Joe Rogan Experience #1432 — Aubrey de Grey Transcript

Transcript

0:00 3, 2, 1, boom. Here we go. Oh, yeah. I mean, I stroke it all the time, you know, it's compulsive. Nearly five, I think. It was April of Yes. there are no new revelations in terms of what we understand. What causes human aging? Is that good? Yep. What is the difference physically between a younger person and an older person in terms of their ability to recover from the damage of just regular everyday life and exercise and abuse and running around?

3:38 And those changes, the reason I'm using the word damage to describe those changes is because how fast you can walk. bad at it. The first reason is that I'm really well built. I'm just lucky. I'm just one of those of aging. And maybe it's a net win. You know, maybe the amount that I'm A few beers a day. or six drinks a day? Yeah, most days. What is an actual beer?

5:55 Oh, that'll fuck this dude up. We'll have some whiskey. You don't drink Heineken. Ah, right. Or lemonade or something along those lines. Lagavulin, it's pronounced. That's okay. Yeah. Is it a smoky whiskey? I know that's why I know I'm selling it. That's the word that's often used. You just keep it going and drink lots of water? oxford with a stick that's right i'm thing that you do in Cambridge and Oxford with a stick.

9:20 And it's ridiculously romantic. Good for balance. Well, that's where the foundation is based. we've been able to hire extremely good people. And so I've been able to delegate that to a very If you can do that, you can obviously do it a little bit faster others. So since the beginning, Science Research Foundation, my organization, And in particular, the people who are deciding who wins that competition are not um you know in when you

12:51 But the magnitude there is – it's real tokenism. And that's a very big conceptual difference, right? you and I spoke last five years ago Like what kind of stuff? So, for example, the stem cell therapy is now being used for aspects of aging with a really clear understanding of how they're going to work. um and we may end up doing none at all a couple of years from now just because because other people

16:34 between entrepreneur founders, scientific founders with great science, and investors It's incredible. In other words, certain aspects of slow, steady, progressive decline that happens throughout life. were young adults having gone by old age. That's okay. That amount of margin of error is tolerable is dopaminergic precursor cells, There was a clinical trial in Sweden because people knew that this was driving Parkinson's disease.

20:02 And sure enough, almost all the time, there was no effect. And it was written on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of that person being treated. how to inject the right kind of stem cell, you know, people are very optimistic. And that's We didn't need to. There's several groups around the world that are focused on this. So, in order to answer that, I have to come back to what I said about this being a divide-and-conquer problem and the fact that we need to fix all of these things in order to really give the proper result in terms of biological age.

23:25 of comprehensiveness of these therapies. And at the moment, that number is 17 years. Now... bad news, right? But here are two pieces of is because the only thing that was slowing it down before That's interesting, because it seems like that would be something that to get people to write a check we always are up against is the mindset that people have got into about aging that they've

25:53 being preoccupied by it. Or alternatively saying, well, okay, maybe we could fix it if we tried to, but it would be a bad thing. Furthermore, the ones that do die of aging, do right they will come up with some reason why aging is a blessing in disguise and then they will And so we tend to push the boundaries a bit, both of us, in somewhat different ways.

28:26 And, you know, the reason why that's important is that it determines what kind of medicine we look for. Alzheimer's that we call diseases and the ones that we don't, like, you know, loss of muscle or Okay. Oh, yeah. So, what stem cells are there to fix is cell loss, where cells are dying, then we need to look at what fixes are available for each individual type.

30:24 I'll see. You know, of course, the nature of aging is that because it's progressive and because it only causes functional decline after a certain point, 10 years down the road, I may start to need it a bit more, I do intravenous stem cell therapies too. And then you've got to have cancer therapies. It's better than that. I mean, I enjoy life. I really feel, you know, ever since I was a young kid, I have wanted to spend my life making a difference to the world, improving the quality and, of course, in this case, quantity of life of humanity.

33:47 I found I was pretty damn good at it. And I had made the mistaken but absolute assumption that everybody realized that aging was by What happened was that I met and married a biologist, I began to notice that it wasn't coming up in conversation. So eventually I came to terms with it because it wasn't just her, of course. It was all the other biologists

35:51 doing bioinformatics, which allowed me to do my artificial intelligence research in my spare time. harmless. And it was then five years in, in the year 2000, that I had this kind of eureka moment my mother had already instilled in me that i would become a good pianist and that was just not good enough you know because there were How old were you at the time?

38:27 Yeah, that's right. particular narrow area that was just really fashionable. And other areas would be just completely neglected. So they were making no difference. idea. But yeah, somehow or other, nah, I don't think so. But no, I think the wanting to make But knowing that But if we look at how I got from there to here, an enormous, enormous amount of it was just sheer luck.

41:12 Yes. And so I'm always instinctively looking for ways to do things that other people might have overlooked. you understand that I'm really sympathetic to humanity in this regard. But some people aren't, and that doesn't mean that they are less deserving of the benefits. Yeah. Yes. and starts to go further, right? And then he said, right, I would like you please to touch your right elbow with your left forefinger.

44:19 The hypnotist says, okay, you can stop now. And the explanation, of course, will have a hole in it the size of Canada, and the guy's just unaffected. you'd be a fool not to take it you'd be a fool do you want to suffer the idea that this romantic That's exactly right. Of course, this is a legitimate question. The thing that's frustrating to me is that

46:57 because so much fiction Okay, so what's the real answer? the carrying capacity of the planet. completely exploding, and they're going to completely replace fossil fuels. And we got cheaper than regular meat. As tasty would be good, but tastier would be better. Well, first of all, let me say what I think about the word optimism the less of a problem that is.

50:46 of the ability to clean up the ocean. of the fish populations but that wouldn't necessarily make that population rebound we would have to make large steps to try But all that really says is I mean, if they can make but like because people like the name i guess um i'm i'm really optimistic about artificial meat That's right the actual birth rate goes down to the point where places like

54:33 Nigeria is the only one? It's getting close. As people start to die. Have you thought about what the future looks like when people live to be 400 or 500 years And the second question is how will people in the near term expect the world to be? Oh, no. an awfully long time because they're not going to just get progressively sicker as they get older. They basically drive the global economy.

58:06 which means what events have to happen, are going to be willing to come out I mean, I know I have been. And they're going to say so on air. Lots of money. Now, therefore, the question is, what amount of progress is going to be required for that to And they just won't get them if it's possible to accuse them of saying irresponsible things to the media,

1:02:29 Even David. So, you know, the question is how much has to change? in terms of actually, you know, rejuvenating them, Yeah, things are going to get real weird. So people are already – people are obviously still going to be saying it can't be done in humans. I'm not saying that all of us absolutely agree on 100% on everything in the science. that will still be enough to trigger this pandemonium.

1:06:42 when you talk to any you know any elected representatives anyway, of any persuasion about the aging question, then their immediate knee-jerk reaction is always, oh, God, we definitely don't want to fix that. How would we pay the pensions? Right? Because obviously they know it's the economy, stupid. It still is. It's got nothing to do with private versus socialized medicine.

1:07:54 But that actually is only a minority of the economic benefit. and therefore in a position to, you know, And most people, even conservative commentators, say that most of the jobs that exist today are going to be gone 20 years from now. It's just not going to happen. It's just a starting point. to the point where you think you have to work. Something that fulfills – something to do that you find fulfilling.

1:10:53 Yeah, I agree with you. Or anybody who's They can be sequential. course it's subjective it's based on um you know um aggregating a whole bunch of different areas that normally live, let's say, two and a half years colleagues over, get them over the fence. But I think that would definitely be enough to switch most of my colleagues over, get them over the fence.

1:12:52 If you do something genetic to mice, So that's not going to come by way of genetics? What about the use of CRISPR? in a very specific way. And initially, no. One thing you definitely can't do with CRISPR is insert new genes into the genome. that doesn't work, but that in its inactive form protects the body from infection by HIV. clear whether doing it for someone lifelong is actually a good thing because as I say

1:17:26 Why? But yes. However, it certainly got a whole bunch of debate going. It's interesting to me, and I don't want them to do it on people, but when they do do it on people, I'm fascinated. And there tends to be very little follow-up. I think there's a halfway house. So, we don't know his hit rate. just the pain just went away and it's continued to get better.

1:21:06 she looks younger like she looks she looks more vibrant you know like when i saw her she came to Exactly. far along so every time anyone gets treated right now it's still an experiment and that's okay up So, well, of course, the biggest thing that we always have to worry about is cancer. the cells right um and so yes um every time that you are improving regenerative capacity whether

1:24:50 cacaxia you know a lot of loss of muscle and so on uh but earlier on it seems that we can making progress, by discovering insights in that area. UCLA named Walter Longo, But in terms of increasing your longevity by 30 or 40%, You can get up to maybe 50%, maybe 60% if you really, really work at it. Why is it a bit controversial? and that the real answer is somewhere between the two.

1:28:05 What I'm saying is they've got about another year. And I'm not against it at all. and health, and those are community, enjoyment, friends, loved ones, satisfaction with what you that when you're in a stressed-out state, Obviously, because they want to find out what the tricks are. And so the hormone levels, as I say, don't get elevated. They don't lose sleep.

1:30:47 I'm just chill anyway. But at a mental level, not at all. I do. Yeah, I started carrying a backpack instead of a roller bag. So it's pretty heavy. Have you ever used a sensory deprivation tank? I'm relaxed already It feels amazing. optimistic. When you tell me three to five years from now we're clinical trials so that they're safe, but also they have to be combined. You know, each of these

1:34:32 probability, right? I think it makes no sense to think about Because sometimes I've had questions like incredulity and I said the idea of how long you want to live is going to be irrelevant if they could repair disease and fix I'm very optimistic. 1620 to 1820, not a lot of difference. It's just, you know, we're in an exponential scenario and we happen to be noticing it more.

1:39:15 In other words, the machines get their information from us and from the world without which they can't make progress. and therefore that what's being done Well, thank you so much. Thank you.