiel could actually die of boredom. He's kinda boring me already.
Is this sig nificant?
I actually am a scientist, and coincidentally, I work for the National Cancer Institute (a part of NIH). While I don't want state anything in absolute certainties, I seriously doubt we'll be able to "cure cancer" in 10 years. Other than the exercise, I fail to see how any of those things will help him live to 120. They may give him a high chance of reaching 80, or something like that, but most of his approaches are probably being used for the wrong purposes. I mean, cavemen (and women!) didn't live very long lives, even accounting for frank injuries from dinosaurs, sharktopus, and whatnot.
Disclaimer: Didn't watch the video.
As long as he is in our memories, he'll live on in our hearts.
.
It takes 40 years to figure out life, 40 years to save up for retirement, and 40 years watch everyone else die. At 45-years-old, I've completed one-third of my life. I'm too sexy to die young. If 120 years was good enough for Moses, it's good enough for me.
Having served in the Navy for over a decade, I've got to say that "floating in international waters" and "looser building codes" seems to be a inherent contradiction in their plan.
.... but then be put in a suspended state where no matter HOW many phone calls, e-mails, or other contact will you be allowed to get him back - even his Mother will be REFUSED until the investigation is completed, which incidentally will be 120 years. Only then will you get the body, minus interest and taxes.
In the words of Billy Joel, "Only the good die young". So being a venture capitalist should be a good head start on a long life.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
His secret — taking human growth hormone (HGH) every day, a special Paleo diet, and a cure for cancer within ten years. "[HGH] helps maintain muscle mass, so you're much less likely to get bone injuries, arthritis," says Thiel. "There's always a worry that it increases your cancer risk but — I'm hopeful that we'll get cancer cured in the next decade [...] a modern nutritional diet designed to emulate, insofar as possible using modern foods, the diet of wild plants and animals eaten by humans during the Paleolithic era. [...] investing in a number of biotechnology companies to extend human lifespans, including Stem CentRx Inc., which uses stem cell technology for cancer therapy. [...] plans to launch a floating sovereign nation in international waters, freeing him and like-minded thinkers to live by libertarian ideals with no welfare, looser building codes, no minimum wage, and few restrictions on weapons.
If anyone played those games and thought "well how could all this batshit stuff all happen in the same place?" now you have your answer.
I've been thinking long and hard about this concept lately. I'm getting old(er), and I'm noticing that I'm starting to slow down. I've still got 20, maybe 30 years of good life left, but really I don't see the point of living much beyond my 60s.
Logan's Run had the right idea. People increasingly just "get in the way" of progress at a certain age. It does vary for some of us, but I'm already seeing that in some ways I'm holding society back by extending my life. The next generation is more tolerant, more enlightened, and certainly more technically competent than I could ever hope to be.
Another childless, rich, white male plans to live(practically) forever - STOP THE PRESSES!
Dude, have a kid. It's cheaper, more reliable and far more fun.
That's a long time to live with a tenuous connection to reality.
I stole this Sig
I was going to find a way to make the money to buy a section of land out in farm country, and build 2 giant old world style castles. My friends and I would go live there and we would fight paintball battles all day. There would be no "work" or "jobs" or parents, only paintball.
Then I turned 10 and realized that was kind of ridiculous.
Just like the suggestion that 10 million people will be living in floating Ayn Rand cities by 2050, and that the secret recipe to immortality is steroids and the most recent diet fad.
- Holy crap, I've got MOD points! Who thought that was a good idea.
Ultimately, you can't be a slave to any ideology or fad. You have to actually have some self knowledge. You need to observe yourself and adjust accordingly.
We are not factory stamped duplicates. We are each a very complicated machine each a fork of some very complex bio-mechanical software. The idea that we are not all the same should be obvious to anyone on this site.
The idea that some of us thrive on habits that would be bad for others should be not terribly controversial.
You just have to be methodical and make the observations and sort yourself out and not blindly follow anything else.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
One of the issues of the paleo diet is which paleo tribe will you follow. While this Scientific American article is a bit antagonistic, the research on the variation of diets was interesting.
"Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
all this money floating around had to start making interesting headlines like this eventually.
See headlines from 2008, 1999 also.
-
I'm not sure how one can give up sugar and drink red wine?
Cheap storage VM.
Paleo: all meats in america are processed to some level, and red meat has been directly correlated with an increased risk of prostate and colon cancer. various additives like nitrites and processing methods such as using carbon monoxide to improve meat color, actually involve carcinogens or cancer suspect agents in their execution. Factory farming and the prolific use of sterroids and hormones in all american meat have virtually guaranteed an increased risk of cancer. enjoy significantly elevated levels of cholesterol, and supporting a fundamentally unsustainable concept of factory farming that contributes to everything from climate change to aggressively resistant bacteria and viruses.
This is a specious argument, a man of such extreme wealth will have zero problems acquiring whatever form of meat his heart desires. Should he want only American Bison filet every day then he can afford an immense herd where one individual is killed to provide him his daily cut of meat.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I mean, I kinda get it, but there's always going to be something undeniably hilarious about declaring "I want to live somewhere with looser building codes."
Cavemen didn't live all that long...
someone needs to give this guy a primer on cancer and its 'cures'.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
got 2x2 of every animal in my ship, global warming making the oceans rise. growing a beard. still my discussions with the architect of intelligent design were insistent that since I still see rainbows after it rains, the age covenant is still in effect. I need to find a lawyer, but there aren't any in libertarian fantasy land. otherwise I think I have it all figured out.
Thiel also plans to launch a floating sovereign nation in international waters, freeing him and like-minded thinkers to live by libertarian ideals with no welfare, looser building codes, no minimum wage, and few restrictions on weapons.
Looser "building" codes?
Traditionally, the sailor's greatest fear has always been fire, not water, but there are countless ways a poorly designed and engineered boat can kill you. Not that drowning is a particularly easy way to go.
No welfare? No minimum wage?
The Potemkin School of Maritine Management:
Rampant incompetence at very top, Long hours. Hard Work. Low Pay. Bad food, Unforgiving and hazardous environments. Not a trace of concern for the sick, injured or aging.
No wonder all those upper-class libertarian idealists on board are packing a rod.
So let's summarize this. Some rich person think they are smarter than everyone else and that they have the ills of the world figured out. Namely: a cure for cancer is just around the corner (based on what evidence?), so they choose a diet that is totally unproven to do anything good or bad, they plan to live forever and they will retreat to some mystical artificial island where they can do what they want and not be bothered by anyone not of their own kind. So far so good.
What I don't get is why they think welfare is bad. Obviously they don't need it, they're rich. But not everyone can be rich, this would be the same as everyone being poor. So given that in any society there will be richer and poorer people, welfare simply ensures that even the poorest get some minimum access to services, typically health care. This does not prevent richer people to get better services. Explain to me why this is bad? Given that rich/poor status is mostly a question of luck, being anti-welfare has always struck me as being selfish.
I'm with you, I'll go with lucky.
Is it just me or does this read like the intro to a Bioshock game or the backstory for a bond villain?
Years of HGH abuse twisted his mind and caused cellular mutation granting him super-human abilities while his body became riddled with cancer. He built a city to be free from regulation, he built an army to protect his city, and then...
Would you kindly license this story to Marvel?
How the hell does a guy who doesn't need it get a prescription drug like HGH? If he orders it from overseas, why isn't it seized when coming into the country? Why isn't the doctor whose pad the prescription came from being investigated?
Bottom line - this is just another example of a rich fuck who doesn't seem to think the rules for rest of us apply to him and a government all too willing to let the whole thing slide if you're rich enough.
That is all.
Part of the problem is the paleo enthusiasts and other fad diets are that they don't have the courtesy to test these things on their own, which can end up influencing the food supply for the rest of us. Full fat content yogurt can be nigh impossible to find in some places because of years of preaching about the dangers of fat.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
With his libertarian-no regulation ideas, no doubt his floating nation will simply discharge raw sewage directly into the ocean. Just the kind of thinking we need to save marine ecosystems and humans from extinction.
At the heart of every libertarian is the notion that "I want the freedom to sh*t on you". No wonder there are so many corporate sponsors.
Mr. Thiel,
You were born rich to obviously rich parents who could afford to send you to Stanford for your undergraduate and graduate degrees.
You're still rich today.
Congratulations. You did not lose your fortune, something almost impossible today due to favorable taxation for the wealthy.
Once you're rich you stay that way forever in the United States unless you're a very stupid person.
Sincerely,
The 99%.
The fact that he has wacky ideas does not surprise me. Rich people are born that way, being given every advantage in life. People don't get rich by being particularly intelligent. They pay people to do everything for them, and unless they're very stupid they get much richer in the process.
Here's an idea, why not try actually living for a while instead of cowering in fear of the reaper? Why waste your entire life living in fear of something you can't do anything about? Just take what you have, squeeze everything you can out of it and laugh in Death's face when he comes for you.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Please someone explain to Mr Thiel that you cannot take your money with you into the underworld
Socialism is doing just fine in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Canada and anywhere else it's really been tried, thank you very much.
Fascist dictatorships who borrow socialism's rhetoric to excuse stealing everything for themselves (China, USSR, North Korea) don't work so well, but then again they're not socialist, so it all evens out.
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A bunch of rich guys on a private island in international waters with no laws? How long until a drug cartel with boats decides to make a quick buck?
Many amateur and professional body builders feel suspect that excess HGH leads to palumboism, which caused disfigurement and early death. The observation is that 70s and 80s generation body builders, who took a lot of anabolic steroids, but not much else didn't get it. While several 90s gen body builders, who took HGH did.
If it acquires resources on instantiation like a duck, then its a shared_ptr<Duck>
Sovereignty means you are capable of defend your territory. Perhaps he will be killed by pirates before growth hormone cause him cancer.
You've neither hunted nor fished, nor gone to grade school to learn the rules of capitalization.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
If you're enjoying life, why would you want to stop enjoying life?
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Welfare: inefficient government-run money stealing program that discourages the creation of goods.
Building codes: Are you aware that in one of Boston's tonier regions, vinyl window frames are illegal? Residents must use wood. Not all aspects of building codes are good.
Minimum wage: If you're 5 years old and want to buy a comic book, you probably can't do anything that anyone is willing to pay you minimum wage for. But you might find a neighbor willing to pay you $2 an hour to pull weeds from a garden, and you might even be worth that much. Why deny the child the ability to earn a comic book? Why deny him the training that may help him to be more successful later in life?
It's also well established that the effect of minimum wages in the United States especially hurts young Negros. Minimum wage laws are racist.
Weapons: weapons laws in the U.S. are capricious at best. Limitations of the caliber and firing mechanisms on firearms are silly. Laws on garrottes, brass knuckles, and knives vary by state and in some cases by city.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Sorry, just wrong. There's nothing about being a nation that requires that the UN recognize it. And one of the Central American or northern South American countries has no military, just a police force. Apparently, its neighbors aren't evil enough to consider it worth invading.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
For those of us not in the US, name-dropping Ayn Rand is analogous to saying you've read the great philosophers like Norman Vincent Peale (in Tom Lehrer's words).
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I'm not sure how one can give up sugar and drink red wine?
Duh, only white wine is sweet, don't you know anything?
I think more to the point is what evidence do they have that Paleolithic hunter-gatherers were also wine buffs?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I get farmed meat but it isn't from the typical farmer and you won't find meat like it in a grocery store. I find the regular store bought stuff just lacks taste but has wonderful marbling but that is about it. After going back to getting meat from a family friend several years ago it is just night and day the difference. There is flavor in the ground beef so you don't need to add a bunch of seasoning so it tastes good and has a course grind and hasn't been treated with ammonia because the processor can keep their shit clean to prevent e-coli. The beef is also a wonderful dark reddish purple color and when you unwrap it once thawed has a wonderful aroma instead of being bright pink and lacking any smell like the store bought meat. Also it is a lot cheaper then store bought meat with this year's purchase cost about $4.28 per lb after paying the processor and farmer and that includes everything from ground beef to prime rib and tenderloin.
The farmer I get beef from maintains a small herd of 12 to 14 head on 35 acres of alfalfa and the cattle just roam around living the good life for 2 years. They don't need antibiotics because they aren't knee deep in their own filth and the farmer isn't trying to increase their growth rate so also doesn't use growth hormones. Add in that he grinds about $100 worth of minerals into the silage a week to ensure that the cattle are getting everything they need and they really are healthy cattle. In the 30 or so years of raising cattle the farmer I go to has only lost 2, one was back in 1996 during the really bad cold spell when it got down below -40 and the other one was a calf about 5 years ago that wolves got.
Time to offend someone
Sounds like some good meat that bears at least a passing resemblance to the wild game we're designed to eat. I envy you your source.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
all meats in america are processed to some level
Yes but only if you mean butchered by a professional, wrapped in butcher paper, and flash frozen. Granted this isn't common and you are correct that most meat is packed in carbon monoxide and/or treated with ammonia as well as being pumped full of antibiotics and growth hormones all while being fed a crap diet. It is however possible to get good meat that hasn't had all of that done to it but you won't find in a regular grocery store. Go to a small meat processor in a small town that sells to the public and you would be amazed at what you can get when compared to the crap at the grocery store.
Time to offend someone
If you look around it should be possible to find a farmer doing similar things, you may want to go down to a meat processor and ask as they may be able to tell you. I get whole live chickens from a gal that I went to highschool with who raises them and has become kind of a hippy who wants to raise animals in the most humane and natural way possible and does fairly well with her organic free range chickens and eggs business. She lives about 2 miles from my house so when I feel like roasting, frying, or making beer butt chicken I go and pick one up on the way home from work. So if you are in an outer ring suburb there may be some local farmers you could just talk to, they often have signs at the end of their driveway.
I eat wild game as well and get the deer processed at the same butcher that does the cattle since while I could do it my self it would be a real hatchet job and I also don't have a flash freezer. At a $1/lb processed weight for steaks chops and roasts, $0.25/lb grinding fee for the trimmings, and $20 bone and hide disposal fee it is worth it to get it professionally done as I get all the best cuts instead of what ever I would end up creating. It is actually funny how when we have friends or relatives over for dinner and they see me cooking and wonder why the meat looks so strange but then are amazed at how it tastes, even if I just made a cheap roast like a chuck or round. I refuse to buy meat at the regular grocery store because none of it looks good to me anymore so as far as they are concerned I am a vegetarian who buys only components of food and occasional some chips.
Time to offend someone
My suggestion: https://www.newschallenge.org/...
"When confronted with a health issue, many people turn to their doctor, the internet, or friends for advice. But then what do you and your family do with all the advice you receive? What do even health professionals do with all the often conflicting information out there when they research a patient's health issues? We want to create software that helps with that challenge by making it easier for individuals and communites to collect health information (from whatever public sources including the internet), organize it, prioritize it, reason about it, act on it, and feed back the results of action into a next iteration as a learning experience. "
To add to your list, more vegetables, fruits, and beans can help, too. See Dr. Fuhrman. He may have become too commercial and may also miss a few things (Salt vilified too much? Too low on iodine? A bit low on vitamin D? Discarding some psychological aspects? Overoptimizing a few things? Trusting too much in some studies that are still to mainstream? Ignoring some possible benefits from animal products? Ignoring genetic issues like difficulties synthesizing some things? Not enough emphasis on the microbiome?). But overall he gets a lot ("make the salad the main dish") and his approach is based on science studies -- even if there is a risk of how you interpret limited studies and conflicting studies.
Also see Dr. Weil on lifestyle issues (like stress, sleep, music, community, and so on) as well as herbal remedies.
And see Bluezones for community level issues like sidewalks and walking clubs.
Vitamin D from some source to make up for indoor living is essential too.
Anyway, I'm writing other software right now for my wife (related to her free Working with Stories book) but I hope I can use the infrastructure (JavaScript/Dojo/Node.js/Pointrel) to use for other things like such tools. Probably would be an excellent life-extension choice by Peter Thiel to fund time for several developers to work on such FOSS software though. :-)
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I remember Michael Jackson, in his pre-WASP era, was sleeping in oxygen-filled tent and was hoping to live till around 120 years or more.
There is nothing bad in desire itself, but it's less laughable when you brag about the actual achievement, not the super-optimistic plan.
In Socialism, Govt exploits your NEED.
In Capitalism, Govt exploits your GREED.
Casteism
*Facepalm* It just goes to show that being wealthy is not corollary with being intelligent.
For example, while certainly possible, a "cure for cancer in the next ten years" is wishful thinking at best, and in light of engaging in a behavior that increases cancer risk, is dangerously naive.
Another example is the fact that he's subscribing to another idiotic fad diet with absolutely no credible scientific backing, and like all fad diets (ala, any diet besides "eat a healthy, well-rounded diet and exercise") is likely to actually do more harm in both the short- and long-run than good.
"Inveniemus Viam Aut Faciemus" 'We will find a way... Or we will make one!' --Hannibal of Carthage
This is a fantastic idea until pirates show up. Now what have you? The plank, aye!
Background: Data on the long-term association between low-carbohydrate diets and mortality are sparse.
Objective: To examine the association of low-carbohydrate diets with mortality during 26 years of follow-up in women and 20 years in men.
Design: Prospective cohort study of women and men who were followed from 1980 (women) or 1986 (men) until 2006. Low-carbohydrate diets, either animal-based (emphasizing animal sources of fat and protein) or vegetable-based (emphasizing vegetable sources of fat and protein), were computed from several validated food-frequency questionnaires assessed during follow-up.
Setting: Nurses' Health Study and Health Professionals' Follow-up Study.
Participants: 85Â 168 women (aged 34 to 59 years at baseline) and 44Â 548 men (aged 40 to 75 years at baseline) without heart disease, cancer, or diabetes.
Measurements: Investigators documented 12Â 555 deaths (2458 cardiovascular-related and 5780 cancer-related) in women and 8678 deaths (2746 cardiovascular-related and 2960 cancer-related) in men.
Results: The overall low-carbohydrate score was associated with a modest increase in overall mortality in a pooled analysis (hazard ratio [HR] comparing extreme deciles, 1.12 [95% CI, 1.01 to 1.24]; P for trend = 0.136). The animal low-carbohydrate score was associated with higher all-cause mortality (pooled HR comparing extreme deciles, 1.23 [CI, 1.11 to 1.37]; P for trend = 0.051), cardiovascular mortality (corresponding HR, 1.14 [CI, 1.01 to 1.29]; P for trend = 0.029), and cancer mortality (corresponding HR, 1.28 [CI, 1.02 to 1.60]; P for trend = 0.089). In contrast, a higher vegetable low-carbohydrate score was associated with lower all-cause mortality (HR, 0.80 [CI, 0.75 to 0.85]; P for trend â 0.001) and cardiovascular mortality (HR, 0.77 [CI, 0.68 to 0.87]; P for trend http://annals.org/article.aspx...
businesses flock to Canada because their socialized medicine is so much cheaper than America's employer based system. Germany's Unionized car manufacturing is the envy of the world. Meanwhile the UK, who implemented American style policies under Thacher, has been in a nose dive for decades. Where in the world have you been?
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It's the old "No True Scottsman" argument. At any rate what you're describing is called _communism_. You can have socialism (large scale involvement by a central power in the well being of the common man along with wealth distribution) and still have ownership. You just don't allow ownership to become power at the expense of people's well being. As soon as you do that you've just crossed over to socialism.
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https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html?countryname=Japan&countrycode=ja®ionCode=eas&rank=3#ja
Casteism
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...
Casteism
"You are a product of your environment." --Clement Stone
Casteism
That's really going to work well.
"I think I'll just dig myself a basement. I have the freedom to do that."
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
You ignore the fact that people live in families. Thus grandchildren have much better survivial chances when grandmother provides care for them and teaches them while still young and much healthier mother gives more births and performs heavy house work. If older women had their own kids then they would not love grandkids as much as they do. That's why humans developed menopause.
It will be like Mad Max, except set on the Ocean, and with Senior Citizens...