Aubrey de Grey is a true frontiersman, daring to push out against what seems the most natural and unstoppable forces of nature - ageing. He’s not just another voice though, he’s a scientist and identifies ageing as a disease, one that can be cured with the right medicine. His work calls for serious scientific exploration of what causes tissue to age and to then find solutions to those components - what he calls the roadmap to defeat biological ageing. In fact, he believes that the first humans who will live to be 1,000 years old are already alive today!
Ageing, and indeed death, are some of the most colossal challenges to humanity biologically and philosophically. De Grey himself, of course, has caused plenty of controversy with his views. Despite, however, a $20,000 prize to disprove the worthiness of de Grey’s studies (put up by himself and MIT and de Grey’s own foundation) his work still stands, capturing the imagination of molecular biologists and the public alike.
We’re excited this week to welcome him to London Real. With his impressive beard and extensive knowledge on the subject we’re in for something special.
Full Episode:
https://londonrealacademy.com/episodes/aubrey-de-grey-how-to-live-forever/
SHOW NOTES
Brian:
17:12 “What are we going to do with all the people if we all live forever?”
21:53 “How close are we to real rejuvenation, to reversing the process?”
28.38 “What if Bill Gates did a 180 and listened to this and decided to cut you a cheque for $1billion tomorrow.”
45:28 “Do you feel different vibes from different audiences based strictly on age groups?”
50:05 “What do the religious fundamentalists say about you?”
53:04 “How are you received in America vs the UK?”
59:54 “What about the drug companies? Why aren’t they jumping in on this and getting involved?”
1:11:46 “What is the best advice you’ve ever received?”
1:17:54 “What’s next for you in the next five years?”
1:19:03 “How long are you going to live?”
1:23:05 “Is there a story behind the beard?”
Aubrey de Grey:
6:35 “Ageing is the world’s most important problem.”
8:39 “We’ve got a plan for bringing ageing under medical control.”
9:25 “The death aspect is really not the main thing I want to emphasise.”
10:45 “Yes we will have people living longer, but that will be because they are staying healthy longer.”
13:11 “Living organisms are setup to tolerate a certain amount of damage with essentially negligible diminution of function.”
17:20 “Whenever I’m asked about any of the sociological questions...about ageing, I have three answers.”
18:37 “The carrying capacity of the planet is not a fixed quantity.”
19:04 “The prospect of an overpopulation crisis is very overblown.”
22:18 “Rejuvenation is the application of regeneration to ageing.”
22:18 “We have a 50/50 chance of getting these technologies to a decisive level of comprehensiveness in the next 20-25 years.”
22:56 “At the moment it’s ridiculously underfunded.”
26:30 “Every single day that I bring forward the defeat of ageing...I’m saving 100,000 lives, that’s fairly easy to get out of bed for.”
28:06 “Without Peter (Thiel) I have no idea where we’d be.”
37:30 “I have a very straightforward bullshit detector.”
42:55 “We are certainly getting better at looking after our bodies.”
51:49 “I argue very strongly that it’s mandated by scripture, that it would be a sin not to be doing this work.”
1:03:10 “We’ve got to get people more comfortable with submitting to medical treatments when they are not yet sick.”
1:03:20 “The pharma industry, the medical industry, they are not the problem, because they will follow the money. Public opinion is the problem.”
1:04:48 “Cell phones are the abomination of the century.”
1:20:11 “I have mixed feelings about my position.”
1:11:03 “Pay attention to what people are not saying rather than what they are saying, because those tend to be the most important things.”
1:14:39 “I prefer to be a heretic than a maverick. At least it sounds as though you might be right.”
Links:
Upton Sinclair quote:
http://www.livableincome.org/wUptonSinclair3.jpg
Peter Thiel:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel
Robust Mouse Rejuvenation:
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2014/04/what-is-robust-mouse-rejuvenation-and-why-should-we-care.php
Aubrey de Grey’s TED Talk:
https://www.ted.com/speakers/aubrey_de_grey
The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss
http://fourhourworkweek.com/
Max Planck quote:
http://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-science-advances-one-funeral-at-a-time-max-planck-37-18-08.jpg
SENS Research Foundation
http://www.sens.org/
