How Venture Capitalist Peter Thiel Plans To Live 120 Years 441
HughPickens.com writes Bloomberg News reports that venture capitalist and paypal co-founder Peter Thiel has a plan to reach 120 years of age. His secret — taking human growth hormone (HGH) every day, a special Paleo diet, and a cure for cancer within ten years. "[HGH] helps maintain muscle mass, so you're much less likely to get bone injuries, arthritis," says Thiel. "There's always a worry that it increases your cancer risk but — I'm hopeful that we'll get cancer cured in the next decade." Human growth hormone also known as somatotropin or somatropin, is a peptide hormone that stimulates growth, cell reproduction and regeneration in humans and other animals. Thiel says he also follows a Paleo diet, doesn't eat sugar, drinks red wine and runs regularly. The Paleolithic diet, also popularly referred to as the caveman diet, Stone Age diet and hunter-gatherer diet, is a modern nutritional diet designed to emulate, insofar as possible using modern foods, the diet of wild plants and animals eaten by humans during the Paleolithic era. Thiel's Founders Fund is also investing in a number of biotechnology companies to extend human lifespans, including Stem CentRx Inc., which uses stem cell technology for cancer therapy. With the 70 plus years remaining him and inspired by "Atlas Shrugged," Thiel also plans to launch a floating sovereign nation in international waters, freeing him and like-minded thinkers to live by libertarian ideals with no welfare, looser building codes, no minimum wage, and few restrictions on weapons.
And who will collect the trash? (Score:3)
Re:And who will collect the trash? (Score:5, Insightful)
They'll dump it overboard and let the market incentivize cleanup.
mh
Re:And who will collect the trash? (Score:4, Insightful)
They wont need to collect the trash since they will be floating in international waters with no regulations, they will just throw it overboard and let us deal with it.
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Lets all hope that they lax building codes bring the houses on their little island crashing down on them.
The big problem with these kind of rich a**holes is that don't want to contribute to society but they want society to help them. Personally I am praying for a pirate attack on this island or something else. Then they will cry for a state to help them. We ordinary people is only a tool for this kind of persons.
Wanting to live to 120 is something we don't want for these kind of people. That gives them more
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After you blow yourself up killing them the new 1%, who rise from and to dominate the rest of the old 99%, will imortalize you as the hero who liberated them. That's just how humans work as a species.
Re:And who will collect the trash? (Score:4, Insightful)
(That could be better or worse, of course...)
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And who is going to protect you from them, especially the ones who can afford more and better weapons than you can?
Let's see, has 10 letters, starts with "g", end with "t",...
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They wont need to collect the trash since they will be floating in international waters with no regulations, they will just throw it overboard and let us deal with it.
So basically no different than all the ships coming from China carrying all the stuff you buy... and by "let us deal with it" you mean deal with it the same way we are dealing with it now... which is to say not dealing with it and just letting it wash up on beaches and sit in the middle of the ocean until it finally sinks.
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only thing I got out of it... circlejerk should be represented somehow without words /.O^ ?!!
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They'll import everything, this isn't going galt ... this is putting your throne outside the country your ruling. I doubt too many other 0.001%'ers will want to paint a target on themselves as much as he does though, so this will go nowhere.
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Some of us try our best to live up to the standards set by the society we live in without being forced to, because it's in our own best interest.
And sometimes that means you collect your own trash.
Socialism has been tried in the "modern era" and it failed-- why are so many people against trying the opposite? (To my knowledge it's never actually been tried in modern times, especially with only people who give a damn.)
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Not at all. But civilization doesn't have to always be the bureaucratic mess it is today, as perpetuated by the established "liberal" and "conservative" (that is, entirely anti-freedom and advancement of society on both sides) incumbents.
Socialism in particular fails because the only motivation inherent in the system is to improve the lives of others. The cool thing about making a society more democratic and less restrictive (that is, moving toward the libertarian sense of what a government should be) is th
Re:And who will collect the trash? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sigh. "Socialism in particular fails because the only motivation []is to improve the lives of others."
You need to go talk to people who work in a co-op business. A co-op is The People Owning The Means Of Production. Socialism. And it's awesome. It's not about making life better for others. It's about making life better for YOU. Imagine if you can, owning part of your workplace. Being able to have a say in how it's run. Being able to share in the gains. That's a LOT better (and a little riskier) than being a wage slave like you are now. It's also Totally Worth It.
I hate it when people make sweeping generalizations about something they have no practical knowledge of. Slashdot Armchair Philosophers, oh, socialism fails... You should go experience it and see just how awesome it can be.
Also, socialism isn't the best way. Neither is pure capitalism. The countries that have the happiest people in the world are mixed economies, and embrace that idea. Anyway.... I just wanted to gripe.
I'll take the bait too (Score:4)
Fascist dictatorships who borrow socialism's rhetoric to excuse stealing everything for themselves (China, USSR, North Korea) don't work so well, but then again they're not socialist, so it all evens out.
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Socialism is doing just fine in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Canada
None of these countries are socialist. Socialism means government ownership of the means of production. High levels of taxpayer financed redistribution is not socialism.
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It is circular reasoning to say that the closer to free market economics you have, the more freedom you have, and that therefore socialism is anti-freedom.
There are other sorts of freedom than economic freedom. Anyone is free to dine at the Ritz. I am free from worry about falling ill and being given a huge bill to pay. Linux is free even if you buy it. People are free to sleep on the freezing streets at Christ
Re:And who will collect the trash? (Score:4)
> The poor are free to trade with the rich or not
Indeed. They are free to starve.
Freedom is easy when you can afford it.
Re:And who will collect the trash? (Score:5, Informative)
You know what get's me about people who dream of building these Atlas-Shrugged inspired libertarian paradises? Such places already exist. They tend to be shit holes because that's what you get with no civic cooperation.
I've been to a few of them. Guatemala is, surprisingly, a true a libertarian paradise. There is, theoretically, a limited government, but in practice it does... nothing. Everybody has to provide for their own security, which leads to some interesting sights. Like AK-toting private guards at MacDonalds. I shit you not, this exists. People die pretty regularly when shoddy buildings collapse. It's not because Guatemalan engineers are too stupid to build sturdy buildings, it's just they don't have to... so why bother? Communities terrified by judicial impunity have banded together to form self-protection rings, and the result is regular lynchings. Clean water? forget it. Oh, and now flooding is an annual issue because there is no land management and the forests were all cut down (arg! evil environmentalism!).
He can build his floating libertarian paradise. It will suck, just like every other libertarian paradise. Then these dumbass Randians will simply forget it, and their new dream will be to build... A LIBERTARIAN PARADISE IN SPACE! Yeah, that'll work. A system of government that's been an abysmal failure everywhere it's been tried on earth will definitely work out IN SPACE!
Bioshock, eh ? (Score:5, Funny)
Hahahahahahahahaha LOL (Score:3)
Seriously, he's going to die like the rest of us. I've seen how far we've come in medicine and I see how far we haven't gotten yet. The body starts failing one way then another way and it just keeps piling up as you get 70-90 years old. Cancer is just one of many, many things that are likely to kill you before you're 120.
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Cancer is just one of many, many things that are likely to kill you before you're 120.
Yup... and its not even the worst of the bunch. I'd put Alzheimer's on the top of the list; maybe advanced Parkinson's after that. Or a bad stroke...
Re:Hahahahahahahahaha LOL (Score:5, Insightful)
Cancer is just one of many, many things that are likely to kill you before you're 120.
Yup... and its not even the worst of the bunch. I'd put Alzheimer's on the top of the list; maybe advanced Parkinson's after that. Or a bad stroke...
Yeah, I think people underestimate the difficulty of extending life.
It isn't just one thing that needs to be fixed, some immortality gene that needs to be turned on. It's everything.
Our bodies are designed to work really well for about 45 years, and decently well for another 15-20 after, but after that we're operating outside of spec.
None of our systems evolved to work after seventy, they don't all breakdown at the same rate, but they all break down.
I think we'll hit the singularity or cyborgs before we hit average humans passing 120.
Re:Hahahahahahahahaha LOL (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, I think people underestimate the difficulty of extending life.
This.
Of course, you could put evolution back on the proper track of life extension by only allowing females who had family histories showing all second-gen forebearers living past 90 to bear children, and then only by being inseminated by the sperm of men similarly sired and then only collected past the age of 75 or so to make sure their "stupid genes" didn't weed them out. Wash, rinse, repeat with cutoff ages increasing. The rest is simply culling of the herd - it might take a few hundred generations, but I'm pretty sure there'd be a few tricks left in the old genome that would let us get to be 120.
Re:Hahahahahahahahaha LOL (Score:4, Funny)
“Smoking takes ten years off your life. Well it’s the ten worst years, isn’t it folks? It’s the ones at the end! It’s the wheelchair, kidney dialysis, adult diaper years. You can have those years! We don’t want ‘em, alright?” - Dennis Leary
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Most other things are possible to treat given enough money. Cancer IS the biggest issue. Trick is that cancer is not a single thing. Cancer is an envelope word for hundreds of different diseases, which behave in similar way (uncontrolled cell growth), but have very different causes and behaviours. There is no such thing as 'cure for cancer'. You need to find out 300 different cures. I highly doubt that we will find that many in next 50 years, not to mention 10.
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I highly doubt that we will find that many in next 50 years, not to mention 10.
I guess you haven't been paying attention. Lot of varieties of cancer are already curable - if caught in time.
Dementia will get'm long before 120 (Score:2)
Or many of the other old age related diseases of which there is no treatment. Wishful thinking.
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Honestly, based on TFA, it has already.
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Or many of the other old age related diseases of which there is no treatment. Wishful thinking.
He's 47. He's got more than two decades before those are likely to affect him. I'll bet that in 2034 we have effective treatments for most all of them, with genomic analysis and gene therapy being available at the shopping mall, next to the place that does nails. OK, probably not FDA-approved (possibly even banned in the US due to costs of welfare if people don't die off) but that's what medical tourism is for.
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I'll take that bet, $1000?
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> He's 47. He's got more than two decades before those are likely to affect him.
That's just a guess. He could be caught off guard by something manifesting before the "designated time". There probably isn't even enough suitable diagnostic procedures to screen for all of the possibilities.
Just because something usually hits after people are 65 doesn't mean that it will necessarily only hit YOU after you're 65. Those are just averages and people fall outside those averages.
On a certain level we are all uniq
Re:Dementia will get'm long before 120 (Score:5, Informative)
Dementia cured in 20 years, I wouldn't bet on that. The blood brain barrier is not an easy thing to get around. The most likely thing that will slow down brain impairment is a diet rich in the appropriate short and medium chain fatty acids and mental exercises. I.E. not the Paleolithic diet.
He is also missed two other significant factors that contribute to significant life extension, A calorie restricted diet and fair amount of exercise(which lengthens Telomeres). A large early death factor centers around people not taking care of their kidney's.
And then there is are number of man made environmental factors. Poorly tested chemical additives.. GMO crops and the ever increasing amounts of glyphosates that goes with them. Other classes of Pesticides, Modern artificial sweeteners, etc Ingestion /inhalation of man made radioactive isotopes. Any one of which can sink his life extension plans before he knows it.
Next on the hit list is family history of long lived relatives(genetics) or just being a bit too tall or fat. A Large body mass has a tendency to were out organs, and shorten lifespan.
My bet he'll be dead by 75, maybe 80. Most rich persons aren't willing to make the appropriate life style changes to really slow down the aging process.
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A calorie restricted diet and fair amount of exercise(which lengthens Telomeres) ... how do you come to that idea?
Neither exercising nor a low calory diet lengthens telomeres
Been there, Done that, Own the t-shirt (Score:2)
Got to love people's plans - Of course there is nothing stopping him from being hit by a bus, or other random thing that can get people.
Is that it? (Score:2)
What's he going to get to do in 120 years that he - with all his money - can't do in 80?
Aim for digital immortality.
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Not die for an extra 40 years? Such hubris is rarely accompanied by any interest in accomplishments. It's all about self indulgence (and/or fear of death), and you can't indulge yourself in the grave.
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> What's he going to get to do in 120 years that he - with all his money - can't do in 80?
I'm thinking, prove that it can be done. That would be a good thing. And what techniques were used, of course.
Re:Is that it? (Score:5, Insightful)
You are confused. His goal is not to improve humanity by creating cures for all of the things that will kill him before he turns age 120. His goal is to give a big "f*ck you" to the society that will create all of those cures for him.
He intends to benefit from society without contributing to it.
Wish he would create Galt's Gulch (Score:2)
By the way whats wrong with John Galt? Supposedly brilliant chap, and just because one stupid railroad executive refused to build a railroad track to his pet project he just gives up? For all that brilliance could he not build a railroad?
Re:Wish he would create Galt's Gulch (Score:4, Informative)
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If pirates attack is Galt's Gulch island or the mercenary soldiers he had hired to protect the island, imprison him and take over all his wealth, would he just shrug and accept his fate?
The most successful pirate, Ragnar DanneskjÃld was a founding member of Galt's Gulch. You just make sure the people with the guns are on board and that they aren't all under a single point of control.
Supposedly brilliant chap, and just because one stupid railroad executive refused to build a railroad track to his pet project he just gives up?
Sounds like you ought to read the book sometime. You could alternate it with something like Das Kapital, if you're afraid of picking up Rand cooties.
Dying of boredom (Score:5, Funny)
With so much of his time devoted to maintaining the caveman diet, there's a good chance Thiel could actually die of boredom. He's kinda boring me already.
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Seriously, though, I have no doubt that there are some health benefits to eating more leafy greens and fewer starches, but this guy is whacko.
Re:Dying of boredom (Score:5, Funny)
On the other hand, if I only had 6 months to live, the first thing I'd do is to get back together with my ex-wife.
That would be the longest 6 months ever.
I am a scientist in real life (IAAS?) (Score:3, Insightful)
I actually am a scientist, and coincidentally, I work for the National Cancer Institute (a part of NIH). While I don't want state anything in absolute certainties, I seriously doubt we'll be able to "cure cancer" in 10 years. Other than the exercise, I fail to see how any of those things will help him live to 120. They may give him a high chance of reaching 80, or something like that, but most of his approaches are probably being used for the wrong purposes. I mean, cavemen (and women!) didn't live very long lives, even accounting for frank injuries from dinosaurs, sharktopus, and whatnot.
Disclaimer: Didn't watch the video.
He will never truly die (Score:3, Funny)
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I'm planning to live 120YO (Score:2)
He will die... (Score:2)
Real plan: (Score:2)
Bioshock feels oddly prescient (Score:2)
His secret — taking human growth hormone (HGH) every day, a special Paleo diet, and a cure for cancer within ten years. "[HGH] helps maintain muscle mass, so you're much less likely to get bone injuries, arthritis," says Thiel. "There's always a worry that it increases your cancer risk but — I'm hopeful that we'll get cancer cured in the next decade [...] a modern nutritional diet designed to emulate, insofar as possible using modern foods, the diet of wild plants and animals eaten by humans during the Paleolithic era. [...] investing in a number of biotechnology companies to extend human lifespans, including Stem CentRx Inc., which uses stem cell technology for cancer therapy. [...] plans to launch a floating sovereign nation in international waters, freeing him and like-minded thinkers to live by libertarian ideals with no welfare, looser building codes, no minimum wage, and few restrictions on weapons.
If anyone played those games and thought "well how could all this batshit stuff all happen in the same place?" now you have your answer.
Who wants to live forever? (Score:2)
I've been thinking long and hard about this concept lately. I'm getting old(er), and I'm noticing that I'm starting to slow down. I've still got 20, maybe 30 years of good life left, but really I don't see the point of living much beyond my 60s.
Logan's Run had the right idea. People increasingly just "get in the way" of progress at a certain age. It does vary for some of us, but I'm already seeing that in some ways I'm holding society back by extending my life. The next generation is more tolerant, mor
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Wait until you are looking death in the face. You may change your mind.
Wow, such a surprise! (Score:2, Interesting)
Another childless, rich, white male plans to live(practically) forever - STOP THE PRESSES!
Dude, have a kid. It's cheaper, more reliable and far more fun.
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So... you had a kid recently then?
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Dude, have a kid. It's cheaper, more reliable and far more fun.
Not a fan of Thiel or his stupid island, but if a guy doesn't want to have a kid, more power to him. The last thing we need is yet more kids from couples who don't want them.
70 years (Score:2)
That's a long time to live with a tenuous connection to reality.
My Dream (Score:2)
I was going to find a way to make the money to buy a section of land out in farm country, and build 2 giant old world style castles. My friends and I would go live there and we would fight paintball battles all day. There would be no "work" or "jobs" or parents, only paintball.
Then I turned 10 and realized that was kind of ridiculous.
Just like the suggestion that 10 million people will be living in floating Ayn Rand cities by 2050, and that the secret recipe to immortality is steroids and the most recent
As a cancer researcher... (Score:5, Insightful)
someone needs to give this guy a primer on cancer and its 'cures'.
Hilarious, but sad (Score:5, Insightful)
So let's summarize this. Some rich person think they are smarter than everyone else and that they have the ills of the world figured out. Namely: a cure for cancer is just around the corner (based on what evidence?), so they choose a diet that is totally unproven to do anything good or bad, they plan to live forever and they will retreat to some mystical artificial island where they can do what they want and not be bothered by anyone not of their own kind. So far so good.
What I don't get is why they think welfare is bad. Obviously they don't need it, they're rich. But not everyone can be rich, this would be the same as everyone being poor. So given that in any society there will be richer and poorer people, welfare simply ensures that even the poorest get some minimum access to services, typically health care. This does not prevent richer people to get better services. Explain to me why this is bad? Given that rich/poor status is mostly a question of luck, being anti-welfare has always struck me as being selfish.
Floating Sovereign Nation (Score:3)
With his libertarian-no regulation ideas, no doubt his floating nation will simply discharge raw sewage directly into the ocean. Just the kind of thinking we need to save marine ecosystems and humans from extinction.
At the heart of every libertarian is the notion that "I want the freedom to sh*t on you". No wonder there are so many corporate sponsors.
Mr. Thiel (Score:5, Insightful)
Mr. Thiel,
You were born rich to obviously rich parents who could afford to send you to Stanford for your undergraduate and graduate degrees.
You're still rich today.
Congratulations. You did not lose your fortune, something almost impossible today due to favorable taxation for the wealthy.
Once you're rich you stay that way forever in the United States unless you're a very stupid person.
Sincerely,
The 99%.
The fact that he has wacky ideas does not surprise me. Rich people are born that way, being given every advantage in life. People don't get rich by being particularly intelligent. They pay people to do everything for them, and unless they're very stupid they get much richer in the process.
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30 years was about right for the paleolithic. Neolithic though, our best guess is around 20.
Re:Stone Age diet ? he wants to live all 20 years? (Score:5, Interesting)
The paleo diet might end up being silly, but just once I'd like to see this discussion without the kneejerk "20-30 year life expectancy".
If you made it to 15 years of age or so in a hunter-gatherer society, you might reasonably expect to survive to 60. As an infant, you are highly likely to fall prey to disease or poor care, pushing the life expectancy at birth way down on average even though those deaths usually had nothing to do with the diet of a mature adult in the community. Adults didn't usually drop dead at 30 from poor nutrition.
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Re:Stone Age diet ? he wants to live all 20 years? (Score:5, Insightful)
6-8 years of parenthood was enough. And the tribe would raise the children jointly, as the males died often getting food or warring with others, and the mothers were either pregnant or dead.
Re:Stone Age diet ? he wants to live all 20 years? (Score:4, Insightful)
Puberty starts 8-12 in modern humans.
Very modern humans with excellent nutrition. It can be delayed by poor nutrition. I'm pretty sure I've seen people talking about that number dipping lower in recent centuries. I suspect it was higher in neo/paleolithic ages, when the food supply was less consistent.
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Puberty does not start with 8-12 ... it is rather 12-14/15 with 14 likely the average.
The cases where kids came into puberty and fertile even before 10 are extremely rare, perhaps 10 per year on the whole planet.
It's only been about 100 years since the number 1 killer of women was childbirth.
Yes, and you ever wondered why? The answer is super simple. Around that time "medical" doctors still experimented with corpses of the dead. And they had no clue about bacteria and sterilization.
There is a reason why wom
Re:Stone Age diet ? he wants to live all 20 years? (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with you on that count, but the paleo diet is still flawed in that its fundamental premise - that at some point in the past mankind was somehow in sync with their environment, and their diet at that point was perfectly aligned with their nutritional needs.
This is apparently because our ancestors evolved to a stable state on one diet over a very long period of time.
This is a massive, and wrong, assumption. Humans were never in perfect harmony with their environment, even if such a condition is at all possible.
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30 years was about right for the paleolithic. Neolithic though, our best guess is around 20.
Really? Since the neolithic was later than the paleolithic what did people do that dropped the life expectancy so much? I realize that the number is heavily skewed by a large infant mortality rate and that those surviving to adulthood lived a lot longer than the average but still to drop 10 years while technology was improving seems very strange - how robust is the data supporting this huge drop?
Re:Stone Age diet ? he wants to live all 20 years? (Score:5, Funny)
Probably started killing one another over religion.
Re:Stone Age diet ? he wants to live all 20 years? (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, the #1 killer of Paleolithic people over 30 was failing to outrun the velociraptors.
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No, it was failing to outrun your fellow hunters who were fleeing at the same time.
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Based on my exposure to his ilk it's about 20 years more than they deserve.
Re:Stone Age diet ? he wants to live all 20 years? (Score:5, Funny)
Taggart: God darnit, Mr. Lamarr, you use your tongue prettier than a twenty dollar whore.
Re:Stone Age diet ? he wants to live all 20 years? (Score:4, Insightful)
Read up on the anthropology, especially about the value of grandparents. Also be careful to avoid means as averages in such cases.
Hint: healthy humans don't undergo menarche until they're about twelve, and human children do not survive well if their parents die off before they're eight.
There's evidence that life expectancy went down with agriculture, though housing heralds an improvement for infant mortality so the means go up, though tempered by increased disease.
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Life expectancy didn't exceed much above 30 until the upper paleolithic, around 30,000 years ago there was a steep rise in the number of teeth from individuals older than 30. There were of course those who managed to make it to what we would in modern times consider old age, but from all the evidence we have they were extreme outliers until around that period.
Re:Stone Age diet ? he wants to live all 20 years? (Score:4, Interesting)
The interesting thing is when researchers did plots of estimated ages of paleolithic skeletons, the population showed exponential decay from the age of maturity. For modern populations in advanced societies the # deaths vs. age of death curve is relatively flat until you start getting into the 60s and 70s.
What this tells you is that paleolithic people didn't die from age related causes. They got picked off by accident, mishap, violence or infections that cut down people in their prime, so it made no difference whether you were 16 or 30, your chances for surviving another year were the same.
So this kind of makes sense; he's looking to move into a population which does not die from age. It's the kind of thing that makes intuitive sense, but often doesn't pan out. What *might* make sense is a counter-intuitive move: fasting, or intermittent fasting where you fast on alternate days. This reproduces the way paleolithic people consumed calories: not three meals a day on the clock, but feasting after a kill and making
Taking HGH is just proof that having money doesn't make you smart or well-informed. He is going to need that cancer cure soon if he keeps that up. His plan is like pouring oil on a smoldering fire and hoping they develop really good fire extinguishers soon. It also seems very un-paleo to me. Paleolithic people went through periods where they had plenty of HGH (feasting) and periods with low HGH levels (fasting). Some researchers believe the fasting period confers many aging related health benefits.
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I vaguely remember one story where someone was traveling in space at near light speed, and expected to outlive everyone back on Earth because of the time dilation. Instead, the people on Earth had a cure for old age, but it had to be administered before the age of 50. The returning astronaut was just over that age, meaning he'd be the last person on Earth to die of old age.
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It's just nonsense - to build on a sea platform would require tremendously strong buildings and no owner of such a platform would permit shacks to be built there as crumbling buildings would threaten the platform and its other occupants. The notable difference between a seastead and local building codes is that such agreements on a seastead would be entered into voluntarily, not by fiat bac
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It's no more or less voluntary than agreeing to the social contract of any other sovereign nation ... and you will be held to your contract with violence too.
The only difference is that the contract is explicit instead of implicit.
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There are some commercially viable things done on boats (fishing, offshore drilling, etc.) and some recreational ones; but few things done on land get cheaper when done on water; unless you have in mind some straw man comparison between costs in some ultra high end urban center and the scungiest refurbed cargo ship you can get your hands on.
They are welcome to try,
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Thiel also plans to launch a floating sovereign nation in international waters, freeing him and like-minded thinkers to live by libertarian ideals with no welfare, looser building codes, no minimum wage, and few restrictions on weapons.
...and then his plans to live to 120 are spoiled when he's mugged by a starving beggar with an assault rifle, or is attacked by pirates or the warships of a rogue nation, or maybe just when his house falls down on his head.
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...and then his plans to live to 120 are spoiled when he's mugged by a starving beggar with an assault rifle, or is attacked by pirates or the warships of a rogue nation, or maybe just when his house falls down on his head.
Or maybe none of these things happens and he achieves the goal.
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You're forgetting the Bioshock scenario here. That would be far more sensational.
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Re:Another paleo-wanker... (Score:4, Insightful)
Ultimately, you can't be a slave to any ideology or fad. You have to actually have some self knowledge. You need to observe yourself and adjust accordingly.
We are not factory stamped duplicates. We are each a very complicated machine each a fork of some very complex bio-mechanical software. The idea that we are not all the same should be obvious to anyone on this site.
The idea that some of us thrive on habits that would be bad for others should be not terribly controversial.
You just have to be methodical and make the observations and sort yourself out and not blindly follow anything else.
Re:Another paleo-wanker... (Score:5, Informative)
One of the issues of the paleo diet is which paleo tribe will you follow. While this Scientific American [scientificamerican.com] article is a bit antagonistic, the research on the variation of diets was interesting.
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Welfare: inefficient government-run money stealing program that discourages the creation of goods.
Building codes: Are you aware that in one of Boston's tonier regions, vinyl window frames are illegal? Residents must use wood. Not all aspects of building codes are good.
Minimum wage: If you're 5 years old and want to buy a comic book, you probably can't do anything that anyone is willing to pay you minimum wage for. But you might find a neighbor willing to pay you $2 an hour to pull weeds from a garden, and y
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Sorry, just wrong. There's nothing about being a nation that requires that the UN recognize it. And one of the Central American or northern South American countries has no military, just a police force. Apparently, its neighbors aren't evil enough to consider it worth invading.
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all meats in america are processed to some level
Yes but only if you mean butchered by a professional, wrapped in butcher paper, and flash frozen. Granted this isn't common and you are correct that most meat is packed in carbon monoxide and/or treated with ammonia as well as being pumped full of antibiotics and growth hormones all while being fed a crap diet. It is however possible to get good meat that hasn't had all of that done to it but you won't find in a regular grocery store. Go to a small meat processor in a small town that sells to the public and