What Do Billionaires Want?

It's Not What You Think....

Jun 08, 2023

What do billionaires want? Why are they trying to control the entire world?

I, for one, have had trouble managing a single family, spouses and their relations from earlier marriages, multiple children, our children’s friends (several of whom lived with us from time to time), multiple dogs, assorted small adopted creatures including two cockatiels, five guinea pigs, three teddy bear hamsters, a lop-eared rabbit, and one tarantula who was quickly relocated to another branch of the family.

Do the billionaires sit around and “tsk tsk” at us mere humans as we bumble our way through life? Are they muttering as they watch, “And that’s why we can’t have nice things…”

Or are they just bored?

If you have money to buy anything in the world you want, is the thrill eventually gone? Once you have the private luxury jet, the mega yacht, the vintage cars, mansions on four continents, the most “desirable” women, clothing strewn with jewels, the admiration of all your peers, celebrities at your beck and call,, and sex with anyone, what is left?

Or maybe the billionaires begin to notice the marks of time on their faces, their bodies. It starts in the thirties and creeps along until somewhere between the forties and fifties, it becomes obvious. I am getting old. None of the anti-aging offerings generally available are close to perfect. The most famous of celebrities can end up looking pretty scary with enough plastic surgery (think Madonna¹). Various creams and potions only work for so long. And the longevity movement is still in its infancy. Plus, it requires a lot of hard work through exercise and swallowing dozens of pills daily.

A 1992 comedy starring Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, and Bruce Willis parodied celebrities attempting to stay forever young with the assistance of a magic potion and a mad scientist.² Spoiler alert: it did not go well in the end.

Eventually, everyone dies.

Most humans are too busy working on surviving in some manner that cares for themselves and those they love while accepting the inevitable advancement of age. Many humans embrace or return to religion or faith in God as they work to integrate the impermanence of life. If one abandons God, what is left?

Billionaires decide to put money into trying to live forever.

Elon Musk, one of the richest men on earth, has been investing in Neuralink, a company that just received FDA approval to do their first human trials implanting a computer chip into the brains of humans.³ This procedure is very intrusive, requiring the removal of a flap of the skull and the insertion of many hair-like wires supposedly designed to enable the human victim…er…subject to communicate directly with a connected computer.⁴ Here is a video of a Neuralink scientist demonstrating the brain chip insertion surgery (on a dummy).⁵

Are any other billionaires in the running? Indeed! Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos foundations are investing in Neuralink’s competitor Synchron. Their contributions bring the total amount raised to $145 million. Synchron is attempting to create an interface that connects within a major blood vessel in the brain, using the vascular system to convey instructions between the brain and the body. Synchron’s “endovascular electrode array” looks like a delicate elongated web.

“The Synchron Switch brain computer interface is designed to detect and wirelessly transmit motor intent out of the brain. This will restore a capability for severely paralyzed patients to control personal devices with hands-free point-and-click. The device is implanted in the blood vessel on the surface of the motor cortex of the brain via the jugular vein, through a minimally-invasive endovascular procedure.”⁶

Actually, I would think twice about anything having to do with one’s jugular vein…

Synchron obtained FDA approval to run a human clinical trial, beating Elon Musk’s Neuralink by two years, and early trials are reported to have been successful.

But what does this have to do with living forever?

We mere mortals just don’t have the imagination necessary to realize the end goals of these human/computer interface companies. We think it is all being done so that Superman can walk again someday….

Having spent years working to block some of the most oppressive aspects of psychiatry with my husband Peter, I can see some of the direction that these companies, and the people who control them, will go. The proffered explanations include helping quadriplegics to regain the use of limbs, and treating diseases such as schizophrenia or autism — never mind that neither disease presents with any physical disease process in the body or brain of the afflicted person.

As a fellow Substack essayist has pointed out, there is the apparent reason, and there is the real reason — the “ostensible reason” and a “real reason.”⁷ The apparent reason here is to cure some illnesses and disabilities. The real reason is to be able to experiment in ways normally considered questionable, if not downright immoral and unethical, in search of the holy grail of everlasting youth.

Most recently, a 45-year-old tech billionaire, Bryan Johnson, is spending $2 million per year to remain youthful. Project Blueprint is his latest venture and involves a complicated program of medical checkups, dietary requirements, precise exercise, sleep, and receiving blood transfusions from his 17-year-old son.⁸

What??

Johnson and his son and father spend the day once a month at a health clinic in Dallas exchanging blood components.⁹ First, tech tycoon Bryan Johnson has a liter of blood taken to make room in his body for a transfusion of his 17-year-old son’s plasma (a component of blood). The 17-year-old donates a liter of his blood that is separated into plasma and transfused into his father, Bryan. The blood originally taken from Bryan Johnson is separated into plasma and transfused into Bryan’s father, Richard Johnson. So, Richard, the eldest, receives his son Bryan’s plasma, and Bryan receives his 17-year-old son’s plasma. The 17-year-old does not get a replacement transfusion.

In contrast to the presumed benefit of receiving ‘young blood’ components, a UC Berkeley study found that it was the removal of the ‘old blood’ that benefited the person, not the infusion of the new ‘young blood.’¹⁰ Other research points to the young blood as the causative agent.¹¹

Johnson first received blood from young, anonymous, well-screened men (paid $100 per session) and has now recruited his son to be the donor. We do not know if or how this minor has been reimbursed.

As Bloomberg reports:

There’s a longstanding public fascination with stories of wealthy tech types injecting themselves with the precious bodily fluids of younger people. Experiments in mice have suggested that older rodents experience rejuvenating effects by absorbing the life force of their younger counterparts. Inspired by these results, some people have opted to experiment on themselves and tap into this vampiric-sounding fountain of youth—although, it should be noted, the science here is anything but settled…. The notion of using plasma as a rejuvenation therapy gained traction after experiments in which scientists literally stitched together older mice and younger ones, allowing them to share circulatory systems. The older subjects showed improvement in cognitive function, metabolism and bone structure. There has also been evidence that frequent donation of blood can have positive health effects as you clear out the old and have your body produce new cells and fluid.¹²

Published papers include experiments on mice with blood exchanges to address facial skin rejuvenation as well as cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease.¹³

Tech tycoon Johnson is not alone. In the tech meccas of the US, including the Bay area of California, blood transfusions are gaining popularity as a means of regaining youth. The procedure is called parabiosis, and the price tag is $8,000 per treatment. The young, healthy youths supplying the middle-aged men are casually referred to as ‘blood boys.’¹⁴ This process is not without risk — the young donors may experience fatigue, lightheadedness, and temporary low blood pressure.¹⁵ Risks to the recipients of blood plasma transfusions include possible lung damage, allergic reactions, infections, and more.¹⁶

Despite the risks, the endless search in all the wrong places for everlasting life and youth continues. This is a search that has been pursued for many centuries.¹⁷

What could go wrong? Everything. An obsession with living indefinitely will bring out the worst in people. Billionaires want to be the boss of us all and to live forever. We all need to say that’s a hard no.

The challenge of life is not to live as long as possible but as well as possible, with sound ethics and empathy, and love for others. A life of faith can even provide some longevity.¹⁸

First published on America Out Loud June 4, 2023

¹ Plastic surgeons weigh-in on Madonna’s ‘unrecognizable’ face: likely had a facelift, Botox, filler | Daily Mail Online

² Death Becomes Her (1992) – IMDb

³ Elon Musk’s Neuralink hopes to implant chips in human brains within six months | The Japan Times

⁴ FDA Approves Physical Control of the Mind by Musk’s Neuralink – America Out Loud

⁵ Watch Neuralink Scientist Demo Brain Chip Insertion Surgery – YouTube

⁶ Gates and Bezos back Neuralink-competitor Synchron in a new funding (interestingengineering.com)

⁷ (100) The Dual Use Human Genome Experiment Continues and Your Children are on the Menu (substack.com)

⁸ Bryan Johnson is swapping blood with 17-year-old son | Fortune

⁹ Millionaire Used Blood From His Teenage Son to Reverse Aging (insider.com)

¹⁰ Young blood does not reverse aging in old mice, UC Berkeley study finds | Berkeley News

¹¹ Will Revitalizing Old Blood Slow Aging? | Columbia University Irving Medical Center