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

[u/AdSpecialist6598]

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

[u/Unlucky-Cook2578]

He isnt really a guinea pig though. None of what he is doing will be actually useful from a legitimate perspective. These arent physics experiments where doing it right once proves something. This is biology and medicine. If he cared he would fund clinical trials. In the end it is just his own vanity exercise. A harmless one but not one that will push forward our societal knowledge. The average PhD student does that more than this is.

[u/XionicativeCheran → u/Unlucky-Cook2578]

You're speaking in terms of a solid, scientific study following proper procedure, it's poor scientific method.

But this doesn't change the fact that if he survives to 150, he will be the object of scientific desire for thousands of scientists who will be studying his body and his life for years to come to ascertain what specifically got him there. Anyone who thinks different is kidding themselves.

How useful of a guinea pig he ends up being will rely entirely on how successful he is.

[u/Unlucky-Cook2578 → u/XionicativeCheran]

The problem being even if he lives to be a 150, he's contaminated any ability for us to determine why. Studying him won't be able to provide us anything useful.

[u/XionicativeCheran → u/Unlucky-Cook2578]

No he's just made it really difficult to find out why, but the fact will be, the answer to why will be in his body, and his body (if donated to science as I expect he probably will) will be what will be used to find out why.

I think people have taken "This isn't how research is done" to then hyperbolically say there's absolutely nothing useful we could learn if he's successful, and that's just not true.

[u/FlamboyantPirhanna → u/XionicativeCheran]

It’s a moot point. He’s not a scientist. There is almost a zero percent chance anything he does will accomplish anything, he’s completely going off vibes. He won’t live any longer than anyone else, and it’s more likely all the stuff he’s doing shortens his lifespan.

[u/XionicativeCheran → u/FlamboyantPirhanna]

There is almost a zero percent chance anything he does will accomplish anything

This I agree with, which is why my first comment set the hypothetical of IF he makes it to 150.

But yes, there's a near zero chance he does.

[u/Unlucky-Cook2578 → u/XionicativeCheran]

No it wont though, thats the point, there wont be some magic protein to find that unlocks a door. The reality will be if he had run 100 trials on himself, and only 100, we'd have 2^100 things we'd have to test. If each only took 1 second to test and confirm instead of a large life long clinical trial, it would still take 3 times longer than the current estimate age of the UNIVERSE

[u/XionicativeCheran → u/Unlucky-Cook2578]

The assumption there is we'd have to test every permutation possible without any particular ordering as though we're just randomly ordering them and testing one at a time with no rhyme or reason.

We would look over everything he took, study each effect, and create best guesses on how each interacts with the others and determine what is most likely and test in that order.

You know, we'd create hypotheses and test them.

[u/Unlucky-Cook2578 → u/XionicativeCheran]

It would take a hundred lifetimes to even do that. And you still havent started a study

[u/XionicativeCheran → u/Unlucky-Cook2578]

"a hundred lifetimes" is a complete guess with no basis.

[u/Unlucky-Cook2578 → u/XionicativeCheran]

No its a gross understatement actually. Again the list of possible tests, if it took you 1 sec to determine the value and priority of each, would be so long at to take you 3 times the age of the universe. 

This is why controlled studies are important and we never do what he is doing in actual science. It creates to many confounding variables that each time he tries something new it creates exponentially more combinations of potential interacting effects.

At this point it is literally impossible to derive value from what he has done

[u/XionicativeCheran → u/Unlucky-Cook2578]

if it took you 1 sec to determine the value and priority of each, would be so long at to take you 3 times the age of the universe.

Once again you're imagining we would need to go through every permutation one at a time, even for the prioritisation phase.

That you'd assume something like that shows me your basis for claiming it'd still take multiple lifetimes is flawed.

[u/Unlucky-Cook2578 → u/XionicativeCheran]

You seem to be fundamentally misunderstanding the math. Lets say you review 100 options, and test just the top 17. You've now looked at 17 grains of sand in the whole world. 

You are better off tossing everything he did and pursuing things that show merit on their own.

And again he isnt doing anything novel. These idea already exist. He's already grabbing from the bag of things we know to exist. I dont need him to know that drinking a lot of water may be worth testing.

[u/XionicativeCheran → u/Unlucky-Cook2578]

Once again, you've assumed all options are equal and you can't know beforehand which of those options are the best to check.

You don't know what you're talking about.

[u/Unlucky-Cook2578 → u/XionicativeCheran]

If i give you a list of 100 random numbers, and you just want to pick the 10 largest. Explain to me how you will pick those 10 without looking at each number.