Immortality - what lies beyond FIRE

 

The financial market in Singapore is booming and not even news on a delay in succession planning was able to dent the performance of my portfolio, but as of late, I'm less interested in my personal finances than what lies beyond FIRE, so I am gradually shifting my readings to books on longevity and ageing. 

As a type II diabetic, I am very afraid of getting old. If anything, I should be ageing faster than my peers. As of late, I am also not as enthusiastic as before with my personal outings. One reason is that I can practically own anything I want because I have access to Carousell and Amazon, the other reason is that I've mostly been there and done that. Netflix and Coursera keep me company if I am getting bored.

What I'm afraid of is that my mind can't keep up with developments in IT and finance. While I am well ahead of my peers in my ability to pick up new things, I know that once I can't keep up ( and I already don't care much about DEFI and SPACs ), it's game over for me. 

So I am now starting to become more interested in longevity. Biogerontology is a field that is quite difficult to understand given the number of MLM companies spreading misinformation about what is good for a person's health. There are too many Youtube channels backed by so-called Doctors who are not MDs. ( In the US, a chiropractor can call himself a doctor! Dr. XXXX, DC !)

Ageless by Andrew Steele seems more credible than many other books. Every assertion is backed by research and the reason why I trust him is that he does not trust the eating of nutritional supplements. Instead, he highlights the important research developments that can lead to longer lifespans. Part of the problem is that humanity does not classify ageing as a disease, so attempts to lengthen our lives are incidental to the elimination of illnesses and diseases. If you do not wish to attend another MLM nutritional seminar, we do not have an anti-ageing centre backed by rigorous scientific research. 

The pay-off to studying longevity is high and can be amplified by FIRE. Imagine wealthy people able to buy off an additional 10 years of a healthy lifestyle. The cumulative advantage of wealth would be enormous - just think about how much more CPF Life will have to pay if rich folks can pay money to live longer. Modern science can already lengthen the life of some worms by 10x. Imagine living to the age of 1500 years old!

As of now, I still can't act on some of my research. As a diabetic, I'm already on Metformin, one of the leading immortality drugs available to mankind. I suspect my other pill Jardiance has the capability to give me a couple extra years as well as it's kept my weight mostly down. 

I read that there is a possibility that supplementing my regime DHEA, a hormone, may improve the odds of living longer but local drugstores are not allowed to sell this over the counter.

Another promising candidate is a cholesterol vaccine called a PCSK9 inhibitor which I should start making enquiries with my specialists. This is the domain of rich, as results are still unknown but vaccine shots twice a month may cost $1,500 SGD in the US - nowhere near break-even point if you attempt to game your CPF Life on this. 

Anti-ageing may be something Singapore can readily make itself a hub for since it already has so many billionaires setting up family offices here. It makes a lot of sense to allow healthy multimillionaires the means to extend their lifespans with the latest advances in biomedical science. The first step though would be to recognise ageing as a disease and something optional once the right advances have been made in modern science. This will attract top scientists to ply their work here. 

Right now it's unethical to test an anti-ageing drug on an otherwise healthy adult.