History and Longevity (with Will Eden)
Spencer Greenberg and Will Eden discuss history as a problem-solving tool, the impact of aging on complex systems like institutions and biology, and actionable insights on longevity, including intermittent fasting and specific compounds. They also explore perspectives on market efficiency, value investing, and the psychological forces driving market hype.
Deep Dive Analysis
13 Topic Outline
The Value and Relevance of Studying History
Historical Patterns of Empire Decay and US Overextension
Institutional Sclerosis and Special Interest Groups in Governance
Reinvention of Nations and the Commerce Clause's Impact
History as a Tool for Understanding Human Nature and Change
Aging as a Universal Problem for Complex Systems
Biological Mechanisms and Evolutionary Reasons for Aging
Promising Avenues in Longevity Research
Specific Compounds and Interventions for Healthspan
Intermittent Fasting and Hormesis as Stressors
The Efficient Market Hypothesis and Market Irrationality
Hype Cycles, Value Investing, and Current Market Valuations
Challenges and Considerations for Investing in China
7 Key Concepts
Institutional Sclerosis
This describes the process where organizations or societies become rigid, bogged down by rules and procedures, and resistant to change. It often sets in after an initial expansionary period, leading to inefficiency and difficulty in adapting to new challenges.
Commerce Clause (Reinterpretation)
Originally intended to allow the federal government to ensure free trade among states, its reinterpretation expanded federal power to regulate virtually any commerce crossing state lines. This significantly broadened the scope of federal government intervention in the economy, profoundly changing society.
Error and Damage Accumulation (Aging)
A model of aging suggesting that the body gradually accumulates errors and damage at a cellular and molecular level over time. These defects compound, leading to reduced efficiency in biological processes and ultimately, the decline associated with aging, following a hyper-exponential curve.
Hormesis
The concept that certain stressors, when applied in small or intermittent doses, can induce an adaptive response in biological systems, making them stronger or healthier. This contrasts with the idea that all stressors are inherently damaging and should be avoided, and is exemplified by exercise or fasting.
Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH)
A theory stating that asset prices fully reflect all available information, making it impossible to consistently 'beat the market' through active trading. It suggests that any attempt to find undervalued stocks is futile because their prices already incorporate all known data.
Value Investing
An investment strategy where investors seek out stocks that they believe are trading for less than their intrinsic value, often by analyzing a company's fundamentals like future cash flows. The goal is to buy assets at a discount to their true worth, expecting the market to eventually recognize their value.
Senolytics
A class of drugs designed to selectively kill senescent cells, which are cells that have stopped dividing but remain in the body, contributing to inflammation and aging. By clearing these 'zombie cells,' senolytics aim to improve healthspan and potentially extend lifespan.
10 Questions Answered
Studying history helps understand timeless human nature, identify persistent trends versus temporary anomalies, and provides a toolbox of past solutions for present-day problems. It also broadens perspective on human experience and challenges present-day assumptions.
While history offers valuable lessons and patterns, it's debated whether simply knowing history can save us from repeating it, as applying lessons often requires living through painful mistakes. Properly diagnosing problems is easier than solving them.
Empires often fall due to overextension, reaching beyond their capacity, and a slow update among leaders about their diminished capabilities. Fiscal crises, where massive debt leads to currency debasement and economic spirals, are also a near-universal factor.
Complex systems often experience 'institutional sclerosis,' where initial ad-hoc efficiency gives way to rigid rules and procedures that bog down progress. This makes it easy to add new structures but hard to subtract old ones, leading to inefficiency and vulnerability.
Humans age due to a hyper-exponential accumulation of errors and damage at the cellular level, where each successive error makes the system less efficient. This includes damage from environmental factors, the buildup of novel compounds the body can't process, and the body's evolutionary design prioritizing reproduction over extreme longevity.
Approaches that focus on solving aging as an engineering problem by dealing with the root causes of damage and byproducts in the body are considered most promising. This includes efforts to improve cellular repair mechanisms and remove accumulated cellular debris.
Many current compounds, like calorie restriction mimetics, often extend lifespan by 'slowing the rate of living,' which can come with undesirable side effects and may not improve healthspan. There isn't yet an unambiguous intervention that makes a 100-year-old feel 20.
Intermittent fasting, like other forms of hormesis, acts as a beneficial stressor on the body, potentially increasing healthspan and slightly extending lifespan without necessarily sacrificing performance. It encourages the body to dip into fat reserves and can reinvigorate cellular processes.
The EMH, which posits that market prices always reflect true value, is increasingly questioned due to phenomena like market hype, the consistent outperformance of certain sophisticated funds, and the observation that individual investors often make poor timing decisions despite market growth.
In a market with high valuations and low bond yields, a responsible long-term investor might consider focusing on 'value' companies that are closer to their fundamental floor rather than chasing hyped-up growth stocks. This strategy prioritizes stability and real business fundamentals over speculative gains.
22 Actionable Insights
1. Embrace History’s Toolbox
Study history to broaden your reference classes, especially in unprecedented times, as it helps identify persistent trends versus temporary anomalies and offers solutions for diagnosing and fixing current societal problems.
2. Continual Reinvention for Survival
For long-term survival, complex systems like companies or countries must continually reinvent themselves, a challenging but necessary process to avoid decline.
3. Prioritize Healthspan Over Lifespan
Focus on healthspan (quality of life and functionality) rather than just lifespan when considering anti-aging interventions, as people primarily desire to be healthy, not just live longer while in decline.
4. Implement Intermittent Fasting
Incorporate intermittent fasting into your routine, starting with a 16-hour fasting window and an 8-hour eating window (e.g., eating between noon and 8 pm), as it can improve health and performance without significant sacrifice.
5. Lifestyle Changes Over Drugs
Prioritize lifestyle changes like diet and exercise over drugs for health improvements, as drugs often compensate for issues that could be fixed naturally, and compliance with lifestyle changes is often a challenge.
6. Understand Market Hype Psychology
Be aware of psychological forces like FOMO, idolization, herd behavior, and recency bias that drive market hype and can lead to irrational valuations and investment decisions.
7. Invest in Index Funds
If you lack a clear advantage over the average market participant, invest in index funds to match market returns rather than attempting to beat the market and risking underperformance due to trading costs and taxes.
8. Seek Root Causes in Aging
Approach health and longevity with an engineering mindset, focusing on identifying and solving specific biological problems like removing accumulated byproducts and repairing damage at its root, rather than just slowing inevitable decline.
9. Recognize Institutional Sclerosis
Be aware that institutional sclerosis (increasing rules and procedures) can bog down complex systems, making them less adaptable and harder to change, often due to institutional creep and concentrated interest groups.
10. Avoid Overextension in Systems
Be wary of overextension in large systems (like countries or companies), as reaching beyond actual capacity often leads to decline and fiscal crises.
11. Challenge Assumptions with History
Use history to challenge assumptions about what is fundamental or permanent, recognizing the temporary and contingent nature of current societal solutions and structures.
12. Minimize Trading Costs & Taxes
Minimize active trading to avoid commissions and taxes, which systematically drag down returns below the market average, especially for individual investors.
13. Metformin for Blood Sugar
Consider Metformin if your blood sugar levels are starting to rise (e.g., fasting blood sugars in the 90s), especially if diet changes are difficult, though it’s generally not optimal to use drugs to replace lifestyle factors.
14. Support Mitochondrial Function
Explore compounds that improve mitochondrial function, as they may offer a plausible path to both increased functionality and slower aging, particularly for individuals experiencing dysfunction.
15. Avoid Telomere Lengthening
Avoid telomere-lengthening supplements, as telomeres may act as a backup fail-safe against cancer, and manipulating them might have unintended consequences.
16. Exercise as Beneficial Stressor
Engage in exercise as a beneficial stressor that, despite causing cellular stress, ultimately makes your body stronger and promotes health.
17. Investigate Senolytics
Investigate senolytics, a class of drugs that kill senescent cells, as they show promise in reducing chronic inflammation and potentially improving health and lifespan by clearing harmful accumulated cells.
18. Prioritize Cash-Flow Businesses
Prioritize investing in companies with strong cash flow or cash reserves, as they offer fundamental power and resilience when market hype dissipates.
19. Invest in Stable Sectors
For responsible long-term investing, consider profitable, stable sectors like consumer staples and utilities, which offer solid returns even if they don’t chase hype.
20. Vet ETFs Thoroughly
Always check the actual holdings and distribution of an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) to ensure it aligns with your investment goals and provides the specific market exposure you expect.
21. Consider China Investment Proxies
To gain exposure to the Chinese economy, consider investing in proxies such as its trading partners or companies involved in the flow of resources into and out of China, as direct investment can be difficult.
22. Extreme Caution with Rapamycin
Exercise extreme caution with Rapamycin; it’s a powerful immunosuppressant that profoundly affects metabolism and carries significant side effects, making it suitable only for investigational study or extreme biohacking.
9 Key Quotes
It's not like history exactly repeats, but it does rhyme.
Will Eden
The thing that brings down empires is usually some kind of crisis with their budget. It's usually fiscal.
Will Eden
No system is actually that stable. And it sort of comes back to there being these like somewhat universal tendencies towards the system not working.
Will Eden
Keeping a body alive is ultimately an engineering problem.
Will Eden
If you 100% cured all cancer, you would sort of increase expected lifespan by like a few years, because there's other things that will very likely kill you.
Will Eden
Slowing the rate of aging is slowing the rate of living. That's not what most people want.
Will Eden
It's a kind of the efficient market hypothesis of evolution, right? Well, yeah. Right. Like you, you, you really need some plausible reason to think that you're beating what evolution could have done naturally.
Will Eden
You are constantly getting cancers throughout your body all the time, but there's multiple fail-safes involved.
Will Eden
Long-term bonds are all risk, no return today.
An investor (quoted by Spencer Greenberg)
2 Protocols
Common Intermittent Fasting Schedule
Will Eden- Eat within an 8-hour window (e.g., from noon to 8 PM).
- Fast for 16 hours (e.g., from 8 PM until noon the next day).
Will Eden's Advanced Intermittent Fasting Schedule
Will Eden- Fast for approximately 20 to 22 hours most days.
- Consume one large meal per day, consisting of meat, various fat sources (e.g., coconut milk, olive oil, cheese, cream), and bulk from salads or steamed vegetables, along with nuts.