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Billionaires either have to volunteer to be the guinea pigs for radical experimental anti-ageing therapies or accept that by the time treatments are proved safe

Billionaires either have to volunteer to be the guinea pigs for radical experimental anti-ageing therapies or accept that by the time treatments are proved safe and somewhat effective it's probably going to be too late for them. And if it isn't going to save them, there's plenty of strong competition for their philanthropic dollars, some of it with impressive results.

agumonkey 5y ago
Surely it's not hard to come up with ways to avoid being the guinea pig. Find multiple aging based ailments that have lots of patients and fund a study.
- ivandenysov 5y ago
  Won’t help much. I read that if we cure all types of cancer it will extend average life expectancy by just over a couple of years. Because if not cancer then something else will get you in old age. I guess if cancer did not affect younger people then we wouldn’t have cared about curing it as much. 8 year old with leukemia looks a lot more dramatic than a 80 years old :)
- YetAnotherNick 5y ago
  The issue is that you will get the results on the subjects after your life is over or coming to end, unless it is the case that we could make life of a person currently >60 years old long which seems unlikely to me. So you would have to wait for 40 years before you know the results with good enough certainty.
  - ForHackernews 5y ago
    Zuck is still relatively young. Maybe he'll become our first immortal overlord.
  - citizenpaul 5y ago
    Seems to me if you life is coming to an end that would increase the urgency. Remember money is not an object here it is basically just will to do it. The money is irrelevant. There is also the possiblity of increasing quality of life even if it doesn't save you. I mean do nothing 0%, do something and any chance is better. The money doesn't matter.
rowanG077 5y ago
I'm not sure that's true. There are plenty wealthy twenty somethings. I don't think it's out of question anti aging treatment bears significant fruit in the next 70 years.
citizenpaul 5y ago
There is no requirement to be a guinea pig for the research. Why do you think that? My whole point was if you have more money than god what is a few hundred million to setup a research lab for something that will definitely kill you? If I knew an army was coming to kill me and I had no hope I would still start using my billions to rally some sort of defense. Why sit around and do nothing when I have resources sitting idle?

agumonkey 5y ago

Surely it's not hard to come up with ways to avoid being the guinea pig. Find multiple aging based ailments that have lots of patients and fund a study.

ivandenysov 5y ago
Won’t help much. I read that if we cure all types of cancer it will extend average life expectancy by just over a couple of years. Because if not cancer then something else will get you in old age. I guess if cancer did not affect younger people then we wouldn’t have cared about curing it as much. 8 year old with leukemia looks a lot more dramatic than a 80 years old :)
YetAnotherNick 5y ago
The issue is that you will get the results on the subjects after your life is over or coming to end, unless it is the case that we could make life of a person currently >60 years old long which seems unlikely to me. So you would have to wait for 40 years before you know the results with good enough certainty.
- ForHackernews 5y ago
  Zuck is still relatively young. Maybe he'll become our first immortal overlord.
- citizenpaul 5y ago
  Seems to me if you life is coming to an end that would increase the urgency. Remember money is not an object here it is basically just will to do it. The money is irrelevant. There is also the possiblity of increasing quality of life even if it doesn't save you. I mean do nothing 0%, do something and any chance is better. The money doesn't matter.

rowanG077 5y ago

I'm not sure that's true. There are plenty wealthy twenty somethings. I don't think it's out of question anti aging treatment bears significant fruit in the next 70 years.

citizenpaul 5y ago

There is no requirement to be a guinea pig for the research. Why do you think that? My whole point was if you have more money than god what is a few hundred million to setup a research lab for something that will definitely kill you? If I knew an army was coming to kill me and I had no hope I would still start using my billions to rally some sort of defense. Why sit around and do nothing when I have resources sitting idle?