Longevity is just another way for rich men to be really boring

If you’ve ever visited central London, you might have come across the smart grid of roads behind Oxford Street which house the private doctors and dentists of London. Harley Street, Wimpole Street and their lesser known friends offer up the finest medical care - to those who can afford it. Everything is treated, everything is on offer. Medical care for serious illness, dental procedures and endless cosmetic interventions that won’t necessarily make you look younger (but run the risk of making you look like you’ve been pickled in something faintly hazardous) are on the table. 

Just like every other business owned by private equity and scanning the horizon for obscene profit, those which occupy the grand houses on this grid may pivot when they see an opportunity. For a while that meant dentists pushing veneers when the reality TV show craze for blindingly white teeth was at its peak, or skin clinics offering lip filler at a ‘bargain’ price because apparently that’s just a normal thing to do during a lunch break now. As I walked through this genteel area last week, I noticed a new kind of clinic had popped up. The first one I saw registered in my brain with a quiet “huh.” By the fourth, I was intrigued. Longevity clinics. Optimise the duration of your existence experience, enhance your viability, don’t let shortening telomeres define you, you pathetic life-limited loser! 

Your understanding of longevity was probably shaped by Bryan Johnson, the 48 year old man who says he’s aiming to live forever but makes the whole thing look unbelievably boring. He’s doing a lot to achieve banal immortality, including blood transfusions from his own son. In December, he announced that his biological age had stayed the same despite a year passing where the rest of us aged like disgusting normies. To me, he looks like a 48 year old man, just one with money and a penchant for six pack selfies. The money bit is crucial - pretty much every study into longevity says that being rich helps. According to one such study, the wealthy live 9 years longer on average than their less well off counterparts, and those extra years are markedly healthier. Of course Bryan’s in good shape, he has the cash to make it happen.