Will billionaires live forever? (feat. @OrdinaryThings!)

With cutting-edge drugs costing millions of dollars, longevity clinics charging tens of thousands and even skin creams costing hundreds per pot…is longevity science just for the wealthy?

*Chapters*

00:00 Introduction
01:02 Do the ultra-wealthy care about longevity?
02:33 The most important health advice
03:56 Will longevity medicine be expensive?
04:16 Some treatments will be cheap
04:44 Some treatments are very not-cheap…
06:34 (Interlude: Quality-Adjusted Life Years)
08:43 …but some of them are cheap really
11:22 Why drugs for billionaires aren’t that profitable
12:03 Why governments might pay
12:38 Why poorer people might benefit most (?!)
14:44 Would you invent ageing to kill billionaires?
15:53 Who’s this? @OrdinaryThings?!
20:55 Conclusion

*Sources and further reading*

Correction: 12:52 The difference is actually 14.6 years _in men_ but ‘only’ 10.1 years for women…but, since these figures date from 2001–2014, and the life expectancy gap has been widening since then (as shown in the same paper, amongst other sources), I’m probably not too far wrong…

*Credits*

Interview with @OrdinaryThings filmed by Simon Cade of @DSLRguide
Handheld shots of me around Davos filmed by Filipe Spinosa and Josh Sweeney

Thanks everyone! :)

*And finally…*

[yeetyeet]

I love how these clowns try every voodoo tech garbage in the world before even considering funding basic research into the actually promising meds

[dominikdalek]

I think that framing is incorrect. It's not that media make us thing that billionaires are obsessed with longevity, it's that billionaires who are extremely public are obsessed with it. We don't know of or read about the vast majority of billionaires (there are around 4 thousands of them) and those we do read about are self selected group of self-obsessed ones. So it's no wonder *they* want to live forever.

[seasong]

Would be amazing to see old people look young and happy again. This has to be one of the most important research topics right now.

[checkm]

I think you forgot one maybe essential problems. Extremely wealthy people often want ever more power. And what could be a bigger power than dangling life prolonging medicine over their workers (everyone else) heads to keep us in line and working. Essentially what happens right now with normal healthcare in the us as an example. Your insurance tied to your work. If you quit you'll lose coverage of that essential life prolonging drug. Keeping legislators in check/in their pocket with money and that possible life prolonging drug (deluxe edition or something).

In my opinion a really scary though!

[DanilaImmortalist]

I haven't watched the video yet, but I'm guessing that at this point it doesn't look like billionaires will live forever

[stefan_becker]

Immortality is simply impossible - at least with today's technology. But 10 or 20 years longer? Why not? But if you want immortality too much, you could end up like the first Chinese emperor: He believed that mercury would make him immortal. In the end, he died early from mercury poisoning.

[michaelkalin]

i just watched the ordinary things video with my girlfriend. i actually SCREAMED when you came on screen because it was such a surprise. took her a minute, but she eventually recognized you from the medlife crisis video you did! honestly it was such an unexpected cameo since you and ordinary things operate in totally different spheres of the internet. i'm very glad it happened though, you were a great voice of reason sprinkled in around most of the others.

[georgehornsby]

The "longevity will benefit the rich" crowd are similar to the "big pharma is evil" crowd. They may have half a point on both but if harnessing the self interest of billionaires is what it takes to get drugs developed and studies funded then that will only be a benefit. The real question is how we go about getting the treatments affordable for the mainstream in a reasonable timeframe (5-10 years). I always liked India's way of capping drug prices. Not every country has to do it but the fact that motivated people would be able to import anti-ageing drugs cheaply from India should have a price lowering effect on patented drugs in OECD countries.

Also like the bold style choice with the glasses, was half expecting Dave Asprey to appear on camera.

[bobbypovah]

Such good arguments Andrew and succinctly put.If only the people in power would listen? Keep up the good work!.Going to check out Ordinary Things now...
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[BrennTimoteoRomeroMoreno]

21:36 Yes! that's quite a naive question... Like if they didn't make the world worse with their unsustainable life styles right now... they don't need to live for ever to be a threat to humanity. They already are.

[thecrazything]

I promise you billionairs wont live forever. For other reasons. Age might not get them, but... Immortal from age does not make you more than just a squish man.

[stutterfly]

Great video! Have you ever heard of the Alliance for Longevity Initiatives? They seem to be doing great work on the nuts and bolts of getting appropriations in Congress for basic research on the biology of aging and regulatory reform. You both might stand to benefit from working together!

[anthonyhopper]

Pharmaceutical companies charge significant sums for new drugs not only to recoup their investments in those drugs but also to counter their losses on the drug failures (e.g., in the U.S., the ones that don't make it through animal trials or, worse, strikeout during FDA trials). If drug companies became better at weeding out potential failures earlier in the process, then they might not have to charge as much money for each successful drug.

[strygin]

Where are those billionaires pouring billions in their immortality?! The ones we’ve got are dull - they only invest 0.01% pf their net worth in longevity

[elyas-tavakkoli]

living forever is totally happening as we speak and even still doubt about it

[TokyoMystify]

I'm just praying for AI's speed of growth to allow better and faster research and discoveries to be made.

[kribbles]

Does the cost to develop a drug include marketing budget? Ive heard this is many multiples of the actual cost of the lab work.

[ле.в]

ageless is actually yours book, i heard many recommendation to read it!

[fatboydim.]

The rich wanted the internet and now we all have it. The rich wanted to fly and now we all can fly. The rich wanted email and mobile phones and yet we all have them. As pointed out by one rich person the thing about ageing is that everybody ages and even the rich can empathise with that.

[symbioniq]

A house on the moon is overrated compared to spending on longevity research 😜 (even with infinite money 🤣).

Love this video ! Thanks for making this so clear 🚀