Thread of monumental disappointment

[Sthira]

Is there a thread here for that? Meaning one of anguish? Ok, maybe this. Just wondering if anyone here feels like blubbering and moaning about that sad sack of world shit that is the anti-aging movement.

I mean, like a bowel movement, is anyone here still disappointed that your sagging face skin is still melting down your neck, or will be soon, and your tired eyes, you’re getting uglier, you’ll be drooling onto your walker rails soon, right, just like gramps, nothing against him, of course, poor thing, aged to death right on time just like we are, with all those loud science promises, pro-misses, all those poor sad sticky bone joints, oh you can’t jump high anymore, too bad, oh you can’t leap happily now without pain, too bad, oh you can’t run hard and with abandonment anymore because well — eNtRoPy 

 

and whatever happened to your pretty face, anyway, and your shy beautiful smile, you were so harmless and cute, so young with your easy grace, that smooth hopeful glide to your step — easy now you look like fucking Aunt Ruthless now today, aging right on schedule, we called her Aunt Ruthless, like ruthless about hope, ruthless about lost joy, ruthless about nothing science, oh, I don’t know, hopeful about anything, Aunt Ruthless, anything, are you hopeful about anything at all in the anti-aging department of science? 
 

Name something. One little thing. One glimmer even.

With me here? I mean, after skimming or half-reading or outright ignoring and deleting in anguish and frustration (and sometimes: Hatred) literally thousands of Al Pater’s emailed scientific studies about calorie restriction or rodents or fucking c. Elegans or more promising Petri dish studies ... I mean, they’re so foundational! And Game-changing! More studies required! Right, all these more studies studies required are done, who gives a flip about vitamin k or should I eat more guava or less okra or is it all too sugary, and is tofu eating my brain, it’s been decades, people, listen — all ten of you — 

Are any of you ten disappointed that you’re still growing old and literally nothing has happened in science to change that?  
 

Your SENS donations went where? To whom? Why? How many more “foundational companies” shall be formed to study, what, go into ... to ... what? Zzzz ... what was it anyone was trying to accomplish? Human lifespan extension? To relieve one iota of human suffering?

These questions are just rhetorical, no need to refute my words line by line on this  — I say just hi in this space to rant

Rant

pointlessly 

about what a shit bag of nothing we were all sold by this stupid “longevity” movement, or whatever it was, empty promises, promises now, stuck, I’m sure, in let-us-now-conquer COVID-19 for the next sixteen decades ... yeah I just hate that it’s been more than a decade and my knee is still off forever from that one bad landing lolz and we were promised rejuvenation or regeneration, or what was it again? 

literally they’re still working on sheep cartilage in sheep knees ... for the past, what, decade, two decades

[TomBAvoider]

Welcome to the club. Disappointed? At this point, not really, any more than I'd be disappointed that a wolf attacks a lamb. It's in his nature. It's utterly, but utterly expected. I tell you when I was disappointed - somewhere in my mid to late 20's. That's when I caught on, that all those promises of medicine and anti-aging and progress were just mirages - and I use that word deliberately in the original meaning: a vision that keeps recedeing as you get closer, so a mirage of a palm and waterhole in the desert and as you move toward it, it stubbornly remains in the distance.

There were all kinds of magazines I'd consume voraciously like Omni (that no longer exist) that talked about the marvellous imminent future of amazing technology and progress, I read Scientific Magazine and tons of "breakthroughs", I lived through the bubble and promise of biotech in the 80's, when I still believed the promises and projections. And when that collapsed in an ignominious mess, with nary a result (OK, Amgen came up with a couple of marginal and very expensive drugs), I realized: it's all HYPE - some of it sincerely believed by the folks hyping, and a ton of it done by hucksters who were merely cashing in on the dream and the hunger.

By the time the hype arrived about HUMAN GENOME sequencing at the turn of the millenium, I was already a hardened cynic - strike that - REALIST, and I held out zero hope of any of the hype coming true. And so I was not disappointed when all that gene hunting ended up with a big fat zero. 23andme - I was actually surprised that the FDA even got involved, so low are my expectations - but I signed up, just for pure entertainment value. 

And so I've been pretty immune to the hype for many decades now - really since the big 80's biotech bubble, which was the last time I was taken in by the company prospectus. Because that's what they all are - SENS included. They put out these glowing promises and enticements, because they need the funds - who is going to put money in, if told "well, it pushes the science forward and maybe in 200 years, long after you're dead, there'll be a product somewhere by someone who builds on our discoveries". So they make it sound as if everything is just around the corner. Some of them even believe their own propaganda - are high on their own supply - as I suspect SENS probably does. They're not hucksters - just naive about timeframes and what's possible and their own capabilities and roadmap. But incredible numbers of companies are really outright scams, designed from day one as pump and dump schemes that relieve investors of their money. These companies hire "journalists" and PR specialists to write glowing articles about the imminent miracles on the horizon, for the low low price of whatever "and you can get in on the ground floor". It's not worth the paper they're printed on, or the electrons in your monitor screen.

The reality is we don't have a single solitary drug or therapy that extends the natural human lifespan - PERIOD. Yes, CR is a strong maybe - which has been available for millenia, so nothing new, and one drug - rapamycin which comes with all sorts of caveats and no proof in humans. That's it, sum total.

And really, is it so surprising? The whole anti-aging industry is just the contemporary edition of the search for a longer life that had us go from ancient amulets, to the philosophical stone, miracle waters and Ponce de Leon. Note, Ponce de Leon is still firmly dead, as is the Fountain of Youth. But then again, Ponce de Leon has managed to be reincanated in many new forms, some of them quite affable, like David Sinclair, although all are doomed to the same fate, of not extending life by a single millisecond. 

The HYPE has been going on for centuries - and you know what's most tragic (and comical!) in all of this? Is that I, the hardened cynic/realist - still believe the promise. No, not in my lifetime, and not in the lifetime of anyone alive today - but I believe that SOME day, far into the future, human beings will get to control their lifespan beyond the paltry few decades of "natural" lifespan. I do believe it'll all eventually come true - well, not all, but a good portion. Some day, maybe 2300 AD, human beings will live to 300 years in fairly decent shape. But today? HA HA HA!

That said, I do still like the entertainment aspect of it all. I read the papers, I rejoice for the mice and rats in those papers, I chuckle at the promises and the expectations, I sigh at the "more studies needed" perpetual disclaimer and at the end, the grave beckons.

What I'm hoping from all of this, is merely extending healthspan - though even this is highly questionable, as I think ultimately it's down to the genes 99% of the time - and so I "eat right" and "exercise" and "avoid tobacco and excess alcohol" and so on merely hoping to hang on to however long nature has chanced my body to last for.

But also, because I don't ultimately believe it makes much difference, I don't hesitate to occasionally indulge myself - so if a friend raves about a new wine, yes, I'll have an extra glass or even a few. I'll still be dead, right on schedule, regardless of whether I have that extra glass of wine on that day, or not.

Aging - yes, it's a drag. I don't experience much in the day to day functioning, but unquestionably, by appearance I certainly can't pass for "youngster". Some gray hair has made an appearance, a few wrinkles. I expect it to continue deteriorating - but I hope to be one of those "sprightly" oldsters who jog and jump and carry on until practically the day they keel over. I don't even resent it, I'm fully resigned to it. My greatest fear is mental deterioration. Knock on wood, I have not experienced much in the way of mental faculties going (that I can tell!), I  still feel sharp and productive. I think it might be correlated with the senses to a degree - vision and hearing, sense of smell. There hasn't been much deterioration - so far - of those for me. Canary in the coal mine, I say - when your senses start deteriorating, I think your mental capacities soon follow. And that's a dealbreaker. What is the point of being alive, if your brain is a muddled mess?

I'm hoping to avoid the kind of mental deterioration that makes it all pointless - and there are those oldsters who are still sharp and productive and put out good quality work late into their years. I'm hoping to be one of those. That's the best I can hope for - and I'm realistic enough not to be disappointed by the inevitable fact that I'll age and die, just as inevitably night follows day. It cannot be helped - we're not living in the future, it's still 2020 and not 2300. YMMV. 

[drewab]

As Elon Musk said in his interview with Joe Rogan, "When it comes to talking about the future, I would rather be optimistic and wrong than pessimistic and right" - this echoes my sentiments exactly. I believe humans could make tremendous progress on aging if we put our collective efforts into it, but it's simply too low on the priority list outside the desires of a few organizations, scientists, philanthropists, and so forth. I do believe that we will be able to radically extend maximum human lifespan at some point, though admittedly I am not sure if that will be in 5 decades or 5 centuries. This all presupposes that the Earth is still habitable and we haven't caused irreversible damage through climate change. Addressing climate change should be the number one goal of humanity. 

I cannot help but wonder if the above attitudes of pessimism and the lack of progress are superimposed on past times where a lack of progress occurred. In my short lifetime on this Earth I've observed the rise of the Internet, the development and mass distribution of Smartphones, and the access to all of humanity's knowledge at my fingertips. The emergence of generalized AI seems inevitable, and I believe has the potential to see the light of day in my lifetime (this, of course, does run significant risks as we don't really have a clue what will happen once the 'genie is out of the box'). Outside of the COVID-19 crisis, prosperity in our world is at an all-time high. Despite the 24-7 news cycle of negativity, our world is safer than ever. 

Ponce de Leon was born in 1474 and died in 1521 at the age of 46/47 when a poisoned arrow struck him. The world did not look very different over the course of that half-century. Likewise, Plato was born in 347/348 and died in 427/428 at the approximate age of 80.  Over his eight decades of life the world did not rapidly change. 

I think the rate of change (note I don't use the word progress as lots of changes that have taken place over the last century are terrible, like factory farming) is in an entirely different place than in the past. The next century will rapidly transform Earth, our lives, and the outcome of humanity's fate. Only time will tell which direction it will go in... or if there is something in between. 

[Mike41]

Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To by David Sinclair

sinclairs latest book goes beyond hype! Simply read the title. 

I got this summary from the comment section on Amazon from a reviewer who gave his book 1 star.

"Conclusion" section where he mentions what he does which is a 1g NMN, 1g resveratrol, Vitamin D, K2, 83mg aspirin, avoid sugar, bread, pasta, skip one meal a day, get your blood tested, don't smoke, avoid plastic, excessive UV exposure, X-Rays, CT scans, sleep in a cold bedroom, do cold exposure, do exercise.

so quit complaining people and just read Sinclair’s book! I know he would probably say something like well we don’t have to age and we won’t be aging in the near future blah, blah blah!

Edited May 7, 2020 by Mike41

[Gordo]

The recent focus and cooperation by so many researchers around the world on defeating SARS-CoV-2 is encouraging in one sense, it shows what could be. But I wonder what it would take to wake people up and realize the disease of aging is killing billions while Covid-19 will only kill a few hundred thousand. Imagine what could be accomplished if there was such energy, funding, interest, and will to defeat aging?

[Mike41]

Nice but one total disaster for the planet. Can you imagine!!! The only way to do it responsibly would be to place very strict limits on births and that won’t happen. In the end it will be all about our innate selfishness. The cancer that is currently destroying our ecosystem.

Edited May 7, 2020 by Mike41

[elatedsquirrel]

1 hour ago, Mike41 said:

Nice but one total disaster for the planet. Can you imagine!!! The only way to do it responsibly would be to place very strict limits on births and that won’t happen. In the end it will be all about our innate selfishness. The cancer that is currently destroying our ecosystem.

Wouldn't be a problem for a while, since the treatments would probably only be affordable to the very rich at first.

[Gordo]

1 hour ago, Mike41 said:

Nice but one total disaster for the planet. Can you imagine!!! The only way to do it responsibly would be to place very strict limits on births and that won’t happen. In the end it will be all about our innate selfishness. The cancer that is currently destroying our ecosystem.

 

 

 

[TomBAvoider]

The David Sinclair book was discussed extensively around here - I think a thread or two were started about it. It's mildly interesting, but hardly authoritative, and no, it does not solve or even come close to fully understanding aging. The "information loss" model explains some, but not all aspects of aging. It's typical Sinclair - long on enthusiasm (which is good!), but massively overoptimistic. Whenever Sinclair comes up with something, always remember the hype around resveratrol and the ultimate bust - though Sinclair made out like a bandit financially, but hey, that's par for the course, ain't it? When dear ole David, a fine chap indeed, comes around, welcome him warmly, but temper your expectations... and keep a firm grip on your wallet :)

[Clinton]

When we consider Stephen R. Spindler's study it becomes pretty obvious that is no supplement available at the moment that will slow aging in humans by any significant amount - CR might help.  Best you can aim for is reduction in all-cause mortality to allow you to live to your personal maximum lifespan:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24370781

From the abstract:  "No significant increase in murine lifespan was found for any supplement mixture. Our diverse supplement mixture significantly decreased lifespan. Thus, our results do not support the hypothesis that simple or complex combinations of nutraceuticals, including antioxidants, are effective in delaying the onset or progress of the major causes of death in mice. The results are consistent with epidemiological studies suggesting that dietary supplements are not beneficial and even may be harmful for otherwise healthy individuals."

 

 

 

[Annik]

On 5/7/2020 at 11:14 PM, TomBAvoider said:

The David Sinclair book was discussed extensively around here - I think a thread or two were started about it. It's mildly interesting, but hardly authoritative, and no, it does not solve or even come close to fully understanding aging. The "information loss" model explains some, but not all aspects of aging. It's typical Sinclair - long on enthusiasm (which is good!), but massively overoptimistic. Whenever Sinclair comes up with something, always remember the hype around resveratrol and the ultimate bust - though Sinclair made out like a bandit financially, but hey, that's par for the course, ain't it? When dear ole David, a fine chap indeed, comes around, welcome him warmly, but temper your expectations... and keep a firm grip on your wallet 🙂

He sold me nothing except a book.

[TomBAvoider]

He sold me nothing except a book.

Oh? I thought you took resveratrol? It was Sinclair who was originally responsible for all the hype surrounding resveratrol - hype from which he made mad money - and all those who followed in the wake of all that hype and started taking resveratrol, well, your wallet can see all that money going out, and while it's not going to Sinclair (he already made his bones from it!), it is still thanks to him that the outflow is there to begin with. That qualifies in my book for "sold me". Were it not for him, your wallet would not have experienced that outflow. But hey, everyone is their own free agent, I don't care - I just call 'em like I see 'em. YMMV.

 

[Mike41]

14 hours ago, TomBAvoider said:

He sold me nothing except a book.

Oh? I thought you took resveratrol? It was Sinclair who was originally responsible for all the hype surrounding resveratrol - hype from which he made mad money - and all those who followed in the wake of all that hype and started taking resveratrol, well, your wallet can see all that money going out, and while it's not going to Sinclair (he already made his bones from it!), it is still thanks to him that the outflow is there to begin with. That qualifies in my book for "sold me". Were it not for him, your wallet would not have experienced that outflow. But hey, everyone is their own free agent, I don't care - I just call 'em like I see 'em. YMMV.

 

“There’s money in them thar pills by golly!” I recall reading an article years ago attributing that quote to the life extension foundation and one of their big shots. May be untrue but it certainly rings true!

[Matt]

I'm more optimistic about the idea of extending average lifespan significantly over the next 10 years than I was just a few years ago. The tools available now are far better than what was available for much of the time that Aubrey and others have been saying we'll be able to slow or reverse aging. Some of these tools, although not perfect, have only been available in the last few years (CRISPR for example.)

I can understand the skepticism though! I've lost count on how many times I've heard a baldness cure is only 5 years away or how we'll be growing new teeth in 5 years. 

It's always 5 years away. 

But as Drewab said... society is changing more rapidly. So is technology and medicine. What is still slow though is the FDA and other organizations that slow down progress.

IMO, senolytics seem a lot more promising to me in the near term than NMN. 

Speaking of Senolytics... I came across this over on Reddit recently. Do you want to look young? 😀

 

A little blurry as the presentation was streamed, but the data from the clinical study looks interesting.

And it's available in September.

Edited June 6, 2020 by Matt

[Annik]

On 6/4/2020 at 9:16 PM, TomBAvoider said:

He sold me nothing except a book.

Oh? I thought you took resveratrol? It was Sinclair who was originally responsible for all the hype surrounding resveratrol - hype from which he made mad money - and all those who followed in the wake of all that hype and started taking resveratrol, well, your wallet can see all that money going out, and while it's not going to Sinclair (he already made his bones from it!), it is still thanks to him that the outflow is there to begin with. That qualifies in my book for "sold me". Were it not for him, your wallet would not have experienced that outflow. But hey, everyone is their own free agent, I don't care - I just call 'em like I see 'em. YMMV.

 

Does David Sinclair own and control all the resveratrol and NMN supplies? Because if he doesn't, he's not making money off of me. 

[Annik]

5 hours ago, Matt said:

I'm more optimistic about the idea of extending average lifespan significantly over the next 10 years than I was just a few years ago. The tools available now are far better than what was available for much of the time that Aubrey and others have been saying we'll be able to slow or reverse aging. Some of these tools, although not perfect, have only been available in the last few years (CRISPR for example.)

I can understand the skepticism though! I've lost count on how many times I've heard a baldness cure is only 5 years away or how we'll be growing new teeth in 5 years. 

It's always 5 years away. 

But as Drewab said... society is changing more rapidly. So is technology and medicine. What is still slow though is the FDA and other organizations that slow down progress.

IMO, senolytics seem a lot more promising to me in the near term than NMN. 

Speaking of Senolytics... I came across this over on Reddit recently. Do you want to look young? 😀

 

A little blurry as the presentation was streamed, but the data from the clinical study looks interesting.

And it's available in September.

I have been using Retinoic Acid and copper peptides for years. I am 60 and don't have a wrinkle on my face. Also, I don't have grey hair and never colored it. I'm a bit of a hit-and-miss sort of practitioner, but something is working. 

[Saul]

Sinclair holds patents on stuff -- I think including resveratrol.  I always ignored the hype about the "wonders" of resveratrol.  On the old CR mailing list, there were posts:  "resveratrol: a CR mimetic".  I ignored them.  One board member of the CR Society (I won't reveal his/her name not to embarrass) dropped CR and took resveratrol.  He/she is bak on CR.

  --  Saul

P.S.:  rapamycin is something different -- it MIGHT really be a drug that extends healthspan and lifespan, with insignificant side effects for the healthy.  Matt Kaeberlein (who is an honorable man) is studying this drug in dogs, and hopes to move up to humans. 

(My guess:  it's probably good; but I prefer the safer route of CR.)

  --  Saul

[Ron Put]

14 hours ago, Matt said:

Do you want to look young? 😀

Rapamycin may slow aging in human skin, study finds
 

The guy pitching this stands to make $$$$$$$$$, but it doesn't necessarily mean that he is wrong.

[Gordo]

On 5/3/2020 at 5:56 PM, drewab said:

As Elon Musk said in his interview with Joe Rogan, "When it comes to talking about the future, I would rather be optimistic and wrong than pessimistic and right" - this echoes my sentiments exactly.

I stumbled upon this Elon Musk related article today, its 6 years old though and as far as I know, Elon has done nothing in the anti-aging field (yet) but I was glad to see someone putting the bug in his ear at least:

— I talked to him for a while about genetic reprogramming. He doesn’t buy the efficacy of typical anti-aging technology efforts, because he believes humans have general expiration dates, and no one fix can help that. He explained: “The whole system is collapsing. You don’t see someone who’s 90 years old and it’s like, they can run super fast but their eyesight is bad. The whole system is shutting down. In order to change that in a serious way, you need to reprogram the genetics or replace every cell in the body.” Now with anyone else—literally anyone else—I would shrug and agree, since he made a good point. But this was Elon Musk, and Elon Musk fixes shit for humanity. So what did I do?

Me: Well…but isn’t this important enough to try? Is this something you’d ever turn your attention to?

Elon: The thing is that all the geneticists have agreed not to reprogram human DNA. So you have to fight not a technical battle but a moral battle.

Me: You’re fighting a lot of battles. You could set up your own thing. The geneticists who are interested—you bring them here. You create a laboratory, and you could change everything.

Elon: You know, I call it the Hitler Problem. Hitler was all about creating the Übermensch and genetic purity, and it’s like—how do you avoid the Hitler Problem? I don’t know.

Me: I think there’s a way. You’ve said before about Henry Ford that he always just found a way around any obstacle, and you do the same thing, you always find a way. And I just think that that’s as important and ambitious a mission as your other things, and I think it’s worth fighting for a way, somehow, around moral issues, around other things.

Elon: I mean I do think there’s…in order to fundamentally solve a lot of these issues, we are going to have to reprogram our DNA. That’s the only way to do it.

Me: And deep down, DNA is just a physical material.

Elon: [Nods, then pauses as he looks over my shoulder in a daze] It’s software.

Comments:

1) It’s really funny to brashly pressure Elon Musk to take on yet another seemingly-insurmountable task and to act a little disappointed in him that he’s not currently doing it, when he’s already doing more for humanity than literally anyone on the planet.

2) It’s also super fun to casually brush off the moral issues around genetic programming with “I think there’s a way” and to refer to DNA—literally the smallest and most complex substance ever—as “just a physical material deep down” when I have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about. Because those things will be his problem to figure out, not mine.

3) I think I’ve successfully planted the seed. If Musk takes on human genetics 15 years from now and we all end up living to 250 because of it, you all owe me a drink.

___________________________________________________________________________

I've been keenly interested in CRISPR and genetic reprogramming since they were invented.  We are the first generation of humans that actually have the capability of tinkering with and ultimately being able to rewrite the "software" our bodies run on (current version of which dictates an expiration date / system collapse).  I was thinking that perhaps the pandemic is even some kind of "gift in disguise".  Maybe the rise of mRNA vaccines will usher in a new era of genetic reprogramming or in the least a higher level of interest in such things by the younger generation of students and entrepreneurs today.

[Clinton]

Bezos with Alto Labs, Google with Calico, and several other billionaires such as Peter Thiel have invested big $$ in cracking aging.  Musk will feel foolish and left out in a couple years and want to make his own contributions.  

[BrianA]

Elon is great on a lot of things, but unfortunately when it comes to life extension he seems to be very deathist. Don't look to him for any life extension funding.

 

“It is important for us to die because most of the time people don’t change their mind, they just die,” Musk said at the event. “If you live forever, we might become a very ossified society where new ideas cannot succeed.”

 

Elon Musk is Wrong About Immortality

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2021/12/elon-musk-is-wrong-about-immortality.html

[Gordo]

On 12/13/2021 at 6:01 PM, BrianA said:

Elon is great on a lot of things, but unfortunately when it comes to life extension he seems to be very deathist. Don't look to him for any life extension funding.

 

On 12/13/2021 at 1:44 PM, Clinton said:

Musk will feel foolish and left out in a couple years and want to make his own contributions.

 

Ouch, I actually just stumbled upon THIS interview with Elon Musk posted THIS MONTH and sadly, in it he says:

... because people are too rigid in their thinking and society could become too stagnant and new ideas may not take off unless people die and new generations rise up.

Does anyone think this argument has merit?  I don't know, maybe we are the outliers, but I think many if not most of us here embrace change and new ideas and technological progress.  Perhaps 80% of the population dreams of doing nothing all day and spending all their time on entertainment but this probably won't change with death and new generations will it?  20% will always be the hard core contributors to progress, invention, technological advancement, etc while 80% are mostly just consumers, its the old 80/20 rule you see all the time.  Killing people off (or allowing their minds to deteriorate) only to be replaced by a new generation seems terribly inefficient vs. a world where there was actually some way to keep people permanently vigorous and sharp minded.

Anyway interesting coincidence that he just spoke directly to this topic.

[Clinton]

I saw the same article Gordo. 
But he's just spouting about a topic, which at the moment, he doesn't see as one of the top 1 or 2 investments on the planet.

As ignorant as Musk sounds regarding aging, the instant that he can make 900% ROI on anti-aging investments instead of his ??? 700% ROI on SpaceX or Tesla, he'll reallocate a hundred billion into a new anti-aging Musk division - his own version of Calico (Google) or Alto Labs (Jeff Bezos).

Heck - from what I've seen of the billionaires and their 'd1ck'-measuring contests, Musk might just out of spite for Bezos want to crack aging first; after all, Musk seems obsessed tweeting about Bezo's ever since he tried to compete with SpaceX for NASA contracts.

Wasn't it 4 or 5 weeks ago, that Branson, Musk and Bezos were all shooting rockets into orbit, all in the same week ??  Ego's the size of the heavens.

Sprinkle in some Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Peter Thiel $$ and in 15yrs you'll have 90yr old men running a 4-minute mile. 

[Gordo]

I don't think Musk is motivated by money, for example he reportedly sold all of his houses and moved into a $50,000 prefab tiny home. He has been selling $billions in TSLA lately though and claims he will be paying the largest tax bill in all US history come April. Unclear what he will do with the money, but he clearly wants to colonize Mars which will be very expensive. He sees it as a way to help ensure the survival of humans in case something goes horrifically wrong on Earth (natural or artificial disasters). 

The whole Mars thing seems extremely impractical at this point in time but I understand the idea of it and I'm not sure there would ever be a time when it would seem practical.  Humans on Earth could be wiped out by a large enough meteor strike or the rise of self replicating intelligent machines. It would seem more practical to colonize the moon than Mars though. Even more practical to build defenses against incoming meteors. 

[BrianA]

Here's some good news, another billionaire has stepped up to fund rejuvenation research: Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase:

 

Lifespan News – Coinbase CEO vs Aging

NewLimit is using new technology to address epigenetic alterations.

https://www.lifespan.io/news/lifespan-news-coinbase-ceo-vs-aging/