[HN Gopher] Why vampires live forever
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Why vampires live forever
        
       Author : machielrey
       Score  : 263 points
       Date   : 2026-02-11 15:50 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (machielreyneke.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (machielreyneke.com)
        
       | yashasolutions wrote:
       | very entertaining writing style
        
       | themarbz wrote:
       | Now this is the kind of content I come to Hacker News for.
        
         | uwagar wrote:
         | exactly
        
       | insin wrote:
       | > Appears to not age but also to never have been young
       | 
       | /me snorts
        
       | larsiusprime wrote:
       | Honestly, the surest sign of the existence of vampires to me
       | would be a class of investors with extremely anomalous discount
       | rates, suggesting that they are operating on inhumanly long time
       | horizons, combined with a particular interest in real estate, as
       | first documented in the field's seminal publication (Stoker,
       | 1897).
        
       | snvzz wrote:
       | If interested in rejuvenation, I would suggest investigating
       | LEVF's Robust Mouse Rejuvenation.
       | 
       | RMR1 done and shows promise, RMR2 started recently.
        
       | david927 wrote:
       | This is a fun story from the early 18th century if you haven't
       | read about it
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_of_St._Germain
        
         | david927 wrote:
         | And I don't want to add fuel to a strange fire, but in 1764
         | when Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote a letter to Beaumont regarding
         | the absurdity of belief despite evidence, he used this as an
         | example:
         | 
         |  _" If there is in this world a well-attested account, it is
         | that of vampires. Nothing is lacking: official reports,
         | affidavits of well-known people, of surgeons, of priests, of
         | magistrates; the judicial proof is most complete."_
        
           | dsr_ wrote:
           | "Don't be silly, Bob," said Mo. "Everybody knows vampires
           | don't exist."
           | 
           | -- first line of The Rhesus Chart, by cstross
        
         | kmeisthax wrote:
         | Wasn't this the guy going around building animate porcelain
         | dolls in suspiciously modern gothic-lolita dresses?
        
       | soiltype wrote:
       | Interesting... I first went to the linked recent post What the
       | Longevity Experts Don't Tell You. Sorry to be harsh: it was
       | nonsense. It just lists a few weird, unscientific behaviours of
       | John D Rockefeller and tries to draw lessons (to what end?
       | longevity? is Rockefeller still alive?) from them despite there
       | being no indication those behaviors even had any effect, let
       | alone positive impact on longevity. It also doesn't bring up
       | things "the longevity experts don't tell you," it's just
       | summaries of topics in a single biography.
       | 
       | Still I gave this article a shot. I don't understand what it's
       | doing. Like, one of the points about Thiel is that he destroyed
       | Gawker to cover up his vampirism. He actually destroyed Gawker to
       | cover up his relationship to Epstein, the pedophile and saboteur
       | of US social/economic integrity. Why put a silly spin on that? I
       | guess the entire thing is just a little joke... just doesn't feel
       | like it belongs on the HN front page. I had higher expectations.
        
         | JimmyBuckets wrote:
         | Also weird it didn't mention Peter Attia's connection to
         | Epstein outright. It did this weird tongue-in-cheek thing for a
         | few paragraphs referencing Epstein only in the foot notes. I
         | still can't tell whether what I read was actually praising
         | these guys or extremely subtly sardonic.
        
         | dgacmu wrote:
         | It's not nonsense, it's satire. I was laughing most of the way
         | through both of these articles.
         | 
         | The Rockefeller one literally points out that the guy did all
         | this weird stuff and then his son, who didn't, outlived him.
        
         | FarmerPotato wrote:
         | Vampires are a kind of pedophile.
        
       | crmd wrote:
       | I hope the old vampire Dons give some fashion advice to the new
       | guys, e.g. "A vampire doesn't wear Arc'teryx".
        
         | achenet wrote:
         | Yes, if there's one thing I reproach Mark Zuckerberg, it's not
         | that his company will occasionally enable genocides [0], but
         | his crimes against fashion and good taste.
         | 
         | [0] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-
         | faceb...
        
       | eviks wrote:
       | Hope the author has some garlic silverware lying around after
       | such a revealing article
        
         | machielrey wrote:
         | I realize now that I might be in trouble. Thanks everyone
        
           | amarant wrote:
           | Cute. But I saw through your thin veil Mr Tepes. The irony of
           | bragging about your opsec and revealing your true identity
           | for leverage in the same sentence is considerable.
           | 
           | Anyway, I hope your son, Adrian, is doing ok. I fondly
           | remember hunting your horrors of the night with him
           | 
           | -T.B.
        
           | rbanffy wrote:
           | I am deeply offended by someone associating Thiel with
           | vampires. That idea is completely absurd. Vampires are famous
           | for being handsome, interesting, elegant, well educated, and
           | having impeccable taste for fashion. Thiel has none of these
           | traits.
        
       | OutOfHere wrote:
       | The article misses the simplest technique:
       | 
       | Just donate blood as often as possible. This results in a loss of
       | cholesterol, other bad lipoproteins, excess iron in those who
       | have it, and PFAS toxins. It is frequency-dependently associated
       | with longevity.
       | 
       | Whole blood donation avoids the plastic lining of plasma
       | donations, with the latter undesirably transferring unwanted
       | microplastics into the body.
       | 
       | For those with sufficient spare money, instead of donating blood,
       | just get various blood tests every other week, additively
       | comparable to a donation if the tests are substantial.
       | 
       | Granted, this is antithetical to being a vampire, but you will
       | still have to make up for it by supplementing sufficient healthy
       | nutrients, e.g. electrolytes, ferric pyrophosphate, protein, etc.
       | to allow your body to quickly restore the lost blood.
       | 
       | As a disclaimer, do not ever donate blood if you use narcotics,
       | disallowed drugs, injectable drugs, or have unsafe intimate
       | practices, or might have chagas or TB or even long Covid.
        
         | kadushka wrote:
         | Is there any evidence?
        
           | popcorncowboy wrote:
           | Let me google that for you
           | https://www.perplexity.ai/search/is-there-any-evidence-
           | that-...
        
         | fyrabanks wrote:
         | does this imply that you're just giving shitty blood to people
         | that need life saving procedures?
        
           | overfeed wrote:
           | > does this imply that you're just giving shitty blood...
           | 
           | 2 questions: is there any other kind? If there were, ate
           | people requiring transfusion in a position to make demands to
           | the donors (not vendors)
        
           | munk-a wrote:
           | Bad blood is better than no blood!
           | 
           | Also, I'm not certain how much they treat blood, but I
           | wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being a purification
           | system sort of similar to Dialysis where you rely on an
           | external machine for removing impurities.
        
           | mrguyorama wrote:
           | The microplastic filled blood will manage to oxygenate their
           | brain and other organs and save their life, and then they can
           | donate it on to the next person in need.
           | 
           | Feels a little homeopathy... How many people can we put the
           | same blood through?
        
         | drewg123 wrote:
         | So maybe they were on to something with leeches?
        
         | koakuma-chan wrote:
         | Every time I do blood work I almost faint.
        
           | janeerie wrote:
           | I used to have this problem until I was given the tip to
           | tense various muscles throughout my body during the process.
           | Do not listen to the nurses who tell you to relax!
        
         | 1970-01-01 wrote:
         | >It is frequency-dependently associated with longevity.
         | 
         | Paper where more frequent cycles in women correlate to longer
         | lifetimes? That would have to be true if this were true.
        
           | Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
           | I'm assuming you're referring to blood loss from
           | menstruation? That's typically only 30-40 mL (1-1.5 fluid
           | ounces, about a shot glass).
           | 
           | Nowhere close to the amount given during a donation.
        
             | 1970-01-01 wrote:
             | Heavy bleeders would be in the 100-200ml range. This group
             | should correlate with longevity.
        
       | jamilton wrote:
       | >The public begins to associate blood transfusion with eccentric
       | billionaires rather than with undead predators. This is a
       | critical narrative shift.
       | 
       | Not much of a shift...
        
         | kps wrote:
         | You misunderstand. Coming out as vampires is meant to _improve_
         | their reputation.
        
       | _joel wrote:
       | Why am I reading this in Freddie Mercury's signing voice?
        
         | layer8 wrote:
         | In that version, there can be only one.
        
         | block_dagger wrote:
         | Although better known for his singing voice, it's true that the
         | voice he used when cryptographically signing private messages
         | was also impressive.
        
       | jagged-chisel wrote:
       | Completely OT: In the link "what the longevity experts don't tell
       | you"[1] I found this:
       | 
       | "As a devout Baptist, he couldn't use playing cards..."
       | 
       | And I'm wondering if I missed something in my Baptist upbringing.
       | I have long since removed myself from any semblance of the Church
       | and manage my own relationship with faith and any related higher
       | beings, so it's more a curiosity than pertinent.
       | 
       | 1 - https://machielreyneke.com/blog/longevity-lessons/
        
         | jvalencia wrote:
         | As a devout Baptist minister, this is likely about one of two
         | things, avoiding the appearance of evil (gambling, 1 Thess 5:22
         | - Abstain from every form of evil), and giving up something for
         | the sake of others (gambling addictions within the church, Rom
         | 4:21 - or do anything that causes your brother to stumble).
         | 
         | The reality is that most churches recognize that they were too
         | legalistic in the past, and so now address things like gambling
         | more directly, and are perfectly ok with playing cards. FWIW
         | YMMV :-)
        
           | prometheus76 wrote:
           | I was under the impression that the injunction against
           | playing cards was because of their proximity to tarot/occult
           | practices. Mormons had the same injunction against playing
           | cards until the 80s, when the teaching was no longer
           | promulgated. Speaking as a former Mormon...
        
             | jvalencia wrote:
             | I think that's not wrong. Same principle, different sin...
             | it looks like gambling, or the occult, or...
        
             | impossiblefork wrote:
             | Here in Sweden, where we also have free churches such as
             | Baptists, Laestadians etc., the concern was definitely
             | about gambling.
        
         | mikestew wrote:
         | I knew plenty of Midwestern Baptists that didn't participate in
         | the triple crown of no-nos: dancing, drinking, and gambling.
         | And cards aren't necessarily gambling, but cards are the bricks
         | that pave the road to such evil. It's guilt-by-association (and
         | some will tell you, wrongly, that playing cards are an
         | outgrowth of tarot cards and the like), but there ya go. Oddly,
         | I knew plenty of Baptists that played Yahtzee, which involves
         | dice, and that seemed acceptable. Never minding that the Roman
         | soldiers cast lots ("dice") for Jesus' clothing. :-)
        
           | larsiusprime wrote:
           | This is actually how the popular Texas dominoes game of "42"
           | was invented. It's similar to Spades and other trick-taking
           | games with bids and trumps, but it's played with dominoes,
           | not cards, and therefore it's okay :) Two boys from a Baptist
           | family who got in trouble for playing cards came up with it.
           | 
           | http://texas42.net/42Article.html
        
         | dfxm12 wrote:
         | Consider some writing contemporary to Rockefeller (there is a
         | section on cards):
         | https://baptisthistoryhomepage.com/social.amusements.willis....
         | 
         | Consider that Titan was written maybe 100 years removed from
         | the events and you're reading a secondhand telling of it from a
         | blog. Maybe there is more context in the book if you're really
         | curious, or maybe the context was lost from Rockefeller's time
         | to the book, or from the book to the blogpost.
         | 
         | Consider a few more things: If you ask 10 Baptists about
         | something secondary to scripture like this, you may get
         | different answers from different people, especially if they are
         | from different eras, as religion changes over time. As another
         | example, some Catholics grew up hearing the mass in Latin.
         | 
         | It's funny though, Rockefeller appeared devout enough to
         | understand that gambling was a sin. Rockefeller appeared to
         | believe in an omniscient God. Did he really think his square
         | counters would fool said omniscient God? People trying to find
         | such loopholes in Religion is always fascinating to me. Of
         | course, it could have all been a show.
        
           | ceejayoz wrote:
           | > Did he really think his square counters would fool said
           | omniscient God?
           | 
           | My favorite example of this is the string of fishing line
           | around Manhattan.
           | 
           | https://www.npr.org/2019/05/13/721551785/a-fishing-line-
           | enci...
        
             | mrguyorama wrote:
             | The difference is that it is an explicit belief of most
             | jewish groups that God put these "clever" gimmicks into the
             | rules on purpose, God wants you to look for them and be
             | rewarded for looking for them, and God thinks the way
             | jewish people debate about rules is awesome, and that
             | "clever" workarounds are just the best.
             | 
             | Contrast this with my Catholic tradition which insists that
             | if I get cheeky with God I should expect to be slapped back
             | down. Jesus seems nifty though, so it's a tradeoff.
             | 
             | Also, I'm lying. Catholics had no problems playing dumb
             | games with "The rules" to eat beavers when they weren't
             | supposed to eat "meat" and also fish aren't "meat" to this
             | day. We're fun like that.
        
       | u1hcw9nx wrote:
       | >They drink blood because their own blood accumulates factors
       | that accelerate aging, and they need to periodically dilute it.
       | Feeding isn't nutrition. It's dialysis.
       | 
       | This seems to be the emerging consensus. When you get older your
       | metabolism creates all kinds of crap that circulates in the
       | blood.
       | 
       | You would like to have boosted kidneys parallel to real ones that
       | can detect and remove all the slightly wrong proteins.
        
         | johnisgood wrote:
         | Are there any reasons for this to work on non-vampires? :D
        
           | delecti wrote:
           | That was my thought as well. At least naively, it seems to
           | follow that regularly donating blood might have health
           | benefits. A typical donation is half a liter, and a person
           | has about 5 liters of blood, so donating should in theory
           | remove about 10% of the crap you've got circulating, right?
           | 
           | Edit: You can donate every 2 months, so donating as often as
           | possible would roughly halve the crud every year (0.9^6 ~=
           | 0.53, ignoring the natural increase over time).
        
             | johnisgood wrote:
             | Yeah, that is donating, now I wonder donating AND receiving
             | (from a healthy individual). :D
        
               | dylan604 wrote:
               | Why do you think Gavin Belson had a blood bag? This has
               | been a trope for a while. They even had blood bags in the
               | Fury Road movie, but that was more of a continuous supply
               | than just trying to refresh like Gavin. I don't think
               | using movie tropes in a discussion on vampires is out of
               | line here
        
             | u1hcw9nx wrote:
             | I don't think it's very effective.
             | 
             | It's your metabolism that produces that junk with
             | increasing ratio of stuff that you need. If you just remove
             | blood, the ratio of good stuff to bad stuff does not
             | change. Same with kidney filtering if they can't recognize
             | the difference.
             | 
             | Blood transfusion from younger person gives you blood with
             | better ratio.
        
               | delecti wrote:
               | The article includes a citation that explicitly states
               | the opposite. Specifically citation 20 from the section
               | "The Twist" (which is itself all about this idea):
               | 
               | > [20] Mehdipour, M. et al. "Rejuvenation of three germ
               | layers tissues by exchanging old blood plasma with
               | saline-albumin." Aging 12(10), 8790-8819, 2020. The UC
               | Berkeley team found that diluting old blood plasma with
               | saline and albumin produced rejuvenating effects
               | comparable to young blood -- suggesting the mechanism is
               | removing pro-aging factors rather than adding youth
               | factors. This was, at the time of publication, the
               | strongest evidence that old blood is the problem, not
               | that young blood is the solution.
               | 
               | Maybe regularly donating blood would have more negative
               | effects from losing good stuff than positive effects from
               | losing bad stuff, or maybe not. There is evidence that it
               | could be a net positive though.
               | 
               | And even aside from the buildup of crud due to normal
               | aging, environmental crud (nano/microplastics, PFAS, etc)
               | is not produced by the body. It's still not totally
               | settled science whether all of those things have negative
               | effects, but regular blood donation would help clear it
               | out, at least a little.
        
               | FarmerPotato wrote:
               | I was waiting for someone to consider the idea of
               | synthetic dilutants.
               | 
               | But a further horror is: you're dumping your crud on the
               | person getting your transfusion? I guess it's better than
               | dying in ER.
        
               | delecti wrote:
               | Yeah, unless your blood is significantly more cruddy than
               | average, the recipient shouldn't really care that you had
               | ulterior motives behind donating.
        
               | u1hcw9nx wrote:
               | The article confirms what I just wrote. Albumins are
               | proteins. If you add more albumins, the ratio changes.
               | 
               | dilution = change of ratio. Just giving blood is not
               | dilution.
        
             | RajT88 wrote:
             | 2 months for whole blood IIRC. You can do every 2 weeks for
             | platelets, but I am not sure if that removes the crud or
             | not. There's other donations with varying frequency (red,
             | plasma, etc.).
        
             | toast0 wrote:
             | > it seems to follow that regularly donating blood might
             | have health benefits
             | 
             | It's pretty effective if you have excess iron
             | (hemochromatosis) and your local vampires accept your
             | donation; some don't because a donation where you get a
             | significant benefit isn't a donation for the sole reason of
             | helping others (and a free cookie). In that case,
             | traditional bloodletting may be required.
        
             | robocat wrote:
             | In New Zealand, you are stopped at 75 (or 81 if given an
             | exemption) assuming you started donating before 71.
             | 
             | You can't start donating blood after 71.
             | 
             | From age section: https://www.nzblood.co.nz/become-a-
             | donor/am-i-eligible/detai...
        
         | glitchc wrote:
         | To reframe the argument, it's more likely that mechanisms for
         | clearing cellular debris become less effective with age.
        
       | jyscao wrote:
       | Big if true :P
        
       | solidasparagus wrote:
       | > Here's what's genuinely interesting.
       | 
       | That's my current AI detector smell.
       | 
       | > He discontinued the blood exchange after data showed "no
       | benefits." A suspicious person might note that a vampire would
       | say exactly this after the media got too interested.
       | 
       | I don't think it's the media (clearly the younger generations are
       | media friendly), it's probably pressure from the older vamps.
        
         | ZoomZoomZoom wrote:
         | > You know what else is far-seeing? A creature that has been
         | alive for centuries.
         | 
         | Well, hello there!
        
         | sgt wrote:
         | Yeah, that does sound pretty AI-ish / marketing-bloggy. It's
         | not wrong, but it has a few classic "AI vibes". If you want, I
         | can........oh no!!!!!!
         | 
         | NO CARRIER
        
       | stared wrote:
       | > Increased sun exposure was associated with an older appearance
       | and accelerated with age (p  0.015), as was a history of outdoor
       | activities and lack of sunscreen use.
       | 
       | Bahman Guyuron et al., "Factors Contributing to the Facial Aging
       | of Identical Twins" (2009)
       | https://gwern.net/doc/longevity/2009-guyuron.pdf
        
       | cushpush wrote:
       | Fantastic. Several halloweens ago I wore vampire fangs and told a
       | beautiful girl at a concert that I worked at the local blood
       | bank. She said "yeah?" and I followed up with, "would you like to
       | make a donation?"
        
         | mannanj wrote:
         | Did she make a donation?
        
         | koakuma-chan wrote:
         | Smooth
        
       | koakuma-chan wrote:
       | > The Suspects Peter Thiel
       | 
       | Has anyone tried garlic on him?
       | 
       | > Vampires don't drink blood because young blood contains an
       | elixir. They drink blood because their own blood accumulates
       | factors that accelerate aging, and they need to periodically
       | dilute it.
       | 
       | I don't think this makes sense. Our bodies do not use the same
       | blood forever.
        
         | groby_b wrote:
         | > I don't think this [ed:periodical dilution] makes sense. Our
         | bodies do not use the same blood forever.
         | 
         | You might want to read up on chaperone-mediated autophagy, and
         | how that declines over time. There's a point to be made that
         | yes, in old age we collect things in our blood that don't
         | belong.
         | 
         | It might not be solvable through dilution, but it's not like we
         | get a full blood change every 5K miles either.
        
           | smegger001 wrote:
           | as someone that donates plasma twice weekly I wonder what
           | health effects of removing and filtering the blood regularly
           | has if accumulation of byproducts is a major issue
        
             | jaggederest wrote:
             | I believe research has shown that blood and plasma donors
             | have mild positive benefits.
        
         | glitchc wrote:
         | Not the same blood, but dead cell matter does accumulate in
         | plasma over time. The body has active mechanisms that perform
         | cleaning: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7392086/
        
         | sgt wrote:
         | Imagine showing up to a meeting with Thiel wearing a huge
         | garlic and onion necklace.
        
           | koakuma-chan wrote:
           | "What important truth do very few people agree with you on?"
           | 
           | "Garlic"
        
         | 0x4e wrote:
         | Maybe garlic alludes to the working class.
        
         | maerF0x0 wrote:
         | The replication process makes worse and worse copies over time.
         | Plus the cleanup crew gets confused and weak. Each bit of aging
         | makes the process of keeping you young work less well, and
         | hence you age more + faster.
        
         | ASalazarMX wrote:
         | Who knew we could coexist with vampires if we give each some
         | kind of dialysis machine? Imagine the kind of cultural works
         | someone with centuries of experience could create. Imagine a
         | vampire historian!
        
         | observationist wrote:
         | This is actually one of the mechanisms behind "blood swaps"
         | done by the rich and weird. Donating blood frequently also
         | reduces various accumulated "factors" that reduce kidney
         | stress, encourage healthy new blood, and is overall beneficial
         | to health.
         | 
         | Various other mechanisms can improve how effective your body is
         | at recycling cells, encouraging autophagy and filtering things
         | in the blood. There are a whole suite of various supplements
         | and medicines that work in this system.
         | 
         | As undead, though, vampires no longer produce new living blood,
         | so require fresh blood of the living to restore lost function.
         | Or something.
         | 
         | I guess that'd make Bryan Johnson the ultimate thrall?
        
           | password4321 wrote:
           | 20161027
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12809722#12810990 Anti-
           | Aging Startup Raises $116M With Bezos Backing
           | 
           | 20170113 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13395478
           | Questionable "Young Blood" Transfusions Offered in U.S. As
           | Anti-Aging Remedy
           | 
           | 20170421
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14163395#14164470 Mice
           | treated with a protein from umbilical cord plasma showed
           | improved memory
           | 
           | 20170521 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBA0AH-LSbo Silicon
           | Valley S04E05 The Blood Boy
           | 
           | 20170602 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14470314 An
           | anti-ageing startup is offering transfusions of blood from
           | young people
           | 
           | 20170825 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15102304 Some
           | wealthy people are injecting blood from teenagers to gain
           | 'immortality'
           | 
           | 20180120 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16194413
           | Clinical trial finds blood-plasma infusions for Alzheimer's
           | safe, promising
           | 
           | 20180907 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17929462
           | Startups Flock to Turn Young Blood into an Elixir of Youth
           | 
           | 20190117 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18929943 Blood
           | transfusion startup Ambrosia is now up and running
           | 
           | 20190221 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19213938 FDA
           | warning brings young-blood transfusion company to a halt
           | 
           | 20191108 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21484203
           | Ambrosia, the Young Blood Transfusion Startup, Is Quietly
           | Back in Business (0 comments)
           | 
           | 20230817
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37163684#37164170 Older
           | mouse brains rejuvenated by protein found in young blood
        
         | jimnotgym wrote:
         | > Has anyone tried garlic on him?
         | 
         | Or indeed daylight
         | 
         | I was going to suggest some other vampire remedies, but I was
         | worried Palantir will scan this and tell ICE.
        
       | boutell wrote:
       | Flawless logic!
       | 
       | I have a spoiler-tastic fan theory about the movie Marty Supreme
       | that is apropos here.
        
       | stuaxo wrote:
       | Early chatgpt really did not like it when I asked if Peter Thiel
       | was a vampire.
        
         | mystraline wrote:
         | It got very "mad" at me. It was funniest thing all day.
         | 
         | Thanks for the recommended chuckle.
        
       | firefoxd wrote:
       | I was hoping he would provide some insight about why they avoid
       | the sun. From observation, thiel looks like he is getting too
       | much sun, or at least his skin has been reengineered like
       | Alucard. While Johnson is just cake [0].
       | 
       | Side note: for once, I'm enjoying a heavily AI assisted article.
       | 
       | [0]: you'll have to find that reference on your own.
        
       | prometheus76 wrote:
       | Interesting that the author didn't mention anything about stem
       | cell injections. Those have been in vogue among the elite for
       | decades (millennia?).
        
         | dylan604 wrote:
         | How could it be millenia? Have we been able to isolate stem
         | cells that long, or are you suggesting feasting on placenta as
         | suitable?
        
         | FarmerPotato wrote:
         | Yeah... and anytime the narrative switches from transfusion to
         | blood-sucking, I object "but what about stomach acid?" Bodies
         | break stuff down first.
        
       | lbrito wrote:
       | Fun read but I stopped after detecting AI:
       | 
       | "The young blood doesn't add youth. It removes age."
       | 
       | "Feeding isn't nutrition. It's dialysis."
       | 
       | Etc. Why is LLM so enamored with the "Its not x, its Y" idiom?
       | Its so ridiculously overused its almost comical
        
         | doodpants wrote:
         | The flaw in trying to detect AI by its use of particular idioms
         | is that it would have learned these idioms from its training
         | corpus, which consists of writings from actual human beings.
         | 
         | In other words, some people actually write like this.
        
           | johnmwilkinson wrote:
           | It's not that people don't write like this, it's the over-
           | usage and general tone.
        
             | alex_young wrote:
             | It's not that "I can detect AI" posts sound more templated
             | than the writing they're critiquing, it's the clankers are
             | learning from it and adapting.
        
               | uwagar wrote:
               | its not that i cant detect your AI detection, its just
               | that i cant watch you quietly do it.
        
           | lbrito wrote:
           | You're absolutely right!
           | 
           | I have a friend that has used ems all his professional life
           | and is livid that they're now a telltale for AI. So yeah,
           | false positives.
        
             | lionkor wrote:
             | Its not just a telltale sign. Its a fact.
        
             | FarmerPotato wrote:
             | Include the Gen Xers who read The Mac Is Not A Typewriter
             | in the 90s or were merely into fonts.
             | 
             | Heck, anyone used to a word processor that automatically
             | changes dash dash into em-dash.
             | 
             | There's a lot of us that knew how to use em-dash.
        
           | therobots927 wrote:
           | Key word here being "some" people. Not nearly at high enough
           | frequency that this way of talking was noticeable before. AI
           | uses this pattern CONSTANTLY and it's very fucking
           | irritating.
        
             | achenet wrote:
             | Have you ever met human beings that constantly reuse a
             | certain idiom/figure of speech/linguistic pattern?
             | 
             | The valley girl using "like" every other word, for example?
             | 
             | Or I had a colleague who would use the expression "we can
             | say" (in French, because we were speaking in French)
             | basically every couple sentences for a bit.
             | 
             | Humans _also_ repeat speech /linguistic patterns, therefore
             | "repetition of the same pattern" is not sufficient to mark
             | text as produced by AI :)
        
               | lbrito wrote:
               | Yes but there are a lot more "idiom personalities" in
               | humans (you just mentioned several) than there is in AI.
               | Basically every English-language interaction with AI
               | anywhere in the world produces more or less the same
               | argot and style. Its like (heh) we're all talking to the
               | same valley girl stereotype.
        
         | machielrey wrote:
         | Thank you for your feedback - I will pass it on to my
         | ghostwriter.
        
         | downboots wrote:
         | It isn't an idiom. It's antithesis.
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_of_speech
        
           | FarmerPotato wrote:
           | It is/was common in scam newsletters. My trained scam alert
           | now matches AI output...
        
         | xutopia wrote:
         | Hemingway writes like that. Hemingway editor encourages that
         | kind of style.
        
       | ceayo wrote:
       | I'm not really sure if the author (i.e. generative language
       | model) is being serious or being sarcastic...
        
       | gpderetta wrote:
       | Time to break the Masquerade it seems.
        
       | amarant wrote:
       | I think we're witnessing a schism within the vampire community.
       | By the end of the article, the author is less than subtle about
       | being Dracula, and is trying to use the respect his name no doubt
       | commands among vampires to get the unruly youth(relatively
       | speaking) to get their shit together. This article is a warning
       | to Thiel and Johnson. Dracula sees you, and he does not approve
       | of what he sees.
        
       | mac3n wrote:
       | see also Floyd Kemske, "Human Resources: A Corporate Nightmare"
       | 
       | https://archive.org/details/HumanResourcesPdf
       | 
       | > Corporate management is the use of humans as resources. So is
       | vampirism.
       | 
       | >Biomethods, Inc. is a struggling biotechnology company whose
       | venture capital group is growing tired of pumping in new blood
       | every quarter.
        
         | FarmerPotato wrote:
         | Future: Peter Thiel takes lead to rebrand VC as Vampire
         | Capital...
        
       | mlsu wrote:
       | Love this concrete interpretation. The symbolic one is maybe more
       | interesting:
       | 
       | Vampires:
       | 
       | - Consume the life force of the living to sustain themselves
       | 
       | - Are totally isolated and perverted from any kind of human
       | community
       | 
       | - Have no family, no community ties
       | 
       | - Unable to feel love, warmth, connection with any human
       | 
       | - Must avoid spending time in the virtuous natural world
       | (daylight, sunlight) and must instead be cordoned off indoors or
       | in darkness, they do not live as most natural things do.
       | 
       | - Are kind of fallen/perverted; at one point, they were human,
       | but they failed at being human (for instance: unbaptized,
       | excommunicated, murderous, etc) and so were forced into exile
       | often due to their own choice to live sinfully
       | 
       | Billionaires:
       | 
       | - cannot become a billionaire without thousands/millions of
       | regular non-billionaires siphoning money (== time, == life force)
       | upwards
       | 
       | - when they become a billionaire they are forced to be distanced
       | from their community/family of normal people; middle class people
       | are never "regular friends" with billionaires
       | 
       | - either their normal family/friends are 'bitten/infected'
       | (wealth inheritance) or cut-off
       | 
       | - often are profoundly isolated on a personal level (are they
       | talking to me for my money or for me?)
       | 
       | - often the direct cause of or at least complicit in the
       | destruction of the natural world (i.e. cut off from sunlight;
       | unnatural)
       | 
       | - often must make unethical or immoral choices to catapult
       | themselves to wealth/powers (fallen, sinful)
        
       | austinjp wrote:
       | > Stoker, a theatre manager with no medical background, somehow
       | described the basic mechanism of heterochronic parabiosis
       | 
       | Just to pick a nit...
       | 
       | Stoker's story was inspired by "The Vampyre" by physician John
       | Polidori, who doubtless knew whatever his contemporary medics
       | knew about blood.
       | 
       | Polidori, Lord Byron, and Mary Shelley told scary stories to each
       | other by Lake Geneva in 1816, the "year without a summer". It
       | couldn't get more gothic.
       | 
       | https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-poet-the-physician-...
        
       | giraffe_lady wrote:
       | Something I've wondered for a long time: Can a vampire enter your
       | home uninvited if they are a cop with a warrant?
        
         | FarmerPotato wrote:
         | I first read that as "cop without a warrant". Sign of the
         | times.
        
       | sgt101 wrote:
       | The novels Blindsight & Echopraxis by Peter Watts have a nice
       | vampire sub-plot... basically his world has vampires which have
       | been revived from the fossil record. They are posited to have
       | gone extinct in recent times, but before then were human's key
       | predator, keeping our populations strongly in check and then
       | having to hibernate for decades to allow the breeding to provide
       | new meat!
       | 
       | He's super interested in brain disorders and spins a good story
       | about the trade offs of a terrible reaction to right angles in
       | exchange for savant like powers of perception.
        
         | vict7 wrote:
         | I have not read Echopraxis yet, but I thoroughly enjoyed
         | Blindsight. Some very thought-provoking concepts in that book.
         | 
         | The idea that vampires needed to take "anti-Euclideans" and the
         | way the ship was constructed to avoid generating right angles
         | were some great details.
        
           | Baeocystin wrote:
           | Just a heads up, don't go in to Echopraxia expecting it to
           | feel like Blindsight. When I first read it, I was actually
           | pretty disappointed overall, and a few of my friends had
           | similar reactions.
           | 
           | Over a couple of years a few re-reads, though, I've come to
           | enjoy it perhaps even more that Blindsight, but in a
           | completely different way. It fills out a lot of the posits
           | opened in the first novel, without coming to specific
           | conclusions, but it gives you a lot to think about.
        
         | red75prime wrote:
         | I can't believe I haven't seen this yet:
         | https://blindsight.space/memories/
        
           | sgt101 wrote:
           | It never occurred to me to see if there was a film!
           | 
           | Mind you even more amazing I was on youtube yesterday and a
           | short film showing the first chapter of the brand new book
           | (published really recently) that I was reading popped up.
           | 
           | Now I see that there is not only that film (in the DUST
           | series) but also a miniseries someone has made...
           | 
           | https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=antimemetics+di.
           | ..
        
         | ceejayoz wrote:
         | He even did a full academic-style presentation about the
         | vampires that's on YouTube.
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEOUaJW05bU
        
       | bazillion wrote:
       | "But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the
       | Son of man be." (Matthew 24:37)
       | 
       | More and more, you are seeing what occurred in the time of Noah
       | become commonplace to talk about under the guise of technology.
       | In Noah's day, there was a hybridization program to dilute the
       | blood of man to prevent the coming of the Messiah, but Noah was
       | "perfect in his generations", or not part of the hybrid lines
       | branching off of humanity. And now, what is old has become new
       | again.
       | 
       | The article might address the topic in satire, but there is a
       | truth that is being touched on in it that is hard to look at --
       | the use [devouring of, injection of, swapping out of,
       | ritualization of, etc.] human blood and tissue is happening right
       | under our noses, and it's nothing new. The vampires lore did not
       | just come out of some sort of novel work of fiction or a
       | novelization of a fable, but is rooted in something that is very,
       | very real. Vampire-like beings existed in the pre-flood
       | (antediluvian) days, but now only exist in spirit after their
       | bodies were destroyed by the flood. The spirits, desiring to be
       | embodied, now go about the rituals of what once created them all
       | over again, so that we might have a new generation of their brand
       | of evil come forth.
       | 
       | What you're witnessing on a large scale through global politics
       | is the public-facing humiliation ritual of mankind being carried
       | out by the fallen angels and those under them that long sought
       | our destruction:                  1) The epstein file information
       | showing all sorts of satanic/luciferian references, as well as
       | possible cannibalism        2) Xi and Putin discussing organ
       | harvesting benefits (implying an underlying focus on it)
       | 3) Congressional disclosure of inter-dimensional beings existing
       | and being unexplainable.        4) The saturation of things that
       | would have been considered unabased debauchery in generations
       | past being put into every facet of culture as if coordinated
       | 
       | If you even give credence to _one_ of the things I listed, then
       | you 're keenly aware that it's nearly impossible to talk to
       | anyone about that topic unless they've self-selected into a
       | social group that already believes that that thing is wrong.
       | Others embrace one or more of the topics as a positive thing,
       | such as welcoming the idea of inter-dimensional beings, or
       | furthering human lifespans through genomic editing, or even just
       | promoting the type of debauchery that would have had entire
       | cities leveled in Old Testament times.
       | 
       | But, this has all been prophesied to happen, and is happening
       | exactly as it is spoken of. The truth is being suppressed, even
       | within ones own mind, because a person of the world of today does
       | not love the truth. There is only one way to enter in to the
       | truth, which is to begin seeking the person whose very name is
       | Faithful and True (Revelation 19:11). According to the following
       | verses, to not do so would lead one into a delusion from which
       | there is no escape:
       | 
       | "The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of
       | Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all
       | unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did
       | not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And
       | for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they
       | should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did
       | not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness." (2
       | Thessalonians 2:9-12)
        
       | otikik wrote:
       | Nicely put, I hope you have very potent solar lamps at home
        
       | sandworm101 wrote:
       | Vampire therapy is real. Give an old person an infusion from a
       | closely-matched teenager and they improve by almost every metric.
       | This isnt speculation. It is a noted side effect of any treatment
       | invovling transfusion. (It also helps that older immune systems
       | are less active and react less dramatically to forgien blood.)
        
       | rbanffy wrote:
       | As a member of a prominent Transylvanian family, I am appalled,
       | and profoundly offended, by the idea of someone even as much as
       | suspecting Peter Thiel could be a vampire. He might be an evil
       | bloodsucking parasite, but he lacks the sophistication mortals
       | have come to associate with vampires over the centuries. It's
       | shocking, really, that some people might confuse him with one.
        
         | bloomingeek wrote:
         | Hisss...I mean, amen! I bet that scumbag has never eaten a bowl
         | of Count Chocula either.
        
       | an-allen wrote:
       | Oh there are vampires. They are very old. But they are mostly
       | illusions of light. Once the veil is removed the disappointment
       | of hell sets in. Smoke, mirrors, DNA, sound.
       | 
       | The French people didn't invest the most elaborate head chopping
       | off machine for just spectacle...
        
       | amoss wrote:
       | Reasonable hypothesis. Supported by data. Seems legit
        
       | holografix wrote:
       | Incredibly sad to lear that Peter Thiel owns so much land in one
       | of the earth's most beautiful places.
       | 
       | If I was a kiwi I would be livid at the government allowing this
       | purchase to go through.
        
       | oxag3n wrote:
       | Hard to tell if it's a sarcasm or not.
        
       | TurdF3rguson wrote:
       | I'm convinced that those weird purple blotches on POTUS's hands
       | are caused by transfusions from his blood boy.
        
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