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I spent one month (Jan 6-Feb 5) at Vitalia in the special economic zone of Prospera(Wikipedia) (Prospera (website)) Prospera (YouTube) on the island of Roatan in Honduras. Vitalia (Vitalia city) was a two month workshop experience of life-extensionists and libertarians, which included four bi-weekly conferences. The theme of the entire event was "Making Death Optional". I was able to attend the first two conferences:
(1) Longevity & Human Improvement (Jan 14-20)
(2) Crypto Cities & Network States (Jan 29 to Feb 4)
I learned of the conference from the libertarian/cryonicist Jose Cordeiro, who was a presenter at the first conference. At breakfast one morning, Jose told me that 20 years ago in Argentina he had been an economics teacher for the new "anarcho-capitalist" President of Argentina, Javier Milei. He recently met with Milei, who told Jose that THE DEATH OF DEATH is his favorite book.
I spent considerable time in the first week preparing for my Bedford Day presentation for the Church of Perpetual Life (COPL) (updates on Covid-19 and Cryonics-related research) and was very pleased that this ZOOM event included about as many Vitalia participants as COPL participants, as well as by the fact that all of the technical challenges in making this event happened could be overcome. Many of the Vitalia participants were fascinated by the cryonics material.
One of the Vitalians is a designer who was eager to help Nikki Olson design a user-interface for her vital signs monitoring system. I told Nikki about this, and Nikki told me that she would not be ready for that kind of help for about eight months, but that she would contact the designer when needed.
The designer told me that she had worked two years at a greeting card company and was interested in creating an appropriate Bedford Day greeting card. I doubt that the market for such a card would justify the cost of producing it.
The first conference included many anti-aging researchers who actually appeared in person, including S. Jay Olshansky, Bryan Johnson, Kelsey Moody, "Reason",Aubrey de Grey, and Alejandro Ocampo. Ocampo is noteworthy for having pioneered partial re-programming with his ground-breaking 2016 article in CELL
Natalie Coles also presented at the conference about how she is continuing the work of her now cryopreserved husband, Steven Coles, by taking blood samples from super-centenarians. Steven Coles allowed samples to be taken from his brain after cryopresentation, and the results of this sampling will be in Greg Fahy's "soon to be published" brain paper. Natalie is currenty engaged to Aubrey de Grey, and the two have been living together at the conference.
Aubrey still has the same seven SENS damage areas, but he presented at the conference of new strategies for repairing that damage. He also presented on his plans for a new"Robust Mouse Rejuvenation" plan (RMR2) to build on and his already successful (but still uncompleted) $3 million RMR1. After 880 days of RMR1 nearly 85% of the males receiving all four treatments were still alive compared to less than 60% of the controls. About 65% of the females were still alive compared to just over 20% of the controls.
I was able to meet with Aubrey privately in his apartment, and bombard him with questions about the new strategies and the RMRs, a rare opportunity, indeed. Aubrey and Natalie are staying the full two months at Vitalia.
There were also many other presentations on longevity topics and related websites: acceleratedbio, pristineregenerativenexus, deciduoustx
There was also a presentation on the GARM clinic, which is able to offer advanced off-shore anti-aging therapies within Prospera.
I was able to visit the GARM clinic and avail myself of their immune-boosting IV injection, as well as the Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy which was included in the price.
One of the guys staying in my Villa told me he was connected with the Longevity Biotech Fellowship and that they were interested in involving me in the cryonics aspect of their program. They are already working with Emil Kendziorra.
On the bus ride to the GARM clinic I met a fellow working with CryoDAO who told me that they have been funding cryonics research to the tune of a couple of million dollars, which would make them the second largest funder of cryonics research. CryoDAO was started by Emil Kendziorra copying on the success of VitaDAO Vitalia was actually named after VitaDAO.
Some of the participants formed a biohacker's group where participants were able to purchase a Freestyle Libre 3 continuous glucose monitor to experiment on the effects of various foods, exercises, etc.
Based on the report of one of the group members, and on a study I found in PubMed, I decided to experiment with the effect Apple Cider Vinegar had on my blood glucose after my eating breakfast. The PubMed study showed dramatic effects of Apple Cider Vinegar on the fasting blood glucose of diabetics:
A free breakfast was included for all Vitalia participants, a wholesome meal during which I often met very interesting other Vitalians. I made breakfast my one meal of the day consuming 30 mL of Apple Cider Vinegar both before and after the meal. Perhaps because I am not a diabetic and perhaps because I was not testing fasting blood glucose, the results were negative in my case..
Just before the Longevity conference some of us not in the official program had an opportunity to make presentations on relevant subjects. I made a presentation on transplanting pig hearts and kidneys into humans as a means to overcome organ failure and live long enough to reach longevity escape velosity. I am attaching the PowerPoint of my presentation. One of the Vitalians was very impressed, and even accompanied me on my drive to the airport when I was departing so as to spend extra time with me.
Much of the second conference I attended, on Crypto Cities & Network States included an explanation as to why Prospera is so special and has so much potential. Despite the immense oil wealth in the Middle East there were no major financial centers because of Islamic Sharia law
Dubai broke with tradition, creating Special Economic Zones which are exempt from Sharia law, and enabling Dubai to become one of the world's leading financial centers
The founders of Prospera believe they have created a system of governance superior to all other special economic zones in the world as a vehicle for free market wealth creation. As an example, Prospera companies can choose Singaporean banking regulation, Japanese biotech regulation, or opt-out of regulation by purchasing expensive liability insurance.
THE JOURNAL OF SPECIAL JURISDICTIONS devoted issue II to the Honduran special economic zones
Some notables attending the second conference included Robin Hanson, Mac Davis, and Patri Friedman, the grandson of Milton Friedman and the son of David Friedman. Patri has been very active in the Seasteading movement, which has much in common with "pop-up cities".
Patri has also been a creator of Pronomos Capital a venture capital fund which has contributed to Prospera
Robin Hanson is an economist and Alcor member who spoke about what he believes are some of his most prominent contributions to economics and the relevance to Prospera. Robin spent much time after eating hanging-around his breakfast table speaking to different people. Robin vaguely remembered knowing me "35 years" ago, apparently forgetting our meeting less than ten years ago when he remembered me very well. Robin said his wife is still very hostile to cryonics, with a hostility that could affect his cryopreservation should he become terminal. He is counting on his friends to protect him from his wife.
The last time I met Mac Davis was at the Timeship property in Texas . He gave me some details on his company at the GARM clinic in Prospera offering the world's only gene therapy using plasmids. He managed to get seed funding from Peter Thiel to start his company "Mini Circle". (Mini Circle) which is afficliated with the GARM clinic.
I had a breakfast with Mac at Vitalia in which we discussed our surprisingly many overlapping interests. Although he has been offering follistatin plasmid therapy for quite a while (with clients such as Bryan Johnson and Patri Friedman) he plans to soon be offering Klotho and OSK (trimmed-down Yamanaka factors).
He believes that Greg Fahy should be giving Klotho to his rabbits to help with their recovery. During his presentation Mac spoke both about his therapies as well as about his libertarian motives for coming to Prospera as the most beneficial free-market environment for doing his work.
Despite all that I have written, much has been left out concerning all the connections I made and experiences I had during my month at Vitalia.