Slashdot Mirror
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 In an unpublished interview with Bercovici last year, Thiel said: "I'm looking into parabiosis stuff [...]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. [...]"
Might as well go full on Elizabeth Bathory.
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.
"Peter Thiel, the tech billionaire-turned-Trump delegate who successfully bankrupted Gawker Media"
outing him was probably a tactical error.
lose != loose
...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.
After we build the wall to ensure no one can get out.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
"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
Watch out, there are Llamas!!
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
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.
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
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.
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