Peter Thiel Is Interested In Harvesting The Blood Of The Young (gawker.com)

Presto Vivace writes: [Gawker reports:] "Peter Thiel, the tech billionaire-turned-Trump delegate who successfully bankrupted Gawker Media, has long been obsessed with anti-aging technologies. He believes people have been conned by 'the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual,' and has funded startups dedicated to extending the human lifespan. According to Jeff Bercovici of Inc. magazine, Thiel is so afraid of dying that he has begun exploring a novel, and fairly unsettling, technique: Harvesting, and injecting himself with, the blood of younger people." Vampire capitalism is real. In an unpublished interview with Bercovici last year, Thiel said: "I'm looking into parabiosis stuff [...] where they [infected] the young blood into older mice and they found that had a massive rejuvenating effect. [...] I think there are a lot of these things that have been strangely under-explored." When asked if he meant parabiosis was "really interesting" as a business opportunity or a personal-health treatment, Thiel suggested the latter: "That would be one where it's more just, do we think the science works? Some of these it's not clear there's actually a great company to start around it. [...]"

Comments

Dammit Cartman!

[ZecretZquirrel]

And when does the cleansing begin?

Re:Dammit Cartman!

[Joe_Dragon]

day after trump get's in.

Re:Dammit Cartman!

[plopez]

After we build the wall to ensure no one can get out.

Re:Dammit Cartman!

[Anonymous Coward]

With any luck he'll manage to get a fatal blood-borne disease.

Re:Dammit Cartman!

[Anonymous Coward]

This story is disturbingly similar to those stories we hear about people in undeveloped parts of the world who believe that sex with a young virgin or the body parts of albinos will cure them of AIDS. Is it even remotely true?

Re:Dammit Cartman!

[ArmoredDragon]

No way, Butters doesn't have nearly enough blood to do that.

Re:Dammit Cartman!

[Anonymous Coward]

Great Seller! Got rid of my AIDS!
A+++++++

Re: Dammit Cartman!

[Anonymous Coward]

It worked for me

Re:Dammit Cartman!

[QRDeNameland]

And when does the cleansing begin?

Actually, the South Park reference that immediately came to my mind was this.

Re:Dammit Cartman!

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a way to let them finance it! With their warm red blood!
*Sees a long line of blood-fueled slot-machines covering the wall*

Re:Dammit Cartman!

[ZecretZquirrel]

Yeah right, I remembered it was Christopher Reeve later, but you can't blame me for reflexing that Cartman was involved.

Re:Dammit Cartman!

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you cleanse that apostrophe out of the word "gets"? get's means get is, or get was, or something belongs to a "get". As you can see, it makes no sense.

Re:Dammit Cartman!

[Immerman]

The bit about studies showing that young mouse blood has rejuvenating effects on older mice is. The rest... seems unsurprising in light of that.

Re: Dammit Cartman!

[Anonymous Coward]

You've never used a phone before, have you?

Re:Dammit Cartman!

[pr0fessor]

Haven't long distance runners been blood doping for a long time by taking their own blood and later putting back... to increase the amount of oxygen they can carry. I would imagine that the effect would be similar except the recipient is never short a pint just a pint heavy and what ever they may catch from the donor.

Re:Dammit Cartman!

[Immerman]

No, as you say that just boosts oxygen transport for a while until your body returns things to normal (a few days, or maybe weeks?) Young blood seems to actually have long-term rejuvenating effects.

Re:Dammit Cartman!

[davester666]

Yes, it is remotely true. Unfortunately, it is only true as you pass through the event horizon of a black hole.

Bathory

[rfengr]

Might as well go full on Elizabeth Bathory.

Re:Bathory

[Anonymous Coward]

Good band tho.

Re:Bathory

[Anonymous Coward]

I figure that's this guy's plan.

Re:Bathory

[Anonymous Coward]

Pure Gawker idiocy.

Does anyone seriously think they are planning to harvest the blood of children to live on?

Or

The mice result needs to be carefully examined to find the active ingredient so that it can by synthesized. LIKE EVERY OTHER MEDICAL TREATMENT IN HISTORY.

Seriously, this new hysteria is pure liberal arts grad. They have no idea how science works or why we have advanced medicine. Gawker is staffed by magical thinkers and losers.

Re:Bathory

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, we'll just grow human fetuses in vats and harvest them before they reach term. No children harmed in the process, your young ones can go to school and play Pokemon like normal.

Re:Bathory

[rthille]

When that study came out, my GF and I joked about taking blood from her two young (~10yo) children.

Slashdot Smear?

[Roger Wilcox]

Seriously, Slashdot, how low will you go? This is a straight smear and as much as I dislike how Thiel has chosen to wield his power, this paints you pretty desperate.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[lgw]

Seriously, Slashdot, how low will you go? This is a straight smear and as much as I dislike how Thiel has chosen to wield his power, this paints you pretty desperate.

Quoting a Gawker story on Thiel, no less! I mean, sure, it's interesting that Gawker is going out the way it lived, writing hit-pieces, learning nothing, but really, the content of those hit pieces isn't interesting.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Chalnoth]

Because it's both hilarious and disturbing?

That there are a number of rich people into junk science like this isn't too surprising to me, but this is particularly bizarre.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't junk science unfortunately

Re: Slashdot Smear?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most newsworthy people probably have some type of questionable behavior or interest.
What's interesting is, the picking and choosing of whose to expose.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Aside from his foray into hedge funds, which went...poorly.... Thiel has a pretty decent track record as a VC; but if he weren't a real person I'd assume that he was a ham-fisted parody of a randroid libertarian written by somebody setting up a strawman.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[interkin3tic]

While it is written as a smear, I don't find it to be a very effective smear. It may be weird, but it's not like Gawker is saying "He SUCKS THE BLOOD OF CHILDREN FOR SEXUAL GRATIFICATION." It's not superstition or witchcraft or obviously morally wrong despite gawker's spin on it.

"Peter Thiel wants to live longer? OH DEAR GOD, WHAT A MONSTER! He should be content with living as long as God intended, a ripe old 45!"

I'm a biologist, and I think it's great that someone in silicone valley is funding something which could actually add years and health to my life rather than another app for sharing pictures people making duck faces. So maybe you're just not the right type of nerd, but I find it VERY germane here and interesting, and not a smear.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Anonymous Coward]

as opposed to a hillaroid communist?

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Anonymous Coward]

As opposed to a functioning human being, Rand was a sociopath who wrote about psychopaths as if they were better than humans.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Anonymous Coward]

THAT'S NOT FUNNY!!!!

And the answer is "one".

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[chuckugly]

Silicone Valley is near Beverly Hills right?

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[fahrbot-bot]

... it's not like Gawker is saying "He SUCKS THE BLOOD OF CHILDREN FOR SEXUAL GRATIFICATION."

Of course not. Peter Thiel loves children. He had two for lunch.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[tlhIngan]

Seriously, Slashdot, how low will you go? This is a straight smear and as much as I dislike how Thiel has chosen to wield his power, this paints you pretty desperate.

Look at the source. Gawker.

Read any Gawker web site and they're all be posting the same drivel in an attempt to remain relevant and portray themselves as an "honest web site providing news with integrity".

I'm serious - after the court case every Gawker site was running news articles that show all the "positive things" that Gawker has done, or heavily slanted versions of such. Likewise, every little piece of dirt, rumors, innuendo they can bring up about the court case, Hulk Hogan, Peter Thiel, they posted, true or not.

And yes, they completely "forget" the fact that they actively defied a court order to take down the video that started it all - every other site took it down, but Gawker not only kept it up, but admitted to defying it on purpose "for the public interest".

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Opportunist]

Indeed. It's just junk.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[gweihir]

They mistake the ability to make money for the ability to understand how things actually work. Pretty pathetic and sometimes deadly.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[gweihir]

So you want to be conned by one set of people, but not by others?

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it's both hilarious and disturbing?

That there are a number of rich people into junk science like this isn't too surprising to me, but this is particularly bizarre.

Why do you assume it is junk science? The little data that exists suggests otherwise.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you are not opposed to people spending money to get their hands on the body contents of someone who is less well off.

Buying kidneys and liver on the black market might extend your life too if you need one and don't want to go through the proper channels. Thiel is a kook, but what he's trying to do is make it so that rich people live long at the expense of poor people. That is morally reprehensible by any standards.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it's both hilarious and disturbing?

That there are a number of rich people into junk science like this isn't too surprising to me, but this is particularly bizarre.

Then clearly you're reading into Gawker's attempt to sensationalize it to make Thiel seem like a creature of the night, and not looking at the article itself which discusses the science.

There is a study ongoing right now looking into the 2 year effects of transferring blood from a under 25 year old to an over 35 year old and see if there are any positive effects. Blood contains millions upon millions of biomarkers in it, and so instead of grabbing every single one and identifying it's properties (which can be years of research for just one), they're throwing in the whole bag to see what happens to those older folks.

Here is the site of the study: https://clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT02803554

However, this would not result in a treatment involving a "harvesting" of blood from young folk. Instead it would indicate that something in there is useful and that further analysis is needed to find the useful pieces, which can then be made synthetically and taken as a pill.

But the truth does not portray Thiel in a negative light as Gawker would hope, so the summary and Gawker article are jazzed up to make Thiel seem to be a modern day Elizabeth Bathory.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it's both hilarious and disturbing?

That there are a number of rich people into junk science like this isn't too surprising to me, but this is particularly bizarre.

This actually has a lot of scientific data backing it.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Desler]

Weak troll is weak. Hillary falls center right in her political leanings. Hardly the part of the spectrum of a "communist."

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Desler]

You just answered your own question. There's only "little data" to support it. And that data is only based on small rat studies. That's hardly qualifying of solid science.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't junk science unfortunately

Only science if there is actual study behind it to figure out what works and what doesn't and those results are made public.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Immerman]

Actually, I recall reading about the mouse studies years(?) ago, I think from a reputable source. Whether it survived repeatability studies, much less translates to humans, is of course a separate question.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[shaitand]

" Blood contains millions upon millions of biomarkers in it, and so instead of grabbing every single one and identifying it's properties (which can be years of research for just one), they're throwing in the whole bag to see what happens to those older folks."

Right, which falls under correlation doesn't equal causation. Since at most this tells us there MIGHT be something in the blood to start looking for it seems highly unethical to jump straight to human studies.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Anonymous Coward]

No kidding. Everyone knows that transfusing blood doesn't make you younger. You need to drink it, and it needs to be directly sucked out of the carotid arteries. That's why some religions forbid it. It's to prevent immortality.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is actually not junk science. There are scientific experiments (in animals) that show some reversal of aging such as grey hairs regaining color. Let Mr. Thiel be the test subject for the sake of scientific advancement.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Immerman]

Come now - if they actually managed to show a significant rejuvenating effect for young blood transfusions, do you really think anyone with wealth, power, and a fear of death would wait several decades for researchers to isolate and synthesize the key components, when a simple well-understood blood transfusion procedure would start getting them the benefits tomorrow?

Wouldn't even need to be anything particularly ghoulish - regularly selling reasonable-sized donations of your kid's blood to the wealthy could be a wonderful way to build up their college fund. People donate blood all the time to save lives, at the right price I'm sure plenty would be willing to sell it to some evil tyrant. (Okay, you don't necessarily have to be evil or powerful to accumulate lots of wealth in today's world, but that's the way to bet...)

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw that on TV, so it must be true!

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Anonymous Coward]

" Blood contains millions upon millions of biomarkers in it, and so instead of grabbing every single one and identifying it's properties (which can be years of research for just one), they're throwing in the whole bag to see what happens to those older folks."

Right, which falls under correlation doesn't equal causation. Since at most this tells us there MIGHT be something in the blood to start looking for it seems highly unethical to jump straight to human studies.

Then you should read the study. It has shown improvement in mouse studies, and so they're trying it out to see if there's an improvement in humans as well as there are differences between humans and mice. If an improvement in general health appears to be there and that improvement can be quantified in some way, it gives researchers insight on where to look, narrowing down millions of markers to maybe thousands which accelerates the research to find something of benefit. How is that unethical, especially given that this study is done via all the standard disclaimers and disclosures of any human trial?

ANd again, just because Thiel is interested in it doesn't mean he's running the study or funding it, all that's happened is one of his medical advisers called the company up and asked them what they were doing and what the business model was. So this entire piece from Gawker is a hit piece, trying to take a phone call by an associate of Thiel to a company running a basic research clinical study and trying to turn it into some claim that Thiel wants to inject himself with the blood of the youth.

And as usual Slashdot is falling for the media hype without checking the actual story. Everything I just said came from the linked articles; it's an obvious attempt at yellow journalism by Gawker as revenge. Why are you guys falling for this garbage?

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Anonymous Coward]

Come now - if they actually managed to show a significant rejuvenating effect for young blood transfusions, do you really think anyone with wealth, power, and a fear of death would wait several decades for researchers to isolate and synthesize the key components, when a simple well-understood blood transfusion procedure would start getting them the benefits tomorrow?

Wouldn't even need to be anything particularly ghoulish - regularly selling reasonable-sized donations of your kid's blood to the wealthy could be a wonderful way to build up their college fund. People donate blood all the time to save lives, at the right price I'm sure plenty would be willing to sell it to some evil tyrant. (Okay, you don't necessarily have to be evil or powerful to accumulate lots of wealth in today's world, but that's the way to bet...)

I don't understand your problem here. Men sell semen, women sell eggs, people donate blood, hell people sell feces now for fecal transplants to improve someone else's mircobiome (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/01/29/you-can-earn-13000-a-year-selling-your-poop/). If someone wants to sell their blood and someone is willing to buy it, how is that any different than selling your eggs? A woman's eggs are irreplacable and they typically take the good ones; you get your blood back in a week or two with a glass of orange juice and a donut. Explain the ethical issue here.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Anonymous Coward]

A sociopath writing about psychopaths. Isn't that the category MSM political reporters fall into?

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[shaitand]

"Then you should read the study. It has shown improvement in mouse studies, and so they're trying it out to see if there's an improvement in humans as well as there are differences between humans and mice. If an improvement in general health appears to be there and that improvement can be quantified in some way, it gives researchers insight on where to look, narrowing down millions of markers to maybe thousands which accelerates the research to find something of benefit. How is that unethical, especially given that this study is done via all the standard disclaimers and disclosures of any human trial?"

Because they can look for the underlying cause within Mice first and/or study primates. Only when they've found the underlying cause and exhausted research on animals should they study on humans. Blood transfusions carry a high risk factor. It is dangerous to just throw blood into the veins of humans without understanding any underlying mechanism. Once they find that mechanism and produce a solution that targets it, and that solution has been successful in trials on multiple mammals, THEN they should move to human trials.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[shaitand]

"ANd again, just because Thiel is interested in it doesn't mean he's running the study or funding it, all that's happened is one of his medical advisers called the company up and asked them what they were doing and what the business model was. So this entire piece from Gawker is a hit piece, trying to take a phone call by an associate of Thiel to a company running a basic research clinical study and trying to turn it into some claim that Thiel wants to inject himself with the blood of the youth.

And as usual Slashdot is falling for the media hype without checking the actual story. Everything I just said came from the linked articles; it's an obvious attempt at yellow journalism by Gawker as revenge. Why are you guys falling for this garbage?"

Huh? I commented regarding the studies being performed and the ethics of jumping straight to a half baked human exploratory trial without doing more animal research first. I agree with regard to Gawker and their bias and frankly have no fucks to give for Thiel either way.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hillary falls center right in her political leanings.

Probably the dumbest sentence I'll read all day.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Rakarra]

Hillary falls center right in her political leanings.

Probably the dumbest sentence I'll read all day.

Are you really that far right that you can't see it anymore?
Hell, Bernie's comparative left-wing bent is pretty much the entire reason he got anywhere in the presidential race.

Re: Slashdot Smear?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're 3D printing organs in labs now. Do you really think they can't just culture blood if it comes to that?

You people panicking about the rich are going to shave ten years off our lifespans. Go bother them about their business lobbying instead.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you wanted Hilarious and Disturbing there's plenty of Hillary's email scandal articles to browse.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[mabu]

>Probably the dumbest sentence I'll read all day.

Probably the dumbest sentence I'll read all day.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Chalnoth]

I only read the ScienceMag article. They state that they're injecting plasma into people, and measuring their blood for markers of age.

This is utterly meaningless. Plasma includes a number of proteins, and it's entirely possible that they're simply measuring the injected plasma itself. There is no reason whatsoever to believe that this plasma is causing any changes to the subject's body, and until there are long-term studies which measure health consequences, there will be no reason to believe that this is anything but rank quackery.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, because donating a pint of blood (or getting paid to do it) shortens your life.

Please tell us the study that showed it so people will stop donating to blood banks.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Anonymous Coward]

A better source:
http://www.inc.com/jeff-bercov... ...it's recently started getting attention from mainstream researchers, with multiple clinical trials underway in humans in the U.S. and even more advanced studies in China and Korea. ...

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Rakarra]

Explain the ethical issue here

For me, the ethical issue is that sapping the strength of the young to extend the life of the old is not a good outcome. Even cutting out that first qualifier and leaving it at "extending the life of the old" is not a good idea either. People live too long. It sounds like a horrible thing to say, but the time spent between "age of retirement" and death has been growing, and it seems like growing it even further will be unsustainable -- Just ask China how they're doing now with a larger older generation and a smaller younger one. Everything from Social Security to retirement income to... well, just about everything is predicated on the notion that your working years will be longer, maybe much longer, than your retirement years. And all of this just to make the overpopulation issue even worse?

And old age sucks. Good lord, who wants to be alive at 95 anyway?

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Immerman]

Depends, if you feel like most do at a healthy 60, 95 would probably be quite pleasant.

It does seem like most of the anti-aging research is pointing towards life extension maintaining youth, not just avoiding death.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Falos]

I don't see a problem with formal agreements, documented exchanges, fair handling, but give it five minutes. Five minutes. At which point we look back and have to be realistic about how clean the market really is after five minutes.

This doesn't just mean straight up black market cloak and dagger, I mean gray activity. The entire USA medical industry is a bloated abomination of gray going-ons, for example. Want a closer one? Organs.

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Rakarra]

It does seem like most of the anti-aging research is pointing towards life extension maintaining youth, not just avoiding death.

That at least would be a step in a better direction -- the only thing we've achieved so far is extending the miserable portion of life. :-(

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Sir Holo]

Silicone Valley is in the Los Angeles area, not the San Francisco area.

Here in Silicone Valley, we have already solved the 'forever young' problem through the use of silicone (and lots of other chemicals no sane person would put in their body just for appearance's sake).

Re:Slashdot Smear?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear this argument a lot " By our standards, she is ...."
But we don't judge by your standards. We judge by the standards of the society the person is a participant in. just like I don't call someone named Juan "Joo an"

Sounds like bullshit to me.

[jcr]

I'm sure Gawker has every intention of taking all the cheap shots they can at Thiel before they get locked out of their offices.

-jcr

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[Kjella]

Sounds like bullshit to me. I'm sure Gawker has every intention of taking all the cheap shots they can at Thiel before they get locked out of their offices.

Possibly. But he wouldn't be the first guy to get obsessed with the fact that they're going to die like the rest of us. A bunch get religious but you also have cryonics, uploading your brain to a computer and so on which is way into sci-fantasy land for the time being. Heck you even have people who think a caveman diet will do it. With all due respect to the scientific progress we are making, all we can cure of disease and injury we haven't even scratched the surface on reversing aging.

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[ShanghaiBill]

he wouldn't be the first guy to get obsessed with the fact that they're going to die like the rest of us.

People getting obsessed with solving a problem is what drives science and technology forward. Would you rather that Peter spent his time playing golf?

Disclaimer: I have "baby blood", meaning I am CMV negative, so instead of receiving blood from the young, I donate to babies. A pint every 8 weeks, totalling to 10 gallons so far, and I have a t-shirt from the Red Cross to prove it.

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Heck you even have people who think a caveman diet will do it.

Because we know how well that worked out for the caveman. Why are people so stupid?

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[dbIII]

From what has been written he's playing around almost at random instead of doing things in a way that can provide answers.
Not science. Sympathetic magic.
I think we'd all be better off if he was playing golf or if he funded professionals to do something or learned how to do things in a systematic way himself.

Re: Sounds like bullshit to me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, they all went extinct! That's why none of us exis...hey wait a minute!

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[ArmoredDragon]

With all due respect to the scientific progress we are making, all we can cure of disease and injury we haven't even scratched the surface on reversing aging.

It's not at all a matter of reversing aging. Every cell in every organ eventually stops dividing at a fast enough rate to sustain itself. Your skin, which is an organ, tends to be the easiest to observe doing this. However there's no reason why they MUST slow down, they just do because of the way our telomeres work (which may be an evolutionary response to cancer. Plants, which also get cancer, never die from it, which may be why they live much longer than animals.)

Likewise, if you can cause your cells to continue dividing at the rate they do when you've reached your peak growth, even when you're older you'll likely regain a youthful appearance. But you didn't reverse aging; that is, your body is still older, even though it doesn't look or behave like an older body normally would.

You'll also need to be able to figure out a way to regrow damaged or lost tissue; for example being able to regrow an amputated limb. Some species of animals have an inherent ability to do this, in addition to humans having a similar trait at a very young age (sometimes kids as old as 10 can completely regrow the tip of their finger if at least some of the nail is intact. Mice can do this as well for their entire palm, even when they're old in some cases.)

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[gweihir]

People getting obsessed with solving a problem is what drives science and technology forward.

Can work to some level for the people that actually work on a problem, but even there obsession usually does more damage than it helps. Not a factor when you look to people that have nothing to contribute besides money, as they usually just end up financing con-men.

Science is not done by people with money and real scientists are not primarily motivated by money.

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[dargaud]

I also give blood regularly, but let me be clear: if I learn that my blood would be used to prolong the life of rich oligarchs, I wouldn't give another drop and damn the consequences.

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[Jesrad]

How does one go get tested for CMV ? Do I just ask my GP, or directly at the blood bank ?

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[stealth_finger]

Disclaimer: I have "baby blood", meaning I am CMV negative, so instead of receiving blood from the young, I donate to babies. A pint every 8 weeks, totalling to 10 gallons so far, and I have a t-shirt from the Red Cross to prove it.

Why don't you sell it to this guy? Baby blood? He'll fucking love it and probably pay a lot more than some crummy t-shirt!

Re: Sounds like bullshit to me.

[stealth_finger]

Yeah, they all went extinct! That's why none of us exis...hey wait a minute!

They certainly didn't live for ever. Or even very long. (as individuals rather than species)

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[phayes]

From what's been written by Gawker.

I'm no Thiel fan but I think we'd all be better off not believing anything Gawker has ever written.

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[drinkypoo]

How does one go get tested for CMV ? Do I just ask my GP, or directly at the blood bank ?

Just check to see if you've been having fun. If you have, it's probably too late

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[Ogive17]

I'm CMV- and O- , I'm getting mailers/phone calls the second I'm eligible to donate again.

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[Megol]

The No True Scientist fallacy? Yup.

Science IS done with people with money, both directly and indirectly. Science* IS done in order to earn money - just look at the development of integrated circuits. Scientists ARE motivated by money.

(* Science is a method for modelling the world through iterative refining, not something one can do - it's already there. One can follow the scientific method though, guess that's what you mean)

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm no Thiel fan but I think we'd all be better off not believing anything Gawker has ever written.

This. If there's one service Thiel has done for Humanity it's putting Gawker out of business.

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Good job on donating. I have only recently passed the 5 gallon mark (I give a pint ever 2 months as it is easier to remember). Fortunately or unfortunately my blood type is O- so I am universal donor and my blood is always needed but supplies are always limited so if I need blood I might be screwed. As an added bonus I need to give blood as hemochromatosis runs very strong in my family and I have high but not problematic iron levels. If I were to develop hemochromatosis the treatment is getting some of your blood drained but in that case the blood isn't good for donating as the iron levels are too high so instead I view donating blood as a preventative measure with added benefits.

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[jittles]

he wouldn't be the first guy to get obsessed with the fact that they're going to die like the rest of us.

People getting obsessed with solving a problem is what drives science and technology forward. Would you rather that Peter spent his time playing golf?

Disclaimer: I have "baby blood", meaning I am CMV negative, so instead of receiving blood from the young, I donate to babies. A pint every 8 weeks, totalling to 10 gallons so far, and I have a t-shirt from the Red Cross to prove it.

I don't know, I think this Peter Thiel guy is turning out to be just as super villany as Christopher Reeves.

But in all seriousness, I am CMV neg also. Good for you to donate every 8 weeks. It's hard to find that kind of time sometimes.

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[gweihir]

Nobody stops you from believing bullshit. I will not either.

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[silentcoder]

I don't agree - much as I dislike gawker, the idea that a billionaire can bankrupt any media source they don't like should scare the bejeezus out of you. That's a world where the first ammendment no longer goes far enough - because that restrains the state from excercising a power that, not so long ago, only the state had. Now every elite has it.

Where would you draw the line ? Could Trump put media companies out of business for publishing critical pieces about him?
What if he gets elected, can he do it while he is president or is THAT censorship now ? Even if he does it with his own money made before he was part of the state?

Do you see the danger here ? Private companies are the largest limiters of free expression in the world today, the biggest censors in our modern world are profit-driven businesses. How much censorship should we tolerate from them ? Should we limit it? How do we do so without risking actually doing more harm than good ?
I'm not saying the answers are easy, frankly I haven't the slightest idea how to address this issue - but I do recognize that it is a very real issue. A genuine threat to freedom.

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Gawker did the deed. They lost in a court of law. They ignored a judges order. Gawker bankrupted Gawker.
The only danger I see here is that you need to be a billionaire to stay the course when suing a large company for cause.

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[drew_kime]

My father is AB- and has a couple of 10-gallon pins. The company he worked for throughout the 60s and 70s was across the street from a hospital, and had an arrangement where they would give a day off to anyone who responded to an emergency request to donate. The hospital had a standing order to send out the "emergency request" to my dad every sixth Friday.

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, those guys who were obsessed about dying from an infection, heart attack, or choking years ago and tried to find solutions were terrible. Just say no to antibiotics, CPR, and Heimlich.

Btw, the group doing this is from Stanford, Thiel is interested. More power to them.

It is funny to see all the Luddites on Slashdot now.

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[Bratch]

Hey, my CMV Negative brother from another mother! I've been doing the same, donating whole blood every 8 weeks, or red cells every 16 weeks, for the same reasons. Almost at the 12 gallon mark with the San Diego Blood Bank. One time I asked them what the difference was between them and the Red Cross, and the person just replied with, "We're better." I think it's just that they supply local hospitals first, then share with others. Doesn't matter, as long as you are donating to help save lives. Do it for the donut.

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[dbIII]

Indeed - which is why I wrote "From what has been written".

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[phayes]

Some sources do not merit to be referenced without qualifiers such as "from what has been written -- which coming from Gawker deserves no merit whatsoever" as otherwise you appear to be giving the unreliable source some credence. So, are you giving Gawker any credence or not?

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[dbIII]

I don't know anything about Gawker which is why I wrote "From what has been written".
As for your sig, there's a Churchill quote that goes with it: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[phayes]

Well then, my advice on not believing anything Gawker has ever written and refuting your implicit agreement with their bullshit holds. Funny that you're unable to say so, it's as if you'd like to slam Thiel for something but have nothing other than the repugnant Gawker to do it with.

I've often used Winnie's Democracy quote on /. myself.

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[ShanghaiBill]

How does one go get tested for CMV ?

CMV is spread by exchange of bodily fluids. Most people have been exposed, but If you are a nerd, you are probably fine. The infection is usually asymptomatic, but can be a problem for people with compromised immune systems: AIDS patients, people on chemo, and ... newborn babies.

Do I just ask my GP, or directly at the blood bank ?

My local blood bank told me. I am a regular donor, and one time the nurse said "Oh, you have baby blood", and put a special sticker on my blood bag.

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[ShanghaiBill]

Why don't you sell it to this guy? Baby blood? He'll fucking love it and probably pay a lot more than some crummy t-shirt!

I have received a lot more than the t-shirt. That was just for passing the 10 gallon mark. Several times per year, they have a "pint-for-pint" coupon that is good for a free pint of Ben & Jerrys ice cream (any flavor).

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[ShanghaiBill]

if I need blood I might be screwed.

Regular donors should go to the front of the queue when they need blood. It should work the same for organ donors. If you need a new liver, and you never checked the donor box on your driver's license, they you should have to wait.

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[dbIII]

refuting your implicit agreement with their bullshit holds

The naive sig is stating to make sense now, pretending that something along the lines of "if this is really true, then" means full agreement is more than a little stupid. If I took gawker at face value I wouldn't have started with "From what has been written".


Democracy is a herd of sheep facing off a wolf that can arm itself better than any individual sheep can possibly do.

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[phayes]

Sorry, Used the sig loooong ago for a specific /. message, never saw any reason to change it and have been amused a number of times since when twits attempted to equate it with something.

What's this? "If i took gawker at face value" you'd have to know something about them, directly contradicting "I don't know anything about Gawker". So which is it?

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[dbIII]

Please stop acting so dim.
"From what has been written" means nothing but other than what those words mean with no strange conspiracy theory behind it.
It's a simple fucking "IF THEN" statement.
That I put an "IF" in there should tell you that I did not know whether to trust the source or not.
You know far more about Gawker than I, to me it's just a name that was quoted in the summary above.
I really do not get what your problem is here. Is Gawker something you hate so much that you feel you should attack anyone that dares referring to something from it at two steps removed without even mentioning the site name or is something else going on?

twits attempted to equate it with something.

Well it is especially naive and is the sort of thing a "wolf" would like a useful idiot to write so that reaction should be expected from time to time.

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[phayes]

For you, dim appears to be asking for you to renounce Gawker as a reliable source, or to be coherent in your claimed ignorance of Gawker when called upon to renounce them as a reliable source. A "lemme check, ah yeah they're really not a source I should've relied upon" is clearly beyond you. No, for you, reading something on the internets, whether it be Gawker or "my struggle", that makes it credible enough for you to use and promote.

It leaves one with the distinct impression that you know much more of Gawker than you admit.

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[dbIII]

It leaves one with the distinct impression that you know much more of Gawker than you admit.

So you are calling me a liar over something so utterly trivial.
Do you do balloon animals as well Pogo?

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[phayes]

I don't have to call you a liar, you did that to yourself when you stated "If i took gawker at face value" as you'd have to know something about them, and then directly contradicted yourself with "I don't know anything about Gawker". Your continued refusal to back away from claiming Gawker as a reliable source also makes you a fool.

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[dbIII]

"If i took gawker at face value" as you'd have to know something about them

No.
Is English your second language or are you just incredibly dim?

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[phayes]

Are you a (soon to be ex-) Gawker employee? It'd explain your inability to recognise or admit Gawker for the lying muckraking entity that it has proven to be. In fact it fits perfectly with your ad-hominem & non-sequitur filled statements you have displayed to date.

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[dbIII]

WTF is your obsession with them that has you jumping at shadows and acting like a complete idiot?

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[phayes]

Anyone that isn't a Gawker employee would take a quick look at their history and understand. Why are you incapable of backing away from Gawker as a reliable source? Why must you continually use ad-hominems instead of answering simple questions?

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[dbIII]

Why are you incapable of backing away from Gawker as a reliable source

Obviously because I never suggested they were. WTF are you doing on Slashdot if you can't parse an IF-THEN statement?
Seriously - a chatbot would have more ability to follow this than you.

would take a quick look at their history and understand

I can't be bothered and if I did I would no longer be able to say I don't know anything about them. Are they some porn site and you see yourself as some sort of "moral crusader" who feels they need to attack anyone who refers to them even second hand like I did?

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[phayes]

You cannot be bothered to research Gawker yet you can take the time to dance around why you will not recant using them as a source? Time/effort cannot be the reason why, which means you're lying again.

There is only one issue here: Why are you still refusing to back away from Gawker as a reliable source. One does not cite Gawker, the KKK manifesto or Mein Kampf (the "my struggle" you were too dumb to understand earlier) innocently. Your if-then is irrelevant with such a source.

Clearly, Gawker isn't Mein Kampf but as even a trivial amount of research would show, it isn't a reputable source either. So why are you incapable of acknowledging it?

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[dbIII]

I am not using them as a source.
It's is a fucking IF-THEN statement.
WTF is your problem?

Re:Sounds like bullshit to me.

[dbIII]

The SUMMARY above is my "source" loser.

in retrospect...

[steak]

"Peter Thiel, the tech billionaire-turned-Trump delegate who successfully bankrupted Gawker Media"

outing him was probably a tactical error.

Re:in retrospect...

[plopez]

When you have nothing more to lose is when you go for it.

Re:in retrospect...

[DNS-and-BIND]

Gawker Media was all about hate and hypocrisy. They were bound to end up like this eventually. They got their $140 million worth of entertainment out of harming people. What makes me angry is all the people defending Gawker claiming First Amendment or some other crap.

Re:in retrospect...

[penguinoid]

In future retrospect, blood transfusions carry various risks, and doing massive numbers of blood transfusions is probably going to kill him faster than old age.

Re:in retrospect...

[skids]

Eventually it might be stem-cell-grown blood from the patient themselves, with alterations, and less risky. Same for tissues.
For those that are still young, blood and tissue may be stored early in life for later use which might obviate the need for DNA manipulation.

Really I take a dimmer view of his Trumpkinism than his curiosity about investigative anti-senescence therapy research.

Re:in retrospect...

[Swave An deBwoner]

In future retrospect, blood transfusions carry various risks, and doing massive numbers of blood transfusions is probably going to kill him faster than old age.

Not if he raises his donors from birth and keeps them in a state of perfect health while judiciously harvesting their young blood.

Re:in retrospect...

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't sound like he's interested in the blood itself -- rather finding out "why" young blood affects old mice the way that it does. Blood cells are blood cells. You make half a trillion of them every day. What do "young" blood cells have that old ones don't? Figure that out, patent it, and turn it into a suppository. Maybe it has nothing to do with the blood at all, maybe young blood is mixed with healthy stem cells -- a "medicine" we already recognize? Then it's back to acknowledging failed (and successful) efforts with an already half-understood science.

Re:in retrospect...

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, but now that he's out, gotta say without judgement that that photo of him in the gawker story looks strangely like "Overly Attached Girlieman"

Stephen King, Dead at 68

[Anonymous Coward]

I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Horror/Sci Fi writer Stephen King was found dead in his Maine home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.

Re:Stephen King, Dead at 68

[mrbester]

That's, what, the fourth time he's died? Guy just can't catch a break. Still, at least he gets better, though that can't last forever.

Or maybe it can. A quart of baby blood on standby for Mr King, Nurse. The fresher the better, so you should draw the screens.

Re:Stephen King, Dead at 68

[stealth_finger]

That's, what, the fourth time he's died? Guy just can't catch a break.

Probably doing research for a new book.

Re:Stephen King, Dead at 68

[mink]

Or tax reasons.

Ulterior motive

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Gawker has a disparaging article about someone who helped bankrupt them? I am shocked.

Re:Ulterior motive

[Marginal Coward]

Wow. Gawker has a disparaging article about someone who helped bankrupt them? I am shocked.

"Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand."

Bug Jack Barron

[wrf3]

This is straight out of Bug Jack Barron, by Norman Spinrad, published in 1969.

Re:Bug Jack Barron

[sconeu]

Heinlein beat him to it by 28 years.

Re:Bug Jack Barron

[Anonymous Coward]

No harvesting of the ingredients of immortality from the young in Heinlein's version, as I recall.

And here it comes...

[110010001000]

...there will be a lot of money flowing into anti-aging malarky now that the super-rich tech executives are hitting their late 40s. They are getting scared because they know they are going to die just like everyone else, and all their money won't another minute buy.

Re:And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Something tells me the people trying this are not going to be as successful as they hope for.

Re:And here it comes...

[veriti]

Back in 80s only really rich could get cell phones. They started the trend. Now you and I can enjoy it too. Yes, it took some time, but they are cheap and everybody can afford them. The rich lead the way. Same with curing aging. It must be billionaires leading the way. You and I can not afford spending millions on biomedical research. Or can you? I say few dozen years from now, our kids will wonder why we all did not invest in our future and make our 80s and 90s to be healthy living time instead we died slowly in decrepitude and pain. Or think this way, ask your grandma if she loves to have Alzheimer or Parkinson. Go Thiel !!!

Re:And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps this is why God created death..... he saw people like this and said "This can not be, let their be death so we can have renewal."

Re:And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think cynicism toward the concept is warranted. Skepticism toward specific claims, sure, but considering all the medical problems humans have already overcome, I see no reason to consider it an unreasonable concept that life extension of some form cannot, someday, be one of them. Nothing is forever, true, but that doesn't mean we can't try to extend our existences by some even longer degree than we already do. If it takes middle aged millionaires to make that reality so be it. I'd be doing it if I were them.

Re:And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

They'll be dust in the wind

Re:And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

If people stop dying, we're going to have a massive overpopulation issue. If only the rich stop dying, the top 1% issue is going to be more like the top 0.1%. I can't see that being sustainable.

Re:And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

You talk like a right-wing Christian nut-case.

Re:And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference between cellphones and immortality, is that nobody was trying to create cellphones for the last 6000 years with no success.

Immortality, if we ever have it, wont come from an app startup with a handful of new graduates pounding away at JSON and Web 3.0 paradimes.

Re:And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

"let theRE be death" stupid

Re:And here it comes...

[veriti]

Last 6000 years of communication at a distance? Shouting, smoke signals, light signals, etc. Anti-aging startups? www.oisinbio.com, unitybiotechnology.com, Pentraxin Therapeutics, sensproject21.org, bioviva-science.com, just to name a few.

Re: And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but there are many things to be gained from letting the plebs have mobile phones. Near-constant location tracking via GPS, robust facial recognition databases, and convincing everyone to switch from audio communication to text-based (which is significantly easier to store and search)

If aging is ever "cured," there would need to be a reason to share it with commoners, else it will remain prohibitively expensive.

Re:And here it comes...

[Oligonicella]

Yep. They finally figured out they *weren't* going to upload their consciousness to a computer and these kinds of things are their pants shitting.

Re: And here it comes...

[veriti]

"... there would need to be a reason to share it with commoners". All governments on earth will want all the commoners to stay healthy and be productive instead of being retired, sick, and be supported by other people taxes. It's in the interest of economy.

Re:And here it comes...

[jdavidb]

all their money won't another minute buy

Actually more money can provide a better level of medical care, which does on average provide more minutes.

Re: And here it comes...

[Bing Tsher E]

There won't be any renewal after the death of Gawker. Hopefully.

Re:And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in 80s only really rich could get cell phones. They started the trend. Now you and I can enjoy it too. Yes, it took some time, but they are cheap and everybody can afford them. The rich lead the way.

Same with curing aging. It must be billionaires leading the way.

Yeah, not gonna happen. There are too many people on the planet as it is, so making it so nobody dies of old age would not be a good idea. If it works, it will be kept among the uber rich.

Re:And here it comes...

[veriti]

"... What form of life on earth does not age and die? Name one." Bacteria. "What does life on earth look like if we cure aging? Well, we better well cure the problem of giving birth at the same time, doncha think?" If we live healthy and young for 200 years, for example, giving birth may occur at older age. Why would you want to have kids every single year if you live to 200? Why not wait till you 118, for example. Look at what happens in countries of Europe, for example. People choose not to have children enough to replenish the population, a so-called negative birth rate. This might happen in the future everywhere.

Re:And here it comes...

[jpatters]

Yes, but there is an upper bound that can only be approached asymptotically, even with arbitrarily large amounts of money.

Re:And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Rich and powerful people for millennia have tried to extend their lives. Quite a few even convinced themselves and their retinues that they were immortal, all-powerful gods.

They were all wrong. Thiel will be the latest to learn this lesson.

The best you can do is to keep yourself healthy, which might add a couple of (hopefully good) years to your life. "Keeping yourself healthy" involves the boring old advice to exercise, eat a balanced diet, keep a partner, and stay interested in the world. Apparently believers also get some benefit from praying (worship). It never, repeat never involves crap like ingesting the blood of the young, treating yourself with mercury/arsenic/herbals/whatever, zapping yourself with electricity, colonics, chelation, sleeping on a plank in a cold room, etc.

Re:And here it comes...

[khallow]

And here's your biggest stupid. What form of life on earth does not age and die? Name one. Why is that? What does life on earth look like if we cure aging? Well, we better well cure the problem of giving birth at the same time, doncha think? Except a few special people will have to be given the privilege, because accidents and disease will still take a toll. Government will have a heavy hand to make this work. Or do you have a miracle biological solution to this?

We'll have centuries to work this out. So no, I don't see what's supposed to be the big problem here. At worst, we have the occasional die-offs of people and curb population growth that way. We solve the problem or it solves itself.

I find it interesting how people obsess in the little problems just because they can't cope with the idea that an end to aging could happen.

Re:And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

1. That is not what I typed. Perhaps go and re-read that. This isn't some sort of video game where you put points into smoke signaling until cellphones are unlocked for research.

2. Promises and reality are entirely different. Something people that live in the startup culture don't understand. How many companies that were started in 1999-2001 exist today? How many of those did anything truly new?

Re:And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean billionaires are going to be beta testers for fringe medical procedures, and the rest of us get the final version? I'm okay with this.

Re:And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Curing old age will have a big impact on population, but not that big. What it will do is reduce the ability of young people to get ahead, create new ideas, evolve. The reason we die is not population control, its so we evolve faster.

Re:And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

"the little problems"

says a little mind.

Re:And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bacteria don't die? That's a surprise to everyone except you. Here's a clue. They die.

What's the proper age to have children if people never die, unless by accident? 118 you say? And where did that number come from. Your ass. And you enforce this how? It will just naturally happen? No, it won't. People who violate your utopian rules will run your family into the dirt. Hence, aging. A sure guarantee that no matter how bad Trump may be, he'll only be here for a little while. It's a good thing.

Re: And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

That reason is foreign governments not wanting to pay for organ transplants and other expensive dying operations, plus skipping out on pensions and keeping people working indefinitely.

If the government of France could delay aging by ten years, they'd be willing to spending $20,000 a person easily.

Re:And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

> Billionaires must lead the way? Where did Apple start? Where did Microsoft start?

Borrowing money and/or opportunities from billionaires who were interested in them being successful?

Re: And here it comes...

[prefec2]

In fact rich people have a longer lifespan. However, in the end they die. There is no exception and science will not help them. Not in the next 100 years anyway.

Re: And here it comes...

[prefec2]

A human body is not a cellphone. It is not a understood technology. In fact we know that cell reproduction in a human body is limited to a certain number of cell divisions before this cannot be done again. Therefore, all these tricks will not work in the end. But this story perfectly suits Thiel as he thinks in himself as a better or the best human and all other are lesser subjects.

Re: And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes and we also know that transistors are limited to a certain size, so computational power cannot possibly advance...

Really? Just because the body works one way today you have decreed that it is impossible to live "forever"? What if they can genetically engineer someone to have a system wide controlled cancer? What if they can modify a retro-virus to add telomere length via injection? What if they can build nanobots that physically add teleomeres to the end of the DNA strands in the cells? What if they can copy the human brain? What if they can copy the human body?

As long as science advances one shouldn't be to quick to call something impossible which doesn't even defy the laws nature as we know them. Even things that defies the laws of nature (as we know them) can be true, because we don't know everything.

Well after that rant, do I find it likely that we will have "eternal" life? No, I don't. I don't even think anyone alive today will live to 200. But I think someone alive today may live to be 140 or 150 even.

Re: And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

If they were right, you wouldn't know about it.

But keep telling yourself what you need to hear.

Re:And here it comes...

[Opportunist]

None were new. No matter what dot.com success story you look at, you'll invariably notice that they were the second generation, not the first. There was always some predecessor they stole the idea from, then pushed him out of the way with money.

Re:And here it comes...

[Opportunist]

What form of life on earth does not age and die?

Bacteria. And technically viruses. In other words, lifeforms that more often than not abuse other lifeforms as parasites. In other words, not much unlike most billionaires.

Re: And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, I hate to be the one to pull the wool off your eyes but governments all over the world already have a plan for the commoners. It's called "gradual planned extinction". First they take out the middle class, and we're almost there, then the whole of the working class is made redundant by automation. This world will belong to the One Percenters and there's nothing we can do about that.

Re:And here it comes...

[gweihir]

That is bullshit. Cellphones back then were only for technical users, i.e. people that needed it to do their work. Sure, some rich people could get them too, but that was never what drove the development.

Re: And here it comes...

[gweihir]

In fact rich people have a longer lifespan. However, in the end they die. There is no exception and science will not help them. Not in the next 100 years anyway.

If that is enough time. This is not like putting a new battery into an aging device. We still discover lots and lots of things about biology, medicine and there are vast unknown areas.

Re:And here it comes...

[Aighearach]

Yes, yes, but that says nothing about the science, which is promising. A bunch of self-appointed guardians of all things sciencey apparently didn't read the stories about it and are blathering, that's the issue.

Why should the 1% worry that they're the ones who would benefit? What sort of argument is that? How do you know you have the moral high ground? Maybe the science fiction future of living a bit longer is good?

Re:And here it comes...

[Aighearach]

If you're still alive, the upper bound is unknown and flexible.

Re:And here it comes...

[stealth_finger]

And here's your biggest stupid. What form of life on earth does not age and die? Name one. Why is that? What does life on earth look like if we cure aging? Well, we better well cure the problem of giving birth at the same time, doncha think? Except a few special people will have to be given the privilege, because accidents and disease will still take a toll. Government will have a heavy hand to make this work. Or do you have a miracle biological solution to this?

We'll have centuries to work this out. So no, I don't see what's supposed to be the big problem here. At worst, we have the occasional die-offs of people and curb population growth that way. We solve the problem or it solves itself. I find it interesting how people obsess in the little problems just because they can't cope with the idea that an end to aging could happen.

Centuries to work it out? Centuries of people who don't die making new life which also doesn't die. So before your first hundred years of figuring it out are up you have a massive population well out of control. Do these new immortals need to eat and drink or is that how you plan on letting it sort itself out? Annual culls? Maybe space is the best answer, send these new immortals out into space to colonise the galaxy. Or at least tell them that and shoot them at the sun.

Re:And here it comes...

[stealth_finger]

Perhaps this is why God created death..... he saw people like this and said "This can not be, let their be death so we can have renewal."

Read your bible son, God created death because he put the talking snake(which had legs) in the garden knowing full well what would happen, left the apples on a low hanging branch in the middle of the joint and waited for the snake to do its thing so he could make things die and stop piling up and making the place look untidy (this also introduced the benefit of meat eating and a nice juicy steak). Obviously, this was before he sent himself to sacrifice himself to himself to save us from himself. Which didn't work.

Re:And here it comes...

[swillden]

all their money won't another minute buy.

I'm not so sure about that.

We're making very rapid -- increasingly so -- strides in understanding the fundamental mechanisms of our bodies, including how and why aging occurs. It's not in the slightest bit unreasonable to believe that deeper understanding of these processes may result in therapies that do extend life, perhaps considerably. My suspicion is that if there's a limit at all it's our brains and how long they can continue functioning well, since "functioning well" in the case of the brain means being able to continually adapt to new circumstances while retaining all of the old adaptations. For the rest of the body, all we want is for it to continue working and repairing itself the way it does when we're young. There's no obvious reason that isn't achievable.

Re:And here it comes...

[swillden]

Rich and powerful people for millennia have tried to extend their lives.

For millenia they tried to fly, too. And they tried to turn other metals into gold. Both of which we can now do. The fact that some endeavor has a long history of failure doesn't mean it will always be so. In the case of longevity, there's quite a lot of reason to suppose that this time may be different, as our understanding of the deep structure and operation of our bodies leaps forward.

Re: And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or he talks like Logan's Run quotes. Way to miss the reference, now turn in your geek card.

Re: And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

People are afraid of dying because their ego does not allow them to recognize their insignificance. The more your ego has been stroked, by money, by power, by success, the harder it is to understand one's insignificance. The duality that my life is incredible and insignificant at the same time is difficult to accept let alone understand.

Re:And here it comes...

[Megol]

Why shoot for immortality? My grandmother's birthday is tomorrow - she turns 99. Mentally she's okay but sight and hearing are essentially gone.

How about we could expect that if we turn 99 we would be able to hear and see as a 40 year old? Watching TV, reading books, looking at porn, programming, listening to music, being social etc. What if we could keep joints functional and muscle mass high so that we at 99 could take long walks unhindered? Wouldn't THAT be a good thing even if we'd not reach a 100?

If the research for reaching those goals would help us to live longer too sure - it'd be great. But immortality is a dream (a nightmare for many).

Re:And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

this was before he sent himself to sacrifice himself to himself to save us from himself. Which didn't work.

How did it not work? Christ conquered death. He descended into hell, and the gates were opened for him. I should imagine Satan did not care for that very much but when faced with an all powerful prisoner you are not going to have much success at holding him. As when he healed the Centurion's slave, I would guess he commanded the gates be opened and they simply were. So our souls are immortal Christ went on to make space for us in God the father almighty many rooms. So as long as we follow Christ we don't die, just leave the earth and our bodies. Of course he also promised to return to judge the living and the dead as well as to resurrect the body. So I suppose we are all coming back at some point. My feeble mind does not know how that is going to work exactly given space constraints but trust he has a plan for that. Its not like he can't just make the earth a whole lot bigger if need be.

Re: And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up.

Re: And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

You say it like it's a bad thing...

If the world belongs to the "One Percenters", but all 'common' people have a good quality life, why is that a bad thing?

Sure, people in general suck, and people are a mix of their experienes, and these hypothetical commoner people won't have experienced the shit show before the "One Percenters" ushered us into the modern technological age, so they'll complain that their undisputed "great" life actually "sucks" because yolo and hamarabe and #EqualPay, and then they'll destroy the system that supports them and then we.... go back into the dark ages? Idk.

People suck

Re:And here it comes...

[ranton]

The difference between cellphones and immortality, is that nobody was trying to create cellphones for the last 6000 years with no success.

What kind of nonsense is this? Inventing new forms of communication and inventing new ways to combat death are both among the oldest forms of technology. We have been fixing problems which have been around for thousands of years quite often in the past couple centuries. Is your argument that since ancient men like Qin Shi Huang were unsuccessful making an elixir of immortality that modern science will be unsuccessful? That is a very weak argument.

Immortality, if we ever have it, wont come from an app startup with a handful of new graduates pounding away at JSON and Web 3.0 paradimes.

No, but it likely will come from a bio-tech startup with a handful of PhD's and postdocs pounding away at the problem. Kind of like the one Peter Thiel is working on.

Re:And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it interesting how people obsess in the little problems just because they can't cope with the idea that an end to aging could happen.

It's a cultural thing. We live in a culture that values personal freedom, but that also means personal responsibility.

Personal responsibility isn't as scary when people age and die earlier, as there's less time to accumulate bad choices and responsibility, and even if you do screw up badly, death isn't far away to release you from that responsibility.

But as people can live longer, people start to get scared of having to take on it all that extra responsibility by themselves. This is a reason why socialism is inevitable. The more prosperous a society grows (thanks to capitalism or freedom or whatever not-socialist ideology you think is the real engine for growth), the more personal responsibility there is, and that is scary to most people, so people will naturally start voting for socialist policies.

This is ironic of course as socialism isn't often associated with freedom, but it is in free societies that socialism can best emerge. In a less free culture, socialists will be purged and snuffed out and prevented from growing, and the God Emperor decides who gets to be ageless (I'm guessing only himself) so the rest of you rabble won't have to worry about these little things and cope with not aging.

Re:And here it comes...

[stealth_finger]

this was before he sent himself to sacrifice himself to himself to save us from himself. Which didn't work.

How did it not work?

Didn't work because original sin is still apparently a thing and you're pretty much going to hell regardless. If Jesus is god why does he need to conquer death, and if god can just do whatever he wants whenever why would he even need to? Nope, if you think about for even half a second none of it makes any sense.

Re:And here it comes...

[khallow]

So before your first hundred years of figuring it out are up you have a massive population well out of control.

Unless, of course, that doesn't happen. And if it does, so what? We have that die-off you're angsting over and start over with more experience that overpopulation is bad.

Re:And here it comes...

[stealth_finger]

Rich and powerful people for millennia have tried to extend their lives.

For millenia they tried to fly, too. And they tried to turn other metals into gold. Both of which we can now do.

We cracked flight yeah, but when did we figure out alchemy?

Re:And here it comes...

[khallow]

But as people can live longer, people start to get scared of having to take on it all that extra responsibility by themselves. This is a reason why socialism is inevitable. The more prosperous a society grows (thanks to capitalism or freedom or whatever not-socialist ideology you think is the real engine for growth), the more personal responsibility there is, and that is scary to most people, so people will naturally start voting for socialist policies.

What new personal responsibility? I think rather the problem is absence of problem. A lot of people will continue to worry, because that's one of the things we do, no matter that there's far less to worry about. Thus, fantasy fears will replace the former real ones.

Re:And here it comes...

[k6mfw]

How about we could expect that if we turn 99 we would be able to hear and see as a 40 year old?

Reminds me of article about average age extending another 20 years, someone commented, "rather than 20 more years as a 80-something, I'd like 20 more years as a 20-something."

Re: And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

>It is not a understood technology

The same could be said about cell phones, before someone spent the money, figured out the tech and invented the cell phone.

Re: And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

They're referring to nuclear transmutation. You can change elements into other elements by bombarding them with neutrons.

Re:And here it comes...

[stealth_finger]

The solution is pretty simple. Sterilisation is the price of immortality and we just make more people when we need them either with IVF/lab grown/clones (delete as technology allows) rather than random culls.

Re:And here it comes...

[Cro Magnon]

This! I wouldn't want to live a long time as a bedridden invalid. I wouldn't mind having my 20 y/o body back though, even if my total lifespan wasn't any longer than before.

Re: And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

A human body is not a cellphone. It is not a understood technology. In fact we know that cell reproduction in a human body is limited to a certain number of cell divisions before this cannot be done again. Therefore, all these tricks will not work in the end. But this story perfectly suits Thiel as he thinks in himself as a better or the best human and all other are lesser subjects.

Your conclusion rests on the unstated premis that it's impossible to gain increased understanding of the haman body.
That's plainly false as out current understanding in garter than it was a decade ago. And thus tehre is no reason to conclude that it isn't possible to devise medical solutions to the problems associated with old age.

With garter understanding we may devise a method of reseting the divide counter. Or possibly a method of transplanting long lived nerve tissues into newly grown bodies (put your brain in a teenaged clone/replicant). to name two examples of what might come of long term research into how and why we age.

Re:And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

What new personal responsibility?

Doesn't have to be "new" responsibility. It could be the same responsibilities, but more of it. Instead of worrying about living to 30 or 40, we now have to worry about living to 50, then 60, then 70, then 80, etc.

I think rather the problem is absence of problem

We still don't have flying cars or space colonies or sexy robot maids. There are still plenty of problems unsolved.

Most people in free and prosperous societies don't focus on them though, because freedom means they're free not to, and prosperous means they can afford not to.

fantasy fears will replace the former real ones

Not replaced, but added on top. This again is why socialism is inevitable. The more fears the are, the more likely people will vote for a strongman into government to protect them.

Re:And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

original sin is still apparently a thing

Depends on the branch of Christianity you are working under, its either not really a thing: Jesus died for all the sins of the world, past and present; or you can be washed clean thru baptism and you future sins can be forgiven thry Jesus.

Either way Christ's sacrifice was 'enough' and always will be.

if you think about for even half a second none of it makes any sense.

You might be doing it wrong. You can't fully understand the reasoning and actions of the almighty. He is to much greater than you, part of faith is to stop trying and start accepting.

Re:And here it comes...

[desdinova 216]

I like that last idea, can we use Venture Capitalists, CxOs **AA executives, and lawyers?

Re: And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

> You might be doing it wrong. You can't fully understand the reasoning and actions of the almighty. He is to much greater than you, part of faith is to stop trying and start accepting.

That's exactly what someone without a real explanation would say.

Re:And here it comes...

[Rakarra]

Didn't work because original sin is still apparently a thing and you're pretty much going to hell regardless.

Only if you believe in unchangeable predestination, which is not a thing. You're responsible for your sin, and repentance can always wash sin away, original or not.

Re:And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "..turn other metals into gold."

Seriously, this is your example of positive thinking and progress? Bombarding lower atomic weight substances with subatomic particles to turn them into gold, has indeed been demonstrated. In the lab. It was already known that it would work so it was just to prove that our understanding of atomic physics is sound.

However as a practical endeavour, making gold this way is literally the most expensive, most time-consuming, least rewarding (financially speaking) activity, that can be conceived. You are creating gold one atom at a time! With particle accelerators that cost tens of millions (or hundreds of millions) of dollars!

If you want to get rich from gold, you'll find any other way to do it. Hard rock mining. Placer mining. Go into the retail gold or jewelry business. Start a bullion or gold storage business. Heck, start working on a rocketry startup and sell the idea to mine gold from asteroids! You'll literally make money sooner from any venture at all, rather than attempting to use a particle accelerator to make gold. One atom at a time!

Your example therefore, and regretfully, sucks.

Re:And here it comes...

[stealth_finger]

A lot of things are a sin, aside from being born of course. Do people who go to confession start with I ate meat on a Friday, ate some shellfish and wore poly/cotton blends? If not then they haven't repented all their sins and off to hell it is. That's assuming Christianity is the one though. If Islam is right or any other religion that condemns non believers (pretty much all of them) then it doesn't really matter how much or what they confess.

Re:And here it comes...

[khallow]

Doesn't have to be "new" responsibility. It could be the same responsibilities, but more of it. Instead of worrying about living to 30 or 40, we now have to worry about living to 50, then 60, then 70, then 80, etc.

I doubt anyone is going to worry a great deal about what they're doing in 40 years. Sorry, that's not credible.

We still don't have flying cars or space colonies or sexy robot maids. There are still plenty of problems unsolved.

One doesn't go to socialism for its sexy robot maids.

Re:And here it comes...

[jeffb (2.718)]

So I suppose we are all coming back at some point. My feeble mind does not know how that is going to work exactly given space constraints but trust he has a plan for that. Its not like he can't just make the earth a whole lot bigger if need be.

The good news: you live forever, on a remade Earth with 10 times the diameter and 100 times the surface area!

The bad news: you live forever, on a remade earth with 1000 times the mass and 10 times the surface gravity! Enjoy your eternal agony.

Re:And here it comes...

[stealth_finger]

Either way Christ's sacrifice was 'enough' and always will be.

Enough for what though? To remove sin from the world? Sin is still in the world. All sin up until that point was instantly forgiven? So heaven was a closed shop before that and all the hell residents suddenly got a pass and moved up? If it always will be why does sin continue to be a thing, original or otherwise? What did it achieve, the world was just as miserable after the fact, only though human endeavour has anything improved not divine will.Why did it even have to happen in the first place, if god is this all powerful omnipotent being why bother with any of it in the first place?

You can't fully understand the reasoning and actions of the almighty. He is to much greater than you, part of faith is to stop trying and start accepting.

Classic, you win, thanks for playing.

Re:And here it comes...

[Rakarra]

A lot of things are a sin, aside from being born of course. Do people who go to confession start with I ate meat on a Friday, ate some shellfish and wore poly/cotton blends? If not then they haven't repented all their sins and off to hell it is. That's assuming Christianity is the one though. If Islam is right or any other religion that condemns non believers (pretty much all of them) then it doesn't really matter how much or what they confess.

I'm pretty sure "Mormon" was the correct religion. Everyone else like me is going to hell.

Re:And here it comes...

[Sir Holo]

Something tells me the people trying this are not going to be as successful as they hope for.

Well, you never do know... This is a totally new and unexplored idea – the extension of human life. Give me one, just one, example of any humans in the history of the human race who have tried to extend life or to become immortal. Just one!

That was sarcasm.

On a positive note, 7% of homo sapiens sapiens that have ever existed are alive today. If my understanding of statistics is accurate, then this means that every living person has a 7% chance of being immortal. Prove me wrong.

Re:And here it comes...

[Sir Holo]

Perhaps this is why God created death..... he saw people like this and said "This can not be, let their be death so we can have renewal."

Read your bible son, God created death...

God created death to enable evolution. If the weak ones don't die, then the species can never improve through passing on advantageous traits.

Re:And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bacteria die, but the specific question that Opportunist was answering was "what form of life on earth does not age and die" and bacteria don't die of old age. The grow, then undergo mitosis. Either of the two halves can die, but if they both do, then the line dies out. So every bacterium alive today is part of an unbroken line of descent that goes all the way back. Unless you want to complain that bateria die during mitosis. Animal cells also are part of an unbroken line, but those are part of mulicellular organisms and the gamates are recombinant. That said, many do consider childbearing to be a form of immortality.

Re:And here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your example therefore, and regretfully, sucks.

Not really. It's a pretty good example I think. Sure, many ancient aclhemists may have dreamed of becoming rich through piles of transmuted gold, but the real value of all that research is our modern understanding of chemistry, metallurgy, medicine, physics, etc. Don't forget that Isaac Newton was an alchemist.

Cristopher Reeve anyone ?

[Archfeld]

Made me think of this...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Cristopher Reeve anyone ?

[Opportunist]

What's the opposite of Christopher Reeve?

Christopher Walken

Stephen King death hoax spreads on Facebook

[CrashNBrn]

Stephen King dead. ‘Carrie’ author killed by celebrity death hoax

Re:Stephen King death hoax spreads on Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be new here.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Wikipedia says Elizabeth Bathory did not actually bathe in the blood of virgins, so Peter Thiel may be able to take the lead on this one.

What a nice story

[frovingslosh]

What a nice story, full of meaningful technical details, with no political motivation at all. I guess we will not be seeing any stories on Hillary's lesbian lover or corruption with Tyson food or Wall Street or the murder of Vince Foster or even Obama's warning that Hillary will say anything to get elected, 'cause that would be taking sides.

Re:What a nice story

[Anonymous Coward]

What does Hillary's lesbian lover or Tyson food have to do with tech? Peter Thiel is a tech billionaire...

Re:What a nice story

[jmac_the_man]

The reason Gawker went after Thiel in the first place is because Thiel was politically active in a way that Gawker disagreed with.

The "Hillary's lesbian lover" stuff that GP referenced is examples of transparent, dopey right wing smears that Slashdot isn't (and shouldn't be) reporting on. This report on Thiel is the left wing version of that. It's a bullshit smear, from a transparently non-objective source. And Slashdot is covering it as real anyway. Hmm.

Colleg fund

[fermion]

If you were 18 and could fund college by selling blood, would you? The downside is that if people were allowed to sell blood on the open market, the price of blood bank blood would likely go up significantly. Right now they get it for free. OTOH if you had to be healthy to sell blood, that would be an incentive for kids to eat better, not abuse drugs, and stay VD free. This to me is more akin to pr0n than selling organs. Blood is simply a renewable resource that needs to be regulated.

Re:Colleg fund

[dbIII]

If you were 18 and could fund college by selling blood, would you

Back then I gave it away. Having a price on it seems a bit perverse but I suppose some places do not have their health system up to scratch or don't have people willing to donate and have to pay for it.

Re:Colleg fund

[Opportunist]

You are aware that blood getting a price tag means that a lot of people will die because they need that blood but will not get it, right?

That would probably be the most direct way some selfish rich bastards prolonging their own life at the expense of killing others.

Re:Colleg fund

[swillden]

You are aware that blood getting a price tag means that a lot of people will die because they need that blood but will not get it, right?

I think that's unlikely, and inconsistent with pretty much everything else we've learned from economics. Competitive markets and unregulated pricing are, in fact, the best way we've ever found to ensure that a commodity is available in abundance. Artificial restrictions are what produce scarcity. In addition, it's hard to see how, of all the emergency medical procedures a dying person needs to save their life, that the price of blood could ever be what causes someone to die. There are fairly few circumstances in which *all* a dying person needs is blood; usually there's also surgery and other vastly more expensive medical work involved.

My guess is that if blood were bought and sold as a commodity, the price would be pretty low because the potential supply greatly exceeds demand. You might get some reduction in supply from people who don't need the money but donate because they feel it's a good cause, but I think that would be more than offset by the number of young people who do need money who would donate as often as they safely could (there would need to be restrictions on donation frequency; I'm not sure a market would impose those and if not then some artificial regulation would be necessary).

Alternatively, it's entirely possible that if blood were bought and sold there would be sufficient motivation for the development of an artificial alternative that might be so inexpensive to manufacture that blood donation would be a thing of the past.

All in all, I really wonder if we're best served by the current restriction on the selling of blood. Restricting transactions in organs that don't grow back makes sense, but a healthy body will make more blood indefinitely.

Re:Colleg fund

[Anonymous Coward]

It should be treated like any other body part that can be donated and not be allowed for sale.

Re: Colleg fund

[fermion]

Yes "price of blood bank blood would likely go up significantly" I am aware that some people don't read.

Re:Colleg fund

[non0score]

As long as the logistics isn't an issue, it's rather easy to solve this problem -- require a tax of 10-20% of all donated blood to go into blood banks. Now you'll have more blood in blood banks than what you know to do with.

Re:Colleg fund

[Anonymous Coward]

There actually used to be a lot of businesses buying blood. I think they've all gone away and everyone just donates to the red cross now. I'm not sure if laws sprang up to make it donation only, or if they just couldn't stay in business. In any case, selling blood used to be a thing. Homeless people would often go around from one blood bank to another, selling the maximum allowed at each one. Some of them would drop dead.

You are aware that blood getting a price tag means that a lot of people will die because they need that blood but will not get it, right?

As for selling blood to patients... You are aware that just because you donate the blood doesn't mean that patients get it for free, right? The typical cost of a pint of blood to patients is between as low as $130 to around $600. It's considered unethical to pay donors, but patients paying for it isn't.

Simpsons did it

[smeg for brains]

"I tried every tincture and poultice and tonic and patent medicine there is, and all I really needed was the blood of a young boy" - C.M. Burns

There was a scary sci-fi story

[rsilvergun]

about this sort of thing. The slightest crime was punished by death to fill the organ banks. It's gonna get really ugly, really fast if we solve organ rejection before we can make organs. Already some horror stories coming out of China... Dick Cheney's got an artificial heart, and I can't think of anyone less deserving...

And it's been pretty well proven that blood transfusions from young to old improve quality of life so long as nothing goes wrong with the transfusion.

Re:There was a scary sci-fi story

[dbIII]

The Canadian-German TV series "Lexx" had that as well in the first episode, but in that case the perverted meme was perverted even more when the harvested organs were not used for implants but fed to an organic machine.
Dick Cheney kind of reminds me of the villain running the ATF in a parallel Earth near the end of the series, played by Malcolm McDowell.

Re:There was a scary sci-fi story

[Nethead]

You're talking about Organlegging.

Organlegging is the name of a fictional crime in the Known Space universe created by Larry Niven. It is the illicit trade of black market human organs for transplant. The term organlegging is a portmanteau combining the words "organ" and "bootlegging", literally the piracy and smuggling of organs.

Re:There was a scary sci-fi story

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe you're referring to The Jigsaw Man.

(FWIW, this AC recommends just about anything written by Larry Niven.)

Re:There was a scary sci-fi story

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, we've got about 10% of a heart already. We are going to solve rejection by making organs. That part will be fine, except for the bills.

Re:There was a scary sci-fi story

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you'll like this film: Never Let Me Go

Re:There was a scary sci-fi story

[drinkypoo]

Organlegging is the name of a fictional crime in the Known Space universe created by Larry Niven.

It's also a good name for what they do to people who don't pay their taxes in China.

Re:There was a scary sci-fi story

[Anonymous Coward]

Organ rejection is already solved to a practical extent. Sure it requires a constant regime (for most) of strong drugs but sure beats being dead. I'm coming up to 15 years on my new liver.

Re:There was a scary sci-fi story

[Anonymous Coward]

The Canadian-German TV series "Lexx" had that as well in the first episode, but in that case the perverted meme was perverted even more when the harvested organs were not used for implants but fed to an organic machine.
Dick Cheney kind of reminds me of the villain running the ATF in a parallel Earth near the end of the series, played by Malcolm McDowell.

That was Nigel Bennet, but back then he did look a bit like the poor-man's Malcolm McDowell.

Re:There was a scary sci-fi story

[david_thornley]

We're pretty much there, and we don't have many credible horror stories in Western civilization. Besides, we're going to be moving beyond organ donation sometime in the not too distant future, and I don't think it'll have the corrosive effect on society by then. There are experiments in making new organs.

Re:There was a scary sci-fi story

[Anonymous Coward]

This bad tv drama from the 1970 has your sci-fi story beat by a few DECADES.

Now... Get off my lawn... and take your blood with you ;)

Re:There was a scary sci-fi story

[dbIII]

Good point, Malcolm McDowell played a different character earlier in the series.

Re:There was a scary sci-fi story

[Keybounce]

Larry Niven, "A Gift from Earth", and many other stories -- "The Long ARM of the Law".

Very much worth reading. Speaks volumes about the importance of a good justice system, and not dealing harsh penalties for bad reasons.

Re:There was a scary sci-fi story

[Sir Holo]

Already some horror stories coming out of China...

And India. People sell their kidneys to afford to eat. Vice did a good piece on it.

I keep my brain-dead maternal twin on life support just so I have a set of 'spare parts' handy.*

* (not really)

Thiel and the Theranos chick should join forces

[Anonymous Coward]

Two blood-related /. stories in close proximity.

They're both interested in the blood of innocents, they'd make a good team.

They could build a headquarters in *pinkie-to-mouth* pennSYLVANIA!

Very vampiric.

Bad idea even if it worked

[gslj]

I have to say that I'm against life extension research. My one comfort, when some bad person gets the firmest of grips on a suffering country, is that the bad person will die, and someone else with different views will take over. Imagine Stalin remaining in power till 1978 (he'd be only a hundred) instead of dying in 1953. Or Mao Zedong in power till 2045. Does anyone think the world will be better off? I don't like what President Erdogan's doing to Turkey. I honestly take some comfort in the fact he was born in 1954, and he's unlikely to be on the scene in ten years' time.

-Gareth

Re: Bad idea even if it worked

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Gareth, based on your beliefs thank God your opinion has not dominated the past 3,000 years. Otherwise I would have died 8 years ago of old age at the age of 35.

Re:Bad idea even if it worked

[ShooterNeo]

You literally can't think of a better solution to dictatorship than condemning everyone you ever know and yourself to eternal oblivion of death?

Has it ever occurred to you that in a world where most people expect to be around in a few centuries, and for the foreseeable future unless a big war or planetary scale disaster happens, might be a world where wiser, more long sighted decisions generally are made?

How much of these poor decisions now are due to decaying brains in people who still have voting power? You do realize that aging related intelligence decline would have to be fixed, or life extension wouldn't extend your life...

Re: Bad idea even if it worked

[Anonymous Coward]

Rubbish. Even chimps live to 45, on average.

Since the advent of civilisation, if you made it past teenage years, you would have lived to approximately the same age that people die at now. ie. Somewhere between 60-80.

Re:Bad idea even if it worked

[dbIII]

You literally can't think of a better solution to dictatorship than condemning everyone you ever know and yourself to eternal oblivion of death?

It's actually pretty damned good to have people who think they are God incarnate have someone whisper in their ear to remind them that they too are mortal. Do you have any better ideas?

Has it ever occurred to you that in a world where most people expect to be around in a few centuries, and for the foreseeable future unless a big war or planetary scale disaster happens, might be a world where wiser, more long sighted decisions generally are made?

While a know a couple of geriatrics that are very wise they could have been called that at 40 and the majority of the old are just as stupid as the majority of us in a different age bracket. I'd say take a look at Iran for that future you think you crave. A tiny elderly minority are running the place where the average age is in the twenties and the elderly are the warmongers with some pretty fucked up ideas that they can not adapt to a changing world.

You do realize that aging related intelligence decline would have to be fixed

That's not just a goalpost shift it's moving onto a different playing field.

Re:Bad idea even if it worked

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "...in a world where most people expect to be around in a few centuries, ... might be a world where wiser, more long sighted decisions generally are made?"

Wow, you don't know much about human psychology, do you? Prolonging life by a few centuries would have a lot of implications. Better decision making certainly isn't one of those implications.

Re:Bad idea even if it worked

[penguinoid]

Admit it. You just want people you don't like to die, and you don't mind millions of bystanders dying too if that's what it takes.

Re:Bad idea even if it worked

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why death is important. It gives room for new ideas. "Science advances one funeral at a time."

Re:Bad idea even if it worked

[AthanasiusKircher]

You literally can't think of a better solution to dictatorship than condemning everyone you ever know and yourself to eternal oblivion of death?

Unless you figure out how to rejuvenate brain plasticity of youth periodically or something, which will probably lead to massive changes in personality and mental shifts, no... Not and maintain things like social progress. Thomas Kuhn and other historians of science has shown that sometimes the only way major changes happen is when an older generation can die off... Because older folks just sometimes are incapable of seeing things in a new way with the fluency of someone who grows up in a new paradigm. Older people staying in power longer will eventually inhibit progress, unless our mental capacities start to change dramacally with these life extensions.

Has it ever occurred to you that in a world where most people expect to be around in a few centuries, and for the foreseeable future unless a big war or planetary scale disaster happens, might be a world where wiser, more long sighted decisions generally are made?

No, actually, because it basically goes against what most psychological and sociological research has repeatedly shown us about the inability of average people to consider long-term consequences NOW, within current normal lifespans. If people actually made rational choices based on the fact that they will still be living even a few years or decades in the future, we wouldn't need automated forced retirement contribution plans and such. Heck, I know a lot of people who seem to be living paychecks to paycheck constantly... Even though they make an upper middle class income. And you think the average person is going to plan better when a lifetime is centuries long?? They can barely make it to the end of the month.

How much of these poor decisions now are due to decaying brains in people who still have voting power?

I don't think the "old person" vote is any worse than the average "uninformed" vote, which is basically most voters...or all the stupid people who vote regardless of age. People who truly have "decaying brains" don't tend to be able to get to the voting booth... The average older voter just has different priorities based on their longer experience and based on problems more relevant to their daily lives (which obviously have different concerns from younger folks).

You do realize that aging related intelligence decline would have to be fixed, or life extension wouldn't extend your life...

"Would have to be fixed?"Actually no, I DON'T realize that... It would certainly be desireable. But the reality is that we've already accomplished significant life extension compared to a century or two ago, without solving mental decline... Which is why we see fewer people dying of random medical conditions at younger ages and more people than ever with brains going to " mush" before they due in their 80s and 90s. I don't have faith at all that our system will make it a priority to extend intellect at the same pace as physical life extension... People these days are just too afraid of death and our society teaches us to extend life at all costs... Even if it's horrible cancer treatments and pain and hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a few more months.

Re:Bad idea even if it worked

[Opportunist]

Who doesn't? It's fun to sing "Ding Dong the witch is dead" at a funeral.

Oddly, I'm usually the only one dancing.

Re:Bad idea even if it worked

[drinkypoo]

Admit it. You just want people you don't like to die, and you don't mind millions of bystanders dying too if that's what it takes.

I'm pretty sure that's almost exactly what he said. And I'm right there with him. What I want most is for everyone to be good to each other. Failing that, I just want assholes to eventually die, and yeah, I'm willing to break all the eggs for that omelet.

Re:Bad idea even if it worked

[Anonymous Coward]

Has it ever occurred to you that in a world where most people expect to be around in a few centuries, and for the foreseeable future unless a big war or planetary scale disaster happens, might be a world where wiser, more long sighted decisions generally are made?

Has it ever occurred to you that it might not be? You don't implement technology that has planetary-scale consequences based on wishful thinking.

Re:Bad idea even if it worked

[Anonymous Coward]

I just want assholes to eventually die

Only assholes want people to die.

Re: Bad idea even if it worked

[TuringTest]

if you made it past teenage years

Which proves GP's point. In my book, steady food sources, healing and risk mitigation count as "life-extending devices" if they make it more likely that a larger percentage of population survives childhood.

Re: Bad idea even if it worked

[TuringTest]

... and accidents.

Re:Bad idea even if it worked

[jeremy.brown3327]

Agreed. The global population explosion is bad enough, along with oligarchic elites seizing greater power. This exacerbates both. First only the superrich become not only superrich but immortal, feeding off the blood of poor children, clones or whatever. Then it becomes available to the middle class and exponential population growth becomes hyper-exponential as fewer die, and we completely overwhelm the carrying capacity of the planet.

Re:Bad idea even if it worked

[jittles]

I have to say that I'm against life extension research. My one comfort, when some bad person gets the firmest of grips on a suffering country, is that the bad person will die, and someone else with different views will take over.

Not trying to claim that I am a bad person whatsoever but, to be honest, I take comfort in knowing that some day, when my body is probably old and worn enough that life will be less satisfactory, I too will die and someone else will take my place and (hopefully) make the world a better place than when I was there.

Re:Bad idea even if it worked

[Bob the Super Hamste]

It's actually pretty damned good to have people who think they are God incarnate have someone whisper in their ear to remind them that they too are mortal. Do you have any better ideas?

Reminds me of something that was written on a sarcophagus in Caesarea :

no man is immortal and that is the essence of life...

The sarcophagus held the husband and the inscription was from the wife.

Re:Bad idea even if it worked

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to say that I'm against life extension research. My one comfort, when some bad person gets the firmest of grips on a suffering country, is that the bad person will die, and someone else with different views will take over. Imagine Stalin remaining in power till 1978 (he'd be only a hundred) instead of dying in 1953. Or Mao Zedong in power till 2045. Does anyone think the world will be better off? I don't like what President Erdogan's doing to Turkey. I honestly take some comfort in the fact he was born in 1954, and he's unlikely to be on the scene in ten years' time.

-Gareth

Rich and powerful people already have much greater access to life extending health care than most people. And even when they do suffer health decline they are usually propped up well beyond their inherent ability by those vested interests around them. Many powerful families get that way simply through the longevity of several generations that can accumulate and grow wealth, power and influence.

Science is about making knowledge available to the public in the hopes it can be further improved upon through wider distribution. If people can live longer, healthier and happier lives then they are going to put a lot more value on their lives and are going to want to live their lives freely.

Re: Bad idea even if it worked

[Anonymous Coward]

Quit making excuses for your own mental inflexibility.

Re:Bad idea even if it worked

[non0score]

Yes, because when Kim Jong-il died, North Korea was freed from the decades of repression and servitude. Oh wai....

And when the Arab Spring happened, obviously no corrupt leader died/were thrown from office and are still the same illustrious leaders today. Oh wai....

Trust me, if you failed to pass on your legacy of tyranny on to your offsprings, you failed as a tyrant. Natural death addresses some of the symptoms of evil, not evil itself.

Re:Bad idea even if it worked

[david_thornley]

I was born in 1954, you insensitive clod!

Re: Bad idea even if it worked

[david_thornley]

In other words, you aren't worried about potentially lethal effects of my heart attack and depression, or my brother's cancer? The accident a friend of mine got into? (Actually, a mutual friend counted and said she'd survived eighteen separate things that could have killed you, and was now on her third cats' worth of lives.) How about the accidents that happened to my nephews when they were in their teens?

Re:Bad idea even if it worked

[Rakarra]

You literally can't think of a better solution to dictatorship than condemning everyone you ever know and yourself to eternal oblivion of death?

Condemning? I don't think the people who want to "live forever" have really thought it through.

Re:Bad idea even if it worked

[Rakarra]

Admit it. You just want people you don't like to die, and you don't mind millions of bystanders dying too if that's what it takes.

This is how, since the dawn of time, human progress has been achieved. Through death. It is the essence of humanity. What we have seen over and over again is that time sweeps away or lessens older attitudes, and older prejudices. I don't think we'd have interracial marriage today if everyone alive today was born in the 1810s. I doubt I'd have been allowed to marry my husband if the older generations of yesteryear had anything to say about it. We've seen many an instance where a younger generation doesn't have the same hangups about issues as older generations do. If you're one of those people who believe "everything was better in the past," then keeping humanity frozen in time might work for you. But I like to think we've made wonderful progress, and I hope the next generation does as well.

Re:Bad idea even if it worked

[PJ6]

I have to say that I'm against life extension research. My one comfort, when some bad person gets the firmest of grips on a suffering country, is that the bad person will die, and someone else with different views will take over. Imagine Stalin remaining in power till 1978 (he'd be only a hundred) instead of dying in 1953. Or Mao Zedong in power till 2045. Does anyone think the world will be better off? I don't like what President Erdogan's doing to Turkey. I honestly take some comfort in the fact he was born in 1954, and he's unlikely to be on the scene in ten years' time.

-Gareth

Generational turnover relieves some problems, but not the ones caused by institutions.

Re:Bad idea even if it worked

[jdavidb]

wow, the GP essentially says everybody on earth should die and I'm the flamebait? ;)

Re:Bad idea even if it worked

[Anonymous Coward]

This is how, since the dawn of time, human progress has been achieved. Through death. It is the essence of humanity. What we have seen over and over again is that time sweeps away or lessens older attitudes, and older prejudices.

The problem is that knife cuts both ways. When all living memory of, for example, why civil rights for everyone are so important, you can end up with a majority that just doesn't get it and decides that it's ok to repeat the mistakes of the past.

DEATHWALKER! DEATHWALKER!

[Anonymous Coward]

You and the rest of your kind take blind comfort in the belief that we are monsters, that you could never do what we did. The key ingredient in the anti-agapic cannot be synthesized. It must be taken from living beings. For one to live forever, another one must die. You will fall upon one another like wolves. It will make what we did pale by comparison. The billions who live forever will be a testimony to my work. And the billions who are murdered to buy that immortality will be the continuance of my work. Not like us? You will become us. That is my monument, Commander.

Re: DEATHWALKER! DEATHWALKER!

[Anonymous Coward]

Beat me to it.

That's why I'm no longer a Republican:

[Anonymous Coward]

All the goddamn vampires!

Dinner reading

[peteypooh]

So, I pulled up slashdot for some dinner reading in my hotel room... got out some good chips and chunky salsa... then I read this story. I hate wasting salsa, but I just can't eat it now. I wonder if it is young salsa...

Re:And what's even spookier

[Anonymous Coward]

He's a bundle of sticks meant for burning?

Re:DEATHWALKER! DEATHWALKER!

[Doctor Device]

...You are not ready for immortality...

Freak

[Anonymous Coward]

Of Nature

Re:And what's even spookier

[Anonymous Coward]

This pervert called thiel likes to play with other men's dicks. What a freak.

As long as they're not attached to children, the way godly clean Catholic priests like it, who fucking cares?

Aging is a degenerative disease

[Iamthecheese]

Aging is not a law of physics. Aging is not inevitable. Aging is a degenerative disease that we've been fighting for decades and we are winning ground against it. The human body and genome are a massive, complicated puzzle, but the puzzle is finite. Human life span is increasing by .4 years per year right now. As we speak you get to add half again to your expected age at death just because of the advances you can expect to happen by then.

Charlatans have been promising life extension since the first cave man wondered why his dad was turning small and gray and wondered if it would happen to him. But the progress is real. In the face of apparent miracles it's popular and easy to declare them not to be real. It's the conservative thing, to expect nothing to get better. Hope hurts. But it's time to face that pain, Slashdot. Aging is a dragon we will conquer, and the sooner you recognize it can be conquered the sooner you'll get out your sword. Do not go gently into that good night.

Re:Aging is a degenerative disease

[Dorianny]

Research suggests that aging is actually a species survival strategy from the earliest days of life. Young bacteria fared much better when competing against aging, slowing parents. Without this advantage the young would have difficulty competing with their hardened parents and the species future would be jeopardized as the old continue accumulating genetic damage from environmental factors such as UV rays, which means higher chances of unhealthy offspring

Re:Aging is a degenerative disease

[Anonymous Coward]

"aging is actually a species survival strategy from the earliest days of life"

Does that make it a law of physics? Do atoms individually get older too?

"old continue accumulating genetic damage from environmental factors such as UV rays, which means higher chances of unhealthy offspring"

How strong does UV need to be to get to the testicles?

Please describe how two 30 year old parents can make a 0 year old baby... With the same atoms.

Re:Aging is a degenerative disease

[swillden]

Research suggests that aging is actually a species survival strategy from the earliest days of life.

So are lots of other ways of culling the "unfit", most of which we've already abolished. How many of the people you know would have survived to the age they are without medical treatment?

Without this advantage the young would have difficulty competing with their hardened parents

This is a legitimate concern, I think. The ability for older people to continue to concentrate wealth and influence rather than allowing it to be handed down to the young generation would be a problem. I don't know that it'd be an insoluble problem, but it would be a problem.

the species future would be jeopardized as the old continue accumulating genetic damage from environmental factors such as UV rays

That seems like it can be overcome with technology. I can imagine some sort of tailored virus that tests the genetic material in a cell against a known-good template and destroys cells which have genetic damage.

Re:Aging is a degenerative disease

[Antique Geekmeister]

> Aging is not a law of physics.

Actually, the second law of thermodynamics would seem to apply. Some of aging is a simple increase in entropy of the existing organ systems. One can, in theory, provide enough "work" to maintain the local site of entropy of part of an open system,

Even if one provides enough outside energy to manage the physical state of entropy, one encounters information theory problems. Small errors in system replication accumulate, and the systems to correct errors themselves become vulnerable to errors over time.

And last, there is the "heat deth of the universe". Interestingly Freeman Dyson made some fascinating suggestions on how to avoid this, by perserving life in a very static way and only awakening the life for decreasingly small moments of time as the universe continues, effectively providing life to the very end of the universe, if not an actual experience of eternal life.

Re:Aging is a degenerative disease

[stealth_finger]

"aging is actually a species survival strategy from the earliest days of life"

Does that make it a law of physics? Do atoms individually get older too?

Are atoms a species?

Re:Aging is a degenerative disease

[Anonymous Coward]

Do atoms individually get older too?

They have a half-life. So, yes they do.

How strong does UV need to be to get to the testicles?

It doesn't have to be strong, just very lucky (or should that be unlucky?).

Please describe how two 30 year old parents can make a 0 year old baby... With the same atoms.

Err... weren't you taught this in school, or by your parents?

Re:Aging is a degenerative disease

[Jamu]

Easier just to wait around until you get reincarnated as a Boltzmann brain.

Re:Aging is a degenerative disease

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is an important clue to anti aging:
Several yogis in India have lived for up to hundreds of years by entering a meditative state for most of the day and night time. They rarely eat any food if at all and live only on water and sunlight for the most part. They basically spend their days singing the praise of God, meditating, and often do these in the company of other yogis, devotees, and their followers. Not all of them lead lonely lives and many of them are famous and popular in their local communities.
See http://www.amazingabilities.com/amaze6a.html for Tat Wale Baba and http://www.amazingabilities.com/amaze7a.html for Devraha Baba.
In case of Tata Wale Baba, he looked 35 at the age of 85.

The scientific explanation here is that lack of food and stressful activities minimizes metabolic activities of the cells and hence minimizes the free radicals and other causes of cell damage like hormonal imbalances and degradations. The meditation also slows your heart rate which seems to be a crucial factor in prolonging life.

Re:Aging is a degenerative disease

[Sir Holo]

"aging is actually a species survival strategy from the earliest days of life"

Does that make it a law of physics? Do atoms individually get older too?

No, but it does make it a Law of Nature.

And yes, atoms do age. They have a half-life, meaning that each will eventually die. That is, it is a Law of Physics.

Even protons have a half-life, decaying into quarks, energy, and so forth. But it's so long that the universe will suffer its heat-death before too many decay.

He deserves this

[Anonymous Coward]

He didn't come up with this idea because he's rich, he's rich because he comes up with ingenious ideas like these. Everyone is afraid of dying. Are we sucking our children's blood to live longer? No, we are not. Because we are stupid. Because we are overcome by morbid fears and moral paroxysms inherent to meaningless cultural bonds which afflict us. If we ate our children, we might live forever. But this is forbidden by silly religious demarcations created by our silly ancestors who also thought sacrificing goats was a good idea, and got the rest of their good ideas by looking at chicken bones. We are so uptight. It's time to loosen up a bit. Eat your babies. That's what they're really there for. If you don't, they will suck the life out of YOU, and they will leave you die in a dusty corner while they party on. Don't let your kids f*k you over like that. Eat them.

Blockbuster drug

[Dorianny]

Transfusions are inherently risky with possibilities for life threatening immune reactions or infection by pathogens that went undetected. It is unlikely that Thiel or anyone else is seriously considering using Transfusions as a rejuvenation treatment. There is a lot of promise thou in trying to figure out exactly what about young blood gives this rejuvenating effect. It is entirely possible that the rejuvinating effect could be induced with the use of a drug, one that would most certainly be a blockbuster drug for anyone that can develop it

Is this really that odd?

[ERJ]

I understand fully that is sounds creepy...but is it really that odd?

We replace dying organs with functioning ones. We use stem cells from healthy adults to cure a variety of ailments in sick people. Is it really that odd that the blood from a healthy, young person may have positive affects on the aged?

I have not done any research on this technique nor would I endorse it but I am a bit confused why it is being so roundly dismissed.

Re:Is this really that odd?

[Applehu Akbar]

"I understand fully that is sounds creepy...but is it really that odd?"

To Gawker it is. This is like asking the Rev. Phelps of Westboro Baptist about quantum physics.

Re:Is this really that odd?

[dbIII]

I have not done any research on this technique

Neither has he which makes is a creepy belief in sympathetic magic (look it up if you don't get how aptly this term describes the situation).
It's also a bit of a worry that so many people are using the word "research" to describe looking something up that has actually been researched by others but I suppose that's the new common usage.

There are too many variables in what this guy is doing to consider it in the same room as science or even logic. If he lives longer then which person's blood did it and what is it about that blood that did it - no way to answer it from the way he is doing it so it's a desperate and somewhat pathetic search for magic instead of actually learning anything useful.

Re:Is this really that odd?

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't swap out organs on a regular basis in relatively healthy people, from what I understand blood transfusions young to old need to be done on a regular basis to see any lasting effects. You're also talking about a logistical nightmare, we can barely get enough somewhat safe blood for basic medical needs (major surgery, accident recovery, etc) let alone enough to start pumping into the elderly population. It's not that it couldn't be done, and even that in a few cases it isn't warranted, but doing it on a large scale would likely do far more harm than good.

Re: Is this really that odd?

[Anonymous Coward]

We'd get plenty of blood if people could pay for it. It would be a fraction of the hospital bill still.

Even I realize that and I don't like Libertarianism and despise Anarcho-Capitalism.

Bad Presto

[Anonymous Coward]

Gawker is not a trusted source on Pete Thiel. The exact opposite.

When I read stuff like this ...

[dbIII]

When I read stuff like this it makes me happy that we all have a use-by date and will be replaced with others with different faults instead of the same old idiots ruling forever.

Re:When I read stuff like this ...

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as we all want to colonize space though, right?

Re:When I read stuff like this ...

[stealth_finger]

SPAAAAAAACE

Re:When I read stuff like this ...

[micahraleigh]

You're thinking about "society" to such a fantastic extent you have lost self awareness.

Society itself is only an illusion. There are only individuals - some who understand they are individuals and other who try to intellectually morph into the herd.

Re:When I read stuff like this ...

[dbIII]

I suggest reading a bit more and/or getting out a bit more.
You'll understand why there is the saying "it takes a village to raise a child".

Re:When I read stuff like this ...

[micahraleigh]

The phrase "it takes a village to raise a child" come across as "the wonderful stories of the foster care program".
If that were a book, I suppose it would be a quick read.

Consider Plato's "wives and children in common" as described in The Republic, and how it got ran out of town in Sycracuse.
Consider how the USSR tried to de-emphasize/disband families and majorly regretted and repealed all that. I consider the people I know who were raised on communes and how they look at that experience.

Interesting that you recommended reading books, because I would have associated that with being less social. Perhaps you can talk about what you've read with others. I am somewhat familiar with books, having studied them at Oxford. My favorite writer is Kierkegaard. I see a danger in all that of becoming snobby, alienated from my inner values, and wasting life.

Something remarkable I find about children (having raised 3 of them myself) is they tend to be happier than grown ups ... so perhaps it takes a child to raise a village.

Re:When I read stuff like this ...

[dbIII]

Consider normal modern society.

because I would have associated that with being less social

I suppose it was antisocial to point out the hopelessly naive view you were pushing that I doubt you believe yourself. That individualist raised by wolves shit is romantic lunacy with no reference to reality. While a society is made up of individuals those individuals are shaped by it. "Society itself is only an illusion" - WTF? It sounds like idiotic soap opera dialogue. Why did you inflict that shit on me? From your boasts above you should know a hell of a lot better than to write shit like that.

Re:harvest

[Anonymous Coward]

[I wonder what these guys are so afraid of. I mean, don't they get to go to heaven and meet God when they die? It should be a joyous occasion for them. But Pete's afraid. Huh. Weird.]

I think a vulture capitalist like Thiel and plain old vulture Herr Trump will be going to a very warm place when they die... the trash incinerator.

Audio question

[Applehu Akbar]

So as Peter Thiel is harvesting the blood of the young, who's in charge of playing the spooky organ music?

Re:Audio question

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

Hulk Hogan?

A: Because it breaks the flow of a message

[DNS-and-BIND]

Q: Why is starting a comment in the Subject: line incredibly annoying?

Not as smart as he thinks he is then

[Anonymous Coward]

Because if he read the studies, he would know the effect was traced to copper tripeptide. No "blood of the young" needed.

I'm disappointed

[93 Escort Wagon]

This far without a Jonathan Swift reference?

Re:I'm disappointed

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't you watch the Republican convention? Why else do you think Trump wants the Muslims in concentration camps? He needs them to sustain his hairpiece!!!!

Re:I'm disappointed

[RockDoctor]

Much though I appreciate Dean Swift's Proposal - and have done for at least 3 decades - it's only barely relevant here. The comparison up-thread with people fucking virgins to cure sexually transmitted diseases is much more apt. Pure "sympathetic magic," on a level with homeopathy.

(The reported rejuvenating effects of lab injections between inbred mice is interesting. But no scientist is looking at that as an ageing treatment, but as an indicator of a potentially usable quirk of the immune system.)

Not just the blood

[Anonymous Coward]

The cocks and cum too I'd bet.

artificial young blood?

[Anonymous Coward]

The science might work out so that artificial young blood, or artificial blood would make up a large fraction of said blood infusions. Imagine sacrificing 1 young person, to make 10 old people 20 years younger.

young cerebrospinal fluid

[Anonymous Coward]

young cerebrospinal fluid seems to do a similar thing to old brain stem cells
by making them behave youthful again:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160721143450.htm

Lexx was even worse

[Okian Warrior]

The Canadian-German TV series "Lexx" had that as well in the first episode, but in that case the perverted meme was perverted even more when the harvested organs were not used for implants but fed to an organic machine.
Dick Cheney kind of reminds me of the villain running the ATF in a parallel Earth near the end of the series, played by Malcolm McDowell.

Lexx got even worse with the concept.

One episode had a scientist who had burned out his liver and kidneys, and would seek out other people and *use* their organs. His body had tubes ending in large-bore syringes, and he would insert the syringes into other peoples' bodies and use their liver and kidneys for a few hours to filter his own body's by-products.

*That* was one helluva creepy, disturbing, and totally creative new type of villain.

Zev at one point called him a "monster". He responded: "Monster? No. I'm a parasite."

Definitely shudder-worthy.

Re:Fascist Liberals

[Anonymous Coward]

Christ, what a crybaby.

This is an excellent way to get blood poisoning

[Maxo-Texas]

There is a risk of blood poisoning (septicemia) with each transfusion.

It's how my mom died.

It's very hard to cure and it can kill you quickly.

http://www.transfusion.com.au/...

http://www.bloodjournal.org/co...
Transfusion-related sepsis: a silent epidemic

Good!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not that young but I'd give him a bit of my blood for making the internet a bit less cancerous.

Heinlein Once Again Predicts the Future

[perry64]

At the end of "Methuselah's Children," after the long-lived Howard Families return to Earth after escaping a lynching, they discover that Earth discovered the fresh blood rejuvenated people. Once they knew this, they had a crash research program to create fresh blood to allow everyone to live well into their hundreds.

suttle difference

[dr.Flake]

Most likely the mice from the experiment were inbred. So no trouble mixing blood.

After transfusion of 10 human donors you are likely going to develop antibodies.

Nuts are healthy

[prefec2]

In case the story is true Thiel is nuts beyond repair. Someone should be appointed to be his custodian. In case this is rubbish, he is still nuts for all the fascist stuff he recently circulated.

Was wondering when somebody was going to do this

[quax]

Given everything I learned about the man in the past couple of months, I am not surprised that Peter Thiel would go there.

There are some people who'd deserve to live forever. He is nowhere near that list.

Don't Shame people who want to live longer Healthi

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, you are free to live your life how you want.

Stop trying to impose your will on others who want to live differently.

  It is based out of fear and ignorance. If you don't want to take advantage of modern advancements ( stem cell therapy , genetic modification ( CRISPR ), then that's your choice. This is not a fountain of youth fantasy. There are organisms in the animal kingdom that already have Biological immortality ( Planarian flatworms, Lobsters, Jellyfish ) .

The only difference we share with them is in our genetic code. We can now modify our genetic code. We can significantly expand our lives or at the very least cure or diminish diseases that linked with aging, like cancer and Alzheimer's ( every one alive is slowly getting this ).

If your worried about over population, think again, all first world countries sans immigration are not producing offspring to replace the population. Over population will not be a problem.

Stop thinking that this is a fantasy. Its real, it will happen. We have the technology and all we need is the funding and effort.

Vampire

[Anonymous Coward]

So Thiel has outed himself as a Vampire, eh?

Nothing an oaken stake or silver bullet can't fix, and I hope sooner, rather than later.

Then put his head on a pike as a warning to the others.

Re:Vampire

[desdinova 216]

I thought it was just a wooden stake, not necessarily Oak.

Re:Vampire

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends on the variant. Traditionally it was actually just supposed to be anything that would stake the vampire to the ground so that it was stuck down and couldn't get up. But it became a wooden stake through the heart without any requirement for staking to the ground at some point. Mostly via vampire movies. In some mythologies, the stake had to be Oak, Ash, Yew, etc. One of the types of trees considered sacred in Celtic tree lore.

Blood prostitution

[Anonymous Coward]

So after prostitution the young people can now make a buck from the older by selling their blood to them?

Yep. Sounds like something humans would come up with.

Re:Blood prostitution

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, robots are going to eliminate 2/3 of the world job market, they're going to need some kind of income. Prostitute, organ donor, and blood donor for the 1% so you can scrape a few dollars together to eat and live in squalor another day sounds like a fair deal, doesn't it?

Re:Blood prostitution

[micahraleigh]

I always thought the Left had an anti-human perspective. How is it the evangelicals are accused of taking a low view of humanity?

Most men have an excess of iron / hemoglobin that can be helped by giving blood. A lot of people need blood. Any chance these two groups can help each other out? No because that's "prostitution" and helps individuals instead of "society". Whatever that is.

I don't understand why the echo chamber here has such a low view of the Almighty but is always trying to fill his shoes. How does it rain on your parade if someone lives a little longer?

Re:harvest

[Opportunist]

If they take their religion seriously, you can bet your ass that they're afraid to die. To quote an old joke "My son, you shouldn't want to take your gold with you. It would probably just melt in the place you're going to".

Re:Don't Shame people who want to live longer Heal

[Opportunist]

We are struggling with rampart overpopulation. Extending your life span means that someone else has to be eliminated if this should be sustainable in the future. Actually, even if you didn't extend your life span we'll be struggling with the effects of exponential population growth.

Unless you're willing to kill others so some can live longer, I don't see how you plan to pull this off. Infinite resources aren't available.

Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Those shit kids will be useful for something at least.

Hey Thiel likes Trump.

[chasm22]

What's not to like about this?

Plenty and if you read this article in Science you'll gain some insight as to what many scientists think about it. http://www.sciencemag.org/news....

rofl

[Anonymous Coward]

this happens when you watch too much movies and have too much money. Fucking Mad max .....

Re:rofl

[Anonymous Coward]

But thinking you can colonize the universe because Star Trek "promised" it and you have a 3D printer is perfectly fine?

It worked for Montgomery Burns

[walterbyrd]

Remember? He got Bart's blood, and became super energetic. Then he gave the Simpson's a "big ugly head" as a thank you.

Re:Don't Shame people who want to live longer Heal

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why extending your life using the blood of the young is so promising. It kills two birds with one stone. You just make sure you take all of their blood.

Wasn't Malcolm McDowell...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure of the guy's name, but he was just in 'Dark Matter' as Three's 'murdered his real parents' dad.

He was also in the last two seasons I believe (Fire and Water planets, and then Earth after the other planets were destroyed in the S3 finale, before Earth shared that fate for the series finale for S4.)

Like the tapestry says

[ThatsNotPudding]

"Rejoice in thine aids."

As it couldn't happen to a nicer guy (other than Larry Ellison).

Re:Dammit Cartman! (Simpsons Did It)

[chill]

Poetic justice to South Park -- the Simpsons did it first.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRNwqVU70Q8

Hormones

[crow]

It would seem rather obvious that one major factor in blood from younger people is a different mix of hormones. Did the study do anything to control for that? Could the same effect be generated by hormone therapy?

It seems the obvious next step is to determine why young blood extends life.

"Is Peter Thiel a vampire?"

[Anonymous Coward]

From The New Republic:

... Okay, so Peter Thiel loves the blood of youth—that’s not quite enough to prove that he’s a vampire. But there’s more: In a piece for Vanity Fair, Nick Bilton wrote about a time he was invited to a dinner party at Thiel’s house, but, strangely, there was very little food around. When Bilton asked Thiel’s friend about this, his friend explained “that Thiel is often on some sort of weird diet and he didn’t really eat all that much, anyway.” Sounds like the kind of excuses you would make for your vampire friend.

Still not convinced? Well, Thiel is very, very pale. I’m not saying that Peter Thiel is definitely a vampire. But next time he’s about to enter a house, it’s worth checking to see if he waits until someone explicitly invites him in.

Q:Why isn't starting a comment in the Subject bad?

[Megol]

A:Unlike your example it actually keeps the flow!

Re:DEATHWALKER! DEATHWALKER!

[chill]

More recently, Jupiter Ascending.

Some studies

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair I believe some studies have shown that transfusing blood from the young (at least in mice) to the old does result in the older mice having more energy. However constantly swapping blood from person to person probably isn't the wisest thing as that would most likely result in the rampant spread of pathogens. If you could lab grow human blood you'd probably at least take that issue out of the equation but even then I don't know if any study has shown how safe routine transfusions are.

Re:Don't Shame people who want to live longer Heal

[gurps_npc]

Not true, and hasn't been true for 40 years. Worldwide, population growth has flattened out. Many of the developed countries, such as Japan, have negative population growth.

Moreover, technological innovation is continuing to create efficiencies that allow us to have more people live using fewer resources.

Your premises, while historically accurate, are out dated.

Who this person is does not matter to the issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Good/bad lots of billionaires want to live longer. It has been proven that getting young blood will help the old. Getting a disease from the blood is possible.
Getting it from younger donors, minimizes this danger. (BTW getting OLD person blood can harm the young so don't cross transfuse)
Do we want someone buying lots of youth blood from poor people? Should a parent be allowed to sell the blood of the children?
A child that dies in an accident, do we harvest the blood and auction it off?
Should there be limits on orphans?
The therapy has been proven, it is the morality and limits of it that have to be tested.

Libertarian - anyone surprised?

[gestalt_n_pepper]

I'm sure he'd be in favor of breeding donor babies in feedlots if he could just get away with it.

Progenity

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the inability of seeing your genes live on in your children drives homosexuals into the "dance of vampires".

Reminds me

[Anonymous Coward]

Of an early S1 Babylon 5 episode. Somebody, an infamous war criminal developed a cure to mortality. The catch? It required killing people to produce. Fortunately the Vorlons provided a dues ex machina but still, the idea is disturbing.

Re: Reminds me

[Anonymous Coward]

That's just story stuff, though. Real biology doesn't work like that. If it works, it won't require killing anybody.

Blood of Steve ! Blood of Steve !

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you think none of us would recognize the plot of Zoolander 2 ? C'mon, we're not that...

...oh, this is real...

Not a big deal

[gurps_npc]

Honestly, this is not a big deal - assuming he paid a reasonably high amount for the blood.

If he is smart, he'd do it like this, twice a day. (morning and night).

1) Donate a pint of his own blood to a normal blood bank.
2) Accept a pint of replacement young blood, paying someone a hundred bucks or so for it. That person would only get paid if their blood tested as clean - no drugs, no diseases.

Note, the process does not reduce the amount of blood going to the blood banks, in fact it increases it (as he pays for it).

He gets most of his blood replaced every 5 days.

It would tremendously reduce the strain on his kidneys, liver and similar aging organs.

Re:Not a big deal

[sl3xd]

It would tremendously reduce the strain on his kidneys, liver and similar aging organs.

Even if that is true, it effectively enslaves him to the process, and subjects him to a massive risk of serious infection. As soon as he misses a treatment, his organs will suffer a huge shock, and may fail.

It's bad enough to require pharmaceuticals to continue living. You can carry drugs with you, so it's not as big of a problem if you have some disaster strike. But rooms filled with equipment and fresh blood -- that's harder to transport.

Re:Not a big deal

[gurps_npc]

I agree that this is not for everyone.

But if you are wealthy enough to pay a stable of 100 people to avoid diseases and donate blood for your personal use, this is viable option.

I doubt anyone that is 30 would do it, but as you get closer to death your perspective changes.

Forget about the money for an instant, instead think about a personal hero - Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King Jr, Ghandi, etc. Would you volunteer to do this for them? (Yeah I know those heroes I mentioned have feet of clay, but you get the idea).

Reminds me of the end of a movie

[whitroth]

The end of Battle Beyond the Stars:
Sador: I'm going to live FOREVER!!!!
BOOOMMMMM! (as his ship blows up)

          mark

good - they're revealing their true colors

[elcor]

sitting back and enjoying the show...

Haha... Gawker

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

Given the Gawker-Thiel relationship, why should I believe literally anything Gawker says about him? Even if he's interested in parabiosis, so are many scientists. That doesn't mean he's going to run out and steal blood from kids.

Doesn't always work ...

[kbahey]

Well, your idea does not always work.

First, we have dictators that seem to defy death. Case in point is Mubarak. I was in university when he came to power, and 30 years later, he was still in power, when the revolution erupted, with all the tumultuous aftermath. Oh, and he is still alive at 88 years old! You can also count Ali Abdalla Saleh of Yemen in the same league. Although he was deposed, he is still alive, and meddling with his country's affairs (aided/co-planned the Houthi take over which is still going on, and causing the Saudi shelling).

And then you have those who just hand over the country to a new generation. Hafez Assad died in power, after several brutal decades. His son, Bashar is now the one causing all this misery on his people.

Re:Fascist Liberals

[Rakarra]

Bad trolling, unconvincing.

Re:Don't Shame people who want to live longer Heal

[Opportunist]

Yes, the growth has been in decline since the 1950. That doesn't mean that the world population is shrinking. To force a car analogy, we're just accelerating slower, but we're still accelerating, the world population is still growing and even the best predictions acknowledge that it will at the very least until 2100. Barring global wars or other artificial means to put a dent into this, though I wouldn't get my hopes up too much, the current growth rate is about 1.5% or about 100 million people a year. Even WW2 couldn't put a dent into something like this, you'd have to start something MUCH bigger than this petty little war back then.

And more people living on fewer resources, I cannot really see that. Yes, we get more efficient, but at the same time you have more and more people push into the market for resources. What do you think would happen if Chinese, Indian, African people wanted to use as many resources as we do around here? There's a limit to efficiency increase, set by physical laws. So unless you can somehow keep these people from wanting our standard of living (or getting people here to accept a MUCH lower one), I doubt you can find enough resources on this planet to solve this problem.

Jews

[Anonymous Coward]

Old school jews have been doing this for ages. It is part of passover. Leaven bread made from the blood of a freshly murdered child. It is called jewish ritual murder, aka blood libel. Most jews who practice this do not normally admit to it openly (although some arrogantly brag about it). Apparently it gives them youthfulness and power. Interestingly, jewish people are among the most privileged people on earth and occupy an unnaturally high number of prominent positions globally. Wonder why?

Dust in the wind

[ebvwfbw]

Not another moment will your money buy... Dust in the wind... all we are is dust in the wind....

1000 years

[NewYork]

Does he want to live 1000 years?