Startups Flock to Turn Young Blood into an Elixir of Youth

https://www.wired.com/story/startups-flock-to-turn-young-blood-into-an-elixir-of-youth/

by rafaelc • 8 years ago

49 62 8 years ago

Imagine a dystopian future where there is vampires. The vampires being super wealthy individuals who have resorted to feeding on the young and vulnerable. Sending out blood hunters to grab people and then drain them. Others prefer the convenience of an ontap blood donor, living in their houses and being well looked after.

Peter Thiel will have founded another company called Blód which he manages from his real life reconstruction of Orthanc. There he uses data crunching to source the healthiest and most vulnerable blood donors.

ionised• 8 years ago

Imagine a dystopian future where there is vampires. The vampires being super wealthy individuals who have resorted to feeding on the young and vulnerable.

This is already the case.

nannal• 8 years ago

Why would there be blood hunters?

Just let the indebted young sell their blood for pennies and they'll jump at the idea.

taway_1212• 8 years ago

Am I not mistaken that in the US it's already common to get paid for blood donations? (Here, in Poland, you only got a couple bars of chocolate for it). So, people in the US are already ok with selling their flesh (at least the part that does it for money, and not to help others).

bambax2• 8 years ago

Horrible idea in reality, but fantastic idea for a book!!

Grangar• 8 years ago

Barad-Dûr sounds more like Thiel's thing.

DoreenMichele3• 8 years ago

There he uses data crunching to source the healthiest and most vulnerable blood donors.

This is a plot hole. Healthiest and most vulnerable are directly at odds. Extreme vulnerability (and poverty) does bad things to one's health. Good health is a good antidote to vulnerability.

This is one of those cases where evil is its own solution or antidote because this fundamentally doesn't work, a la "Going to war to preserve the peace is like fucking to preserve virginity."

awakeasleep2• 8 years ago

You’re overlooking the agency granted by real wealth!

The vulnerable needn’t be poor. They only need be situated where the exercise of your power could put them into a position to sell.

chr16• 8 years ago

The only thing wrong with vampires is that they unnecessarily kill people, if they used their amazing tallants productively (working as historians, spies, converting people into vampires, or just touring) they would easily earn enough money to buy more blood than they need. (though to be honest even considering their mistakes, they are a nice bunch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv568AzZ-i8)

ctack• 8 years ago

Slightly horrific and as other comments have suggested - quite dystopian, but the idea that they will surpass the need for actual blood - which they'd need to at scale and for many people ethically - that sounds pretty good.

marcusKral• 8 years ago

This path seems fundamentally regressive.

Gatsky• 8 years ago

Bloodtech. This is... dispiriting.

The massive concentration of wealth in a few people is going to fuck up the world. This is just the latest sign.

DoreenMichele3• 8 years ago

Bad Blood 2: The sequel to the Theranos debacle.

close048• 8 years ago

It's only a Theranos sequel if it's a fraud. But even if this is "for real" it's still deeply disturbing. Today...

And yet I have to wonder, would future generations see it that way? Was organ transplant considered deeply disturbing 2 centuries ago?

village-idiot6• 8 years ago

Baby boomers unexpectedly living to their low 80s has massively destabilized the economy of the US and the distribution of both wealth and income. Now imagine if the richest 20% could live to about 130.

tk75x• 8 years ago

The dystopian society and the crazy stuff ultra rich people do in the novel/show Altered Carbon is a direct result of people living much longer than "natural" which allows the wealth gap to widen to the point where the rich are literally living in the clouds.

nakedrobot22• 8 years ago

Another prescient episode from Silicon Valley already covered this horribly distopian idea.

amarant• 8 years ago

am I the only one who thinks this is pretty great? that ambrosia company seems pretty dodgy, but the field overall - who wouldn't wanna cure old age? surprised at all the negativity in this thread...

I mean, the blood is harvested today, but someday it's gonna be synthetically produced, probably. you gotta start somewhere!

jillesvangurp• 8 years ago

Nope, looking forward to having some quality of life and increased life span down the road courtesy of some cool biochemical cocktails, dna hackery, and ample supply of spare parts for things that are clearly at risk of needing replacement at some point.

bambax2• 8 years ago

who wouldn't wanna cure old age?

Anyone who has kids... or parents, for that matter.

chr16• 8 years ago

Are you answering to the question "who __would__ want to cure old age"? Because having kids or parents usually means that you don't want them to die ever.

sneak• 8 years ago

Remember that time someone made a healthier and cheaper food but made it a liquid and bottled it and they attacked him?

It seems there are like 3 or 4 things you can’t innovate on without being vilified as some out of touch, Mr Burns-style caricature.

Food is one. Blood of those younger than you seems to be another. Suggesting that jurisdiction shopping to avoid all possible compulsory-military-funding is a good thing is another.

I’m probably missing a few more. What else is a tradition that tampering with freaks people out on an irrational level? Probably something to do with daily routine like showering or sleeping or pooping or health maintenance.

lawlessone2• 8 years ago

Remember that time someone made a healthier and cheaper food

Are we talking about soylent? hasn't took off yet has it?

nakedrobot22• 8 years ago

Healthier? Citation needed.

dasil003• 8 years ago

If you name your company after a dystopian sci-fi movie then you should expect a strong reaction.

coldtea3• 8 years ago

am I the only one who thinks this is pretty great? that ambrosia company seems pretty dodgy, but the field overall - who wouldn't wanna cure old age?

...and solve overpopulation and unemployment by using young people as its raw resource in the process?

zero_intp• 8 years ago

you have found a trifecta of reasoning. What a brilliant idea!

downrightmike2• 8 years ago

soylent green is people

village-idiot6• 8 years ago

If it’s cheap, I’m cool with it. If it’s expensive it’ll accelerate the redistribution of wealth upward.

falcolas• 8 years ago

How about we focus our efforts and money on improving the quality of the lives we have today? Get rid of mental illnesses, pull everyone out of poverty, solve the cancer problem, clean up our planet so it's actually a desirable place to live. Make the worst quality of life on this planet something that people could happily spend multiple lifetimes in.

Once the minimum quality of life is at a point where a young someone from SV wouldn't mind living it (and, incidentally, knocking off 4 of the top ten causes of death), we focus our time, money, and intelligence into extending lifespans.

Of course, that won't happen. It's easier to throw money at re-selling plasma or stem cells than it is to actually improve people's lives.

lawlessone2• 8 years ago

Anyone over 35 with the necessary cash was eligible to receive two liters of plasma donated by young adults, which Ambrosia purchases from blood banks.

Is this taking blood from donations from people with more genuine needs?

pvarangot• 8 years ago

Yes, I mean I don't see how it couldn't be since everyone says blood donor supply is always lower than what's needed in almost any big city I've asked about.

_pmf_• 8 years ago

See: "The Blood Bankers: Tales from the Global Underground Economy" about US companies buying blood from Nicaraguans for 5 dollar per liter.

downrightmike2• 8 years ago

There are whole companies that buy a lot of the donations from Red Cross etc and sell it for a nice profit.

taneq• 8 years ago

Wow, it didn't even take exposing the Howard Families.

sesm• 8 years ago

In Yharnam, they produce more blood than alcohol, as the former is the more intoxicating

Hoasi• 8 years ago

This has all the ingredients for an upcoming debacle...

Startups Flock to Turn Young Blood into an Elixir of Youth

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