07.17.12
Chronicles of Annoying Pests
More self-promotion at the Singularity School, Ray Kurzweil’s black hole for journalists who like stories about soon living forever, via PBS. Computers and advances in molecular genetics will soon cure all disease, fix up your decrepitude — just hang in there, like Ray — who — the segment at PBS shows, appears not to have slowed his aging, even though he does phosphatidylcholine for his membranes.
It takes one hundred fifty pills a day to defeat human entropy, according to Ray K., which — along with his phosphatidylcholine drip — is reminiscent of how double Nobel laureate Linus Pauling turned into a quack after going public with his Vitaimin C obsession. Treat the onrush of years aggressively or the sands of time will run out for you.
While Kurzweil lacks the same clout with stupid people enjoyed by Pauling and his Vitamin C stories years ago, one imagines the makers of phosphatidylcholine supplements are not displeased by his activities.
The approach of the Singularity can be visualized with this Ray chart.
Malaria, however, may just miss the boat. It stubbornly killed over 600,000 last year, still proving resistant to computer power combined with the miracle of molecular biology and nanobots.
Wait for the moment, if you can stand the rest, of Craig Venter giving it the brush.
Ray’s PBS performance, excerpted:
RAY KURZWEIL: The electronics will be so small, and we will put computerized devices that are the size of blood cells inside our body to keep us healthy. A new biological virus comes out, these little nanobots could download their software to combat that new pathogen.
PAUL SOLMAN: And so, immortality.
PAUL SOLMAN: Of course, as more time goes by, there will be more to remember. But Kurzweil says we will have augmented brains to retain more of it.
RAY KURZWEIL: Information defines your personality, your memories, your skills. And it really is information. And we ultimately will be able to capture that and actually recreate it. So then we will back ourselves up. People a hundred years from now will think it pretty amazing. People actually went through the day without backing up their mind file?
PAUL SOLMAN: His cholesterol, for example, has dropped from 280 to 100, thanks to a strict regimen of diet, exercise, statin drugs and nutritional supplements. He takes about 150 pills a day.
And then there are injections and I.V. drips for the more exotic substances.
RAY KURZWEIL: I will give you one example. In a baby, 90 percent of the cell membrane is made up of phosphatidylcholine. That substance is responsible for letting the nutrients in, letting toxins out, keeping the cell supple.
By the time you’re 90 years old, the level of phosphatidylcholine you have will be less than 10 percent of what you had as a child.
PAUL SOLMAN: So you’re getting shots of this?
RAY KURZWEIL: It’s an I.V ..,
More, from the Singularity School and the same reporter.
Thoon we will lith forether — here and here — from the archive.
When I was a young boy I saw a documentary about Ray Kurzweil and the Singularity School. “I am seven thousand three hundred and twenty two years old…”
Floormaster Squeeze said,
July 17, 2012 at 12:12 pm
I take it they mean he reduced his LDL cholesterol from 280 to 100. LDL cholesterol of 280 is basically sucking bacon fat 24 hours a day for years. This will improve his health no doubt but how about not getting there in the first place (yes, I am aware there are some “genetic” issues but diet is pretty central). This seems to be a pretty common theme with gurus in general (future focused or not); they love to repent and admonish the rest of us to follow their ways. Luckily, I had enough sense at 12 not to suck bacon fat 24 hours a day.
I have no idea the full answer or all the science behind aging; but there are some pretty smart people that think there may be no way to get around biological limits to aging (there may be ways around as well but nearly all the “live longer” let “live forever” stuff is based on optimism more than observation). All the money is preparing people to pay for “wonder drugs” or therapies. Yet, most people have been conditioned to believe that huge breakthroughs in aging are imminent (they are not and certainly not the distributive issues of paying for aging are not) so there is money to made whether science delivers or not.
George Smith said,
July 17, 2012 at 12:44 pm
Oh yeah. When I was in school my girlfriend’s father was a big believer in Pauling. So he bought jugs of vitamin c powder and dosed his food with it. When I visited I went down for breakfast one morning and noticed there was a white sludge in the bottom of my glass of juice and I knew right away he’d been shoveling it in. I said don’t do that again and I was never really into visiting after that. But Pauling caused a real boom in vitamin c sales, one that lasts. Anyone who can come up with some semi-scientific sounding argument of longer life through a medicine or routine finds the US a fruitful market. The Internet has only made it even better.
Chuck said,
July 17, 2012 at 9:34 pm
Didn’t Linus Pauling at one point say he was planning on living to 120 by taking injections of vitamin C? He lived to 94, but that’s not so exceptional anymore–my own mother died at 91 after being diagnosed with a bad ticker at 72 and my mother in law lived a couple of months just shy of 100. I hang around with a friend who’s 93 and, while he’s not making any long-term plans is just fine. None took/takes vitamin C.
It’s not hard to get a 1985 Volvo to last for half a million miles, but try that with a Yugo made in the same year. Genes count for a lot.
I wonder how Mr. Kurzweil is, genetically speaking?
George Smith said,
July 18, 2012 at 9:03 am
Don’t recall but his legacy is toast. This is the Google search result that encapsulates him.
I do remember when my Dad was diagnosed with cancer he was harrowed into
doing daily vitamin C. When it was obvious it had no value, it stopped.
Chuck said,
July 18, 2012 at 10:11 am
The latest thing seems to be diagnosing everyone with chronic Vitamin D deficiency. Even though I haven’t requested it, for the last 4 years, my annual physical has included a Vitamin D blood work analysis.
To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never had rickets or osteomalacia. I’m out-of-doors every day of the year, rain, snow or sun for at least 2 hours–and still I show a “deficiency”. My doctor shrugs and says that maybe it’s hereditary and I should take a few thousand more IU’s of D3 every day.
I think it’s a scam.
George Smith said,
July 18, 2012 at 11:12 am
Hard to miss rickets.
Here’s an older cdc meeting monograph on incidence.
http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/nutrition/pdf/Vitamin_D_Expert_Panel_Meeting.pdf
Parathyroid problem appears to be vaguely linked to Vitamin D deficiency. Strange, may be hereditary, may be meaningless too, without any information on any other obvious problem.