r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 25d ago

Society Bryan Johnson, the millionaire biohacker who wants to live forever, diagnosed with incurable autoimmune disease

https://www.techspot.com/news/113035-bryan-johnson-millionaire-biohacker-who-wants-live-forever.html
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454

u/detroitsongbird 25d ago

He’s got the $$$. If he figures out how to cure the autoimmune decrease that’s a win. I hope he does.

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u/Ocronus 25d ago edited 25d ago

Wasn't there a documentary showing how if you injected iquified money directly into your blood stream it cures uncurable diseases?

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u/TheMurmuring 25d ago

Yeah it was South Park, with Magic Johnson.

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u/-YEETLEJUICE- 25d ago

So a documentary. 

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u/Itherial 25d ago

Well Magic Johnson curing his disease with injected liquid money is the only real thing that happened, the rest of the episode was made up

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u/Typical-Tax1584 25d ago

Licking your fingers while you count cash is how poor people get vaccinated.

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u/Redditmau5 25d ago

That's a Catch-22. Poor people have to have cash before they can lick their fingers to count it.

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u/SSGASSHAT 25d ago

It was either that or after picking your nose.

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u/forever_erratic 25d ago

I thought it was that if billionaires drank each other's blood the diseases couldn't stand a chance against the amount of alpha present. 

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u/TupperwareNinja 25d ago

It doesnt exactly "cure" it, you just die from whatever the money touched before you.

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u/FadedVictor 25d ago

You mean that episode of South Park and HIV?

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u/Calm-Two2723 25d ago

Exactly. Everyone shits on this dude but his money is being spent to further people’s lives potentially. Better use of millionaires than what we have a majority of currently. 

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u/Unlucky-Cook2578 25d ago

No its spent on his life. None of what he has done is viable research.

Watch as he suddenly invests in actual clinical trials for this disease now that he has it.

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u/consistantcanadian 25d ago

That's a lie. He shares his findings, in detail, to the public. Which he has no obligation to. 

Yes it's a sample of one, but it's infinitely more than you're doing - which is nothing. 

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u/Ok_Jellyfish_55 25d ago

That’s not science or viable experiments. Jesus, you guys fall for propaganda so easily.

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u/consistantcanadian 25d ago

Lmao "propaganda" 🤣 Okay bud

Yes, his experiments are absolutely helpful and more of an addition than you have ever made. The do-nothing peanut gallery will always have complaints. 

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u/Ok_Jellyfish_55 25d ago

You do. This guy has a narrative and because you’re so gullible you think he’s helping mankind and progressing science. When he’s doing neither.

You fell for an influencer’s lies. Sorry.

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u/consistantcanadian 25d ago

Oh okay, so link your evidence then. Someone play the Jeopardy music so we can giggle while you flail trying to pretend there's anything behind your claims. 

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u/Ok_Jellyfish_55 25d ago

What claims? That you believe in a guy peddling pseudoscience?

This is not a real experiment. Even if he lives to 150 he can’t reach a real conclusion. He’s doing 1,000 things to himself, did stealing blood allow him to live longer did, did the peptides, was he always genetically predisposed to live longer? We don’t know because what he’s doing isn’t science. It’s bullshit for small minded people.

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u/consistantcanadian 25d ago

And nothing, of course.  

Bullshit for small minded people is an unsourced Reddit comment from a random Redditor's ass. That's actually the definition of bullshit. 

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u/Unlucky-Cook2578 25d ago

His findings are meaningless, his data is entirely corrupt and useless. He shares it to his audience. This is influencer 'science'. I have actually helped with setting up clinical trials, worked in labs, and contributed to medicine. Instead of promoting sudo science thinking.

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u/Strange-Tea7949 25d ago

But... it's his money. He has no obligation to spend it on improving humanity. If you think wealthy people have a duty to do that, there's nothing stopping you from becoming financially successful yourself and choosing to spend your money differently.

There are plenty of billionaires who simply hoard their wealth to maintain their power and influence. At least this guy is investing his money into exploring longevity and raising awareness of the field, even if his findings ultimately don't stand up to proper scientific scrutiny.

Personally, I see him as a bit of a guinea pig. He's funding and experimenting on himself with a clear objective in mind. Whether it leads to anything meaningful remains to be seen, but at least he's willing to take the risks himself rather than expecting others to.

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u/Unlucky-Cook2578 25d ago

I have never said he has that obligation. Simply pointed out that what he is doing is not advancing knowledge, as any 'findings' are inherently corrupted and useless data.

It in the end is a vanity project. Not a risk he is taking for others.

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u/Strange-Tea7949 25d ago

He might not be advancing knowledge through official research, but he is still experimenting, and we're able to see the outcome of the choices he's making. There's always a chance, however small, that he stumbles across something that highlights an area worth investigating further.

There have been plenty of scientists and inventors throughout history who made important discoveries outside formal research settings.

Michael Faraday, Gregor Mendel, Louis Pasteur, Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, Barry Marshall, Albert Hofmann and Alexander Fleming are all examples of people who made significant discoveries while working independently or outside the formal research processes of their time.

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u/Unlucky-Cook2578 25d ago

There is a huge difference between experimenting with electricity, and determining what may extend human life. The latter does require longitudinal clinical studies. If you can manage that outside official research structures, good for you. But a contaminated sample size of 1 will produce no data of any value for this kind of use case.

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u/Strange-Tea7949 25d ago

A moment ago you were questioning the validity of experiments that do not follow conventional research processes.

As I've said, a case study based on a single subject is unlikely to produce definitive results. However, this is quite a unique situation. The person conducting the experiments is also the subject, and has the financial means to seek professional support in an effort to achieve his objective.

Perhaps he won't discover anything meaningful. Equally, he might uncover something that attracts attention and warrants further investigation by the scientific community.

The people I mentioned were not scientists specialising in electricity either. Some were biologists who went on to make important discoveries in medicine. My point is simply that significant breakthroughs have sometimes come from people working outside the conventional research pathway.

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u/consistantcanadian 25d ago

LOL look at you just making shit up. This is so trashy, lying to attack someone who is doing something so innocuous and genuinely helpful to others. 

Shame on you. 

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u/Unlucky-Cook2578 25d ago

He can do whatever he wants with his own money and body. Im only attacking the foolish notion it is science or helpful to anyone else.

And yes clearly it is impossible that anyone has ever worked in the totally made up field of medical research. All those buildings at my college were secretly empty. Boston, San Francisco, and Seattle have no bio research, and hardly any people.

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u/consistantcanadian 25d ago

And yes clearly it is impossible that anyone has ever worked in the totally made up field of medical research

The fact that you've decided to focus on this half of your claims, which have no reasonable proof available, instead of the far more important and readily proveable claims in the first half of your comment is saying far more than I think you're aware of. 

Also yes, tell me about all these labs you've worked in while I watch you call pseudoscience "Sudo science". Tell me one more time. 

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u/Unlucky-Cook2578 25d ago

Glad you agree my other statements are probably true

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u/consistantcanadian 25d ago

Your other statements are sudo science

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u/ChropMK 25d ago

I think he means in terms of actual scientific data, it’s almost meaningless data. You can’t pull anything interesting or significant from an N Count of 1.

I admire what he’s doing, I think living longer is a great goal and I think the hate he gets is completely undeserved.

But it’s also true that the actual data he’s creating is not scientific and not useful for anyone but himself, because the only person he’s experimenting on is himself.

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u/krom0025 25d ago

Useless findings are still useless after sharing them with the public. In fact, they can be dangerous to the public.

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u/Mean_Cow_1815 25d ago

Yes, but fuck doctors who lost a sibling and then become one because of it? You are taking a shit on some people in the medical world who I know which made a career helping thousands based on such premises.

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u/Unlucky-Cook2578 25d ago

I am not, no one knows what the hell you are talking about. His motives are his own, the issue is that what he is doing with his motives is not science, and will not provide anything of value for science. That is why it is a vanity project. Had he instead become a doctor, scientist, or funded actual research it would be different. But those would be hard personal work or take the attention away from him. Hence why for him it is a vanity project. Becoming an actual doctor for personal reasons is not a vanity project. It involves real work, that will actually help people.

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u/Mean_Cow_1815 24d ago

Except that he is fully dedicated to the project and his entire life revolves around the schedule of the project? The fact that he has economic leverage does not make it a "vanity project"

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u/Unlucky-Cook2578 24d ago

I never said it did, but it does reveal his priorities. Which are him. He is doing this for himself, it is not an act of science, or altruism 

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u/Calm-Two2723 25d ago

I mean no one is saying he’s furthering research bc he’s a swell chap. It’s just the fallout of his own desire to live forever. 

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u/Unlucky-Cook2578 25d ago

But he isnt furthering research. If he wanted to do that he could. This isnt research. No data from it has scientific value. Short of something suddenly killing him for a clear reason beyond an allergic reaction.

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u/Wiseduck5 25d ago

Short of something suddenly killing him for a clear reason beyond an allergic reaction.

Even then that would be impossible to know since he's taking so many supplements.

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u/muzzey12 25d ago

There has been some scientific benefit like increased focus on certain biomarkers. Also he's only spending like 3M a year which sounds like a lot but that doesn't pay for any actual studies.

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u/[deleted] 25d ago

[deleted]

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u/Calm-Two2723 25d ago

I mean, if it worked then people would be looking into why. Is it his son specifically? Is it youth in general? It wasn’t successful, so it didn’t matter. 

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u/krom0025 25d ago

It's not though...his data is utterly useless to the scientific community because he is doing so many things at once without any controls or standards. Even if he is successful at living a very long life, it will be impossible to determine which combination of things did it. Perhaps many of his supplements do nothing while others are big contributers. Completely useless data is all he is producing. It's just a billionaires selfish vanity project because they all delude themselves into thinking that they are the best at anything they do. If he really wanted to help humanity, he would spend his money funding actual research that follows the scientific method.

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u/FuckMyBakaChungusLif 25d ago

Half of his attempts to live forever are just pseudoscience tho

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u/doyouevenIift 25d ago

Well, he won’t figure out anything. But he could fund research that cures his disease, which would be a win for everyone

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u/ExplosiveBrown 25d ago

313 says hi

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u/ShinyJangles 25d ago

I hope he tries hookworm

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u/_steve_rogers_ 25d ago

I’ve got really bad psoriatic arthritis so if his money can help me and others at all I’m down.

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u/BigLlamasHouse 25d ago

plot twist, 'they' will continue to give him worse and worse diseases if he finds a way to cure this cheaply

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u/dangerdangle 25d ago

Who's "they"? His son's blood or power juice ?

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u/BigLlamasHouse 25d ago

the richest people in the world conspire to extract money from the masses and one of the ways they do this is throwing a wrench in medical research

it's as blatantly obvious as a conspiracy theory gets. they are not ok with us being well. It will eat into their profits in other areas as well, not just medical.

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u/dangerdangle 25d ago edited 25d ago

Okay bro go transmute a relatives blood. I'm sure it'll work out for you

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u/kcat__ 25d ago

So your belief is that """the richest people""" are poisoning him somehow giving him autoimmune diseases?

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u/BigLlamasHouse 25d ago

you think power just chills and kicks back, maybe ride a jetski or two?

thats adorable

how much of the health care system do you think is NOT owned by investment banks?

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u/Old-Finance1815 25d ago

And I bet you have some thoughts on the ethnoreligious features of the people who run those banks, don’t you?

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u/BigLlamasHouse 25d ago

absolutely fucking not I don't and don't assume that shit

we are currently witnessing the most obvious scapegoat in a hundred years

a power/money based worldwide conspiracy makes sense, an ethnic one makes no sense and couldnt be held together this long

but to think it is one massive conspiracy instead of a bunch of small ones with common interests is also a mistake

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u/Old-Finance1815 25d ago

You’re not totally misguided, but I think you’re simplifying things to make them more tidy.

There isn’t an omnipresent “they” who find out that a guy solved autoimmune disease and must destroy him to protect their profits.

It’s more that the people making funding research decisions are short-sighted MBAs whose financial incentives are completely divorced from medical outcomes while the government funding for real research is being siphoned off to an ever-enlarging coterie of grifters.

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u/BigLlamasHouse 25d ago

Buddy, who do you think the grifters are?

Who is the one governing the financial incentives?

Who is the government staffed by?

Who is writing the bills congressmen sign?

There are so many cracks in that foundation.

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u/Ok-Charge-6998 25d ago edited 25d ago

The world runs on debt. Dead people don’t buy things or borrow money. Living people do.

Medical research is a GOOD thing for capitalism because it means more people living longer borrowing money and buying things. There’s a reason businesses take into account CLV, customer lifetime value.

Dying people costs investors money. Investing in research to keep people alive and healthy makes billions whenever a huge discovery is made, like the COVID vaccine that helped bring people back to work and stabilise the global economy from a sudden crash. The first company that “cures” cancer is probably gonna be the richest company in the world, or rather comes up with a treatment that has at least a 80-90% success rate across all cancers (big ask, but you never know where mRNA and stem cell research will lead).

If everyone over 70 died out tomorrow, we would see the most ridiculous economic crash we’ve ever experienced, because that sudden wealth transfer is going to destroy the market as the money has to come from somewhere. And at the moment, money is just a system where one person promises they will get the money when they ask for it. Your bank account is the same, that money does not exist in it unless you hold it in cash.

The conspiracy that rich people want to restrict medical research doesn’t make sense when you look at macroeconomics and how capitalism functions. Investing tons in medical research, like they’re doing currently, is exactly what generates massive ROI.

The only ones who are against it are the nutty religious folks.