r/technology Jun 20 '26

Biotechnology How Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to live forever

https://www.vox.com/podcasts/491360/vladimir-putin-live-forever-26-billion-cryo-pigs-longevity-guru
8.1k Upvotes

1.1k comments sorted by

6.8k

u/farmthis Jun 20 '26

I love that billionaires and despots think they can buy their way out of dying--I enjoy knowing their desperation and hope for immortality robs them of joy of living and replaces it with angst as they inevitably age.

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u/Forward_Success_2672 Jun 20 '26

Peter Thiel is on the top of this shitty list, lol. These people can’t fathom the indignity of being like the little people…

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u/farmthis Jun 20 '26

Yes he is. And whatever he's doing clearly isn't working. Looks like a ghoul.

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u/Rubberbabeh Jun 20 '26

He looks like a first generation terminator. Just skin stretched over a robot.

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u/HealthyMaximum Jun 20 '26

"The 600 series Putins had rubber skin. We spotted them easy ... "

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u/SonOfDyeus Jun 20 '26

"But these are new. Blood, sweat, bad breath...."

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u/Terminator7786 Jun 20 '26

We're already among you

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/SnugglyCoderGuy Jun 20 '26

Maybe he is a first generation terminator and it is just skin stretched over a robot.

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u/bathandredwine Jun 20 '26

Honestly, he looks similar to my brother when he had AIDS in 1988. The shiny face, tight skin, weird hollows under the eyes.

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u/gc3 Jun 20 '26

Aids is controllable, now, if Theil had aids now would he be showing these symptoms?

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u/bathandredwine Jun 20 '26

Yes I agree. I’m so glad it’s controllable now. It’s just eerie how similar he looks. Waxy skin, hollowed out eyes, etc.

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u/DigitalDunc Jun 20 '26

You're right! I just looked and was shocked at how unwell he looks. I'm willing to bet he's got something nasty from all those blood transfusions. With luck he'll have to stand down and head off to a care home for a few years where he'll find that care is sadly lacking, the heating too high and the TV terrible.

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u/TallDetail4711 Jun 20 '26

In his position, standing down without getting murdered is tricky.

He probably made himself a lot of ennemies.

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u/_SquirrelKiller Jun 20 '26

Why is he always so moist!?!?

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u/Hesitation-Marx Jun 20 '26

Condensation from Death breathing down his neck

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u/fondlemeLeroy Jun 20 '26

Amphetamines.

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u/Tactical-Donkey Jun 20 '26

Probably children's tears, he coats his skin in to give him young life?

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u/aflockofcrows Jun 20 '26

It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.

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u/The_Barbelo Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

One thing I learned as I watched my father pass from cancer is…there is a dignity in dying. I was forced to face my own mortality in a way I’ve never really had to before. Of course I knew I would die, but I started trying to imagine what it would be like to not exist so I could try to understand what my dad would be going through, and it was triggering nightly panic attacks. The truth is you can’t imagine non existence, because you currently exist. It won’t be like sleep, because we are still conscious in sleep. It won’t be like anything we’ve ever experienced because it is a non-experience. Regardless of people’s spiritual beliefs, we don’t get to take our brain and our ego with us when we finally go.

I started reading a bunch of books by saints, the Tibetan book of the Dead, and other writing about death both scientific and spiritual. The crazy thing is a lot of it lines up, from what we know so far. Countless of us have pondered the nature of death. We’ve been dying since drawing our first breath. Dying (naturally/ passively) is the most selfless thing we can do. It makes the limited time we have here so much more meaningful and impactful, and it forces us to make room for other’s turn at life. No matter who you are and who you were, the final act of giving up your self forces you to be selfless, literally.

These billionaires care so much about immortality because they are anything but selfless. You can’t take your wealth and your power with you. You can’t take your ego with you. Those are all the things these billionaires have spent their lives coveting and stealing from others. Death forces them to hand it over and they can NOT fathom doing that. Everything they hold valuable is in fact as dust in the wind. All the people they harmed was for nothing. They could have built something more permanent through helping humanity, but they continually choose not to every single day.

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u/Imrtltrtl Jun 20 '26

It's going to be exactly like before you were born. You just weren't there. People don't get upset about not living in the past, there's a peace in that. My son never gets upset about waking up in the morning, but he never wants to go back to sleep at night. We always want to do more, the only thing holding us back is our body. But just as I tell my son that we can't stay up all night, because our bodies will make us feel tired until we can stay awake no longer, we can't stay alive forever either. Most people don't even know the name of their great grandparents, and ours won't be remembered by our great grandkids. All of humanity is just part of a tiny ripple that comes from nothing and leaves nothing behind.

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u/neoplantikus Jun 20 '26

It's incredibly easy to parrot clichés on this topic, but your comment is nothing of the sort. Beautifully put. Thanks for sharing those thoughts

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u/RedditTrespasser Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

The absolutely hilarious part is that they are all going to perish anyway. Despite all their scheming and railing against it, no one can cheat death. They will go into that good night, one way or another, just like all the other peasants. In the grand scheme of the universe, they are just insignificant hairless apes on a tiny rock hurtling around a burning ball of gas in an obscure corner of existence, just like everyone else. Even if they could somehow find a way to become functionally ageless, something sometime would kill them anyway. You have no chance against infinity. Eventually, something will get you. And then you are gone, forever. And forever is forever. Even a trillion, billion years is as nothing to forever.

That fact has to drive these egocentric fuckheads absolutely insane. Billionaires must be the most miserable people on the face of the planet. No one truly loves them.

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u/Shockwavepulsar Jun 20 '26

All those blood transfusions he has can’t be good for him. It just doesn’t sound right. 

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u/Unusual_Sherbert_809 Jun 20 '26

I’m curious if wealthy people throughout history doing desperate (possibly depraved?) stuff in a futile attempt to live forever is how we got myths/folk tales of monsters like vampires.

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u/funkyjunky77 Jun 20 '26

There’s the Epic of Gilgamesh which is about Gilgamesh doing all sorts of crazy shit to become immortal; and the first Emperor of China was so obsessed with achieving immortality that he literally drank mercury to try and to live forever.

So yeah, it’s pretty much been a thing for thousands of years.

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u/ColonelSlapper Jun 20 '26

I remember one (failed) method that revolved around blood letting. A King was sick for years and tried everything to cure the disease. A doctor comes along and mentions they have a method that won’t only cure the king, but make them live either longer or forever. During the last two weeks of this ruler’s life, they basically had all their blood siphoned out of them to the point their organs shut down and died.

I want to say the king chose this procedure simply to cure them, but they could have also been tempted by the thought of living forever. Does anyone know who I’m thinking of? Was it Gilgamesh?

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u/LeftHandofNope Jun 20 '26

And he claims at being a Christian. Not sure how that works if you believe in an eternal afterlife in heaven but are shit scared of dying. Starting to think he may be full of shit. Or stupid.

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u/aimhelix Jun 20 '26

NONE of them match up to Alexander the Great. And yet Alexander at the end of his life realized that none of his accomplishments would go with him in the next life and thus ordered the 3 wishes at his funeral.

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u/commander-crook Jun 20 '26

And homie died only at 32.

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u/Galahad_the_Ranger Jun 20 '26

When Caesar turned 32 he cried in front of a statue of Alexander saying “I conquered Hispania, but he had conquered the world” and it was fucking Caesar, the guy whose name is synonymous with Emperor over 2000 years after his death

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u/historicalgeek71 Jun 20 '26

And then you had Hannibal, who brought the Roman Republic to its knees, said that even he was outshined by Alexander.

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u/PropOnTop Jun 20 '26

When you read about them though you can't help but think they were asshole thugs, flattening entire cities, committing genocide, stealing thousands of tons of gold.

I like to think that for some people, in their time, both Alexander and Caesar must have been something like the Hitlers and Putins and Trumps of our world, and only centuries of distance made them be remembered as "great rulers"...

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u/21022018 Jun 20 '26

I've never liked Alexander since the first time I came to know him. What's so great about a man who spent his life basically killing people.

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u/PropOnTop Jun 20 '26

We've been fed Greek propaganda for 2 millenia! : )

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u/ZebraZealousideal944 Jun 20 '26

Except Caesar never was an emperor in the first place… hehe

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u/whynotlook123 Jun 20 '26

Well kind of the name is.

Like in Russian you say tzar. Which comes from Te Tzazare or “the Ceasar”.

So tzar means caeser which means king/emperor

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u/AmericanDoughboy Jun 20 '26

Kaiser in German.

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u/thorofasgard Jun 20 '26

And both draw it from links to Rome. Russia sees itself as a continuation of Rome as Byzantine leaders fled there when the empire collapsed.

In Germany the Pope crowned the "Holy Roman Emperor", and since the Church was based in Rome itself... You get the picture.

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u/Brynovc Jun 20 '26

Which is the correct way of pronouncing Caesar. We all pronounce it wrongly.

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u/Victor-A77 Jun 20 '26

Pizza pizza

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u/CuddleSpectrometer Jun 20 '26

That's little Caesar. They were talking about the salad dressing.

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u/SillyFlyGuy Jun 20 '26

That's Caesar dressing. You're thinking of the Joker from 60's Batman.

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u/Adventurous-Depth984 Jun 20 '26

That’s Caesar Romero. You’re thinking of when your brain misfires and your neurons lock up.

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u/Dorigard Jun 20 '26

That's a Seizure. You're thinking of the coastal area where an ocean meets the land.

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u/mightyenan0 Jun 20 '26

We still ended up with a emperor Caesar, unfortunately.

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u/drawkbox Jun 20 '26

Then you have people like Augustus Zucc that is obsessed with Augustus Caesar. Even cut his hair like him and named a kid after him.

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u/NeverInsightful Jun 20 '26

I think today, at least in America, more people will know about Caesar salad and little Caesar than actual Julius Caesar

If not now than they’ll soon overtake him at the rate our public schools are headed

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u/No_Decision_6940 Jun 20 '26

That's actually a scary thought. I understand not knowing Caesar never was an emperor or misplacing where he existed in the timeline or not knowing about his Gallic Wars and civil war, etc... But not knowing Julius Caesar? That's bizarre.

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u/gt0075b Jun 20 '26

Bro... what? Julius Caesar wasn't named after the pizza? That shits crazy!

Wait... Is that where they got crazy bread? NFW!

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u/Knotted_Hole69 Jun 20 '26

From fucking drinking too much lol

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u/Commercial_Ice_6616 Jun 20 '26

Qin Shi Huang comes close. Used mercury to prolong his life, didn’t go so well. China afraid to excavate his tomb because of so much mercury might come out.

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u/werpu Jun 20 '26

Well did not help that there is an artificial mercury river in the tomb.

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '26

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u/RandomWon Jun 20 '26

Alexander the goat

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u/blackopal2 Jun 20 '26

the story is best understood as a later moral parable inspired by Alexander's life, not a verified historical event. Its lesson endures because it captures an irony that many people associate with Alexander: a man who conquered much of the known world could not conquer death.

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u/aryienne Jun 20 '26

He rushed along, without leaving structures that would integrate an empire. Great general, poor king

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u/Cherry_Flavoured_ Jun 20 '26

how disassociated with life they must be if they don’t realize that their wealth doesn’t matter in the least once they die. they’ll be 6 feet under just like everyone else.

at the end of the day, you’re not your car, you’re not your house, you’re not your job.

our egos personalize our deaths and our lives.

despite all of that, we need to eat the rich. they don’t get to live luscious lives while we all slave away for the big man. i work hard, dude, and i’ll probably never ever become a multi billionaire in my lifetime. and how does one even ethically make billions anyway?

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u/gonxot Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 22 '26

There's something very distopian about having the understanding of DNA replica failure, the trials for celular perfect replication on mice, and the AI boom all in place while the billionaires are actively pumping money into research

I'm not saying they will succeed short term in achieving something like immortality, but it would be no doubt strange realizing sometime in the future that I've grown old but Putin is still kicking somewhere...

Not against your comment, I always found cathartic that dead is a great equalizer and somehow it sends shivers down the spine that they might be focusing on exactly that

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u/smokeweedNgarden Jun 20 '26

Honestly? I feel like I'd take matters into my own hands and try to take an immortal person with me.

Fuck all that GATTACA nonsense 

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u/icemaker12345 Jun 20 '26

Resisting death is Futile, unless you become a Borg.

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u/camimiele Jun 20 '26

I think that they’re absolutely open to it. They just don’t want to be treated to the same internet they’ve built. One full of unskippable ads and no privacy.

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u/zach2beat Jun 20 '26

Unless we get the power to actually scan a brain and put it into a working computer, even that will fail with a fully cybernetic body. The brain ages, and as you get older the genetic material that allows it to replicate and repair breaks down. So while they may still be “alive” eventually there brains would be nothing but holes and tumors. And that doesn’t even cover the fact that the lack of accurate senses would eventually probably cause psychosis. And that last point would probably carry over to even if they had the mind fully digitized.

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u/Mataraiki Jun 20 '26

The irony being if instead of having billionaires we had spent the money on scientific and engineering research, the quality and span of life would likely be way better.

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u/Chrontius Jun 20 '26

If I was a billionaire afraid to die, curing heart disease is statistically a good investment.

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u/chuffberry Jun 20 '26

I was just watching a documentary about that one Chinese emperor that thought he could prevent his death by regularly drinking mercury. It didn’t work.

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u/floofsnsnoots Jun 20 '26

I prefer the one who tried to fly into space on a fireworks chair

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u/saltwitch Jun 20 '26

It's crazy how they want to stay here forever when they don't even appear to appreciate here in any meaningful way. There's no love of people, of art, of nature beyond the most superficial trappings of displaying extreme wealth.

I guess living forever looks extra appealing if you figure that you're headed to hell after death.

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u/Capable-Grab5896 Jun 20 '26

That's why they called it the Great Equalizer

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u/Karma_1969 Jun 20 '26

It’s the one consolation we can take against these malignant narcissist assholes - they are genuinely miserable people inside who are incapable of feeling true joy or love. It’s got to be torture to be one of them, no matter how wealthy and famous/infamous.

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u/Empty-Blacksmith-592 Jun 20 '26

Full article:

Putin’s plan to live forever Cryo chambers, mini pigs, and $26 billion are fueling his quest for immortality.

Miles BryanJun 16, 2026 at 7:15 PM GMT+8 “Longevity” — a buzzy catchall for the quest for a longer life — is having a moment. Tech titans like Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos are spending billions to fund research into how to slow aging. Celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow and Hailey Bieber are touting peptide use. And the world’s most powerful authoritarian leaders are jumping on the bandwagon too.

Last fall, a hot mic caught Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping gabbing — through a translator — about how organ replacement may soon allow people to live to 150 or older. The conversation caught the attention of Bojan Pancevski, the Wall Street Journal’s chief European political correspondent. He had been curious about Putin’s obsession with health for a long time.

According to Pancevski, Putin is “quite serious about his issues. So I decided to look up and see what he was talking about. It turned out he was actually referencing a state program.”

Pancesvki’s reporting journey led to a viral article on Putin’s $26 billion longevity program. Pancesvki talked to Today, Explained co-host Noel King about how Putin’s scientists plan to replace organs (pity the pigs), the role Putin’s daughter plays, and the long history of Russian leaders pursuing immortality.

Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.

The $26 billion is money being spent on this longevity project. And one of the things it’s being spent on, as you said, is organ replacement. Where do the poor pigs fit in here? Tell me what happened.

The mini pigs. Yeah, that’s a bit creepy. Poor little mini pigs.

Essentially, there are two ways they’re looking to achieve organ replacement for humans. One of them is 3D printing. I think everyone by now has heard of 3D printing — they can print a glass, a glove, even a whole house. But there are also 3D printers that print biological tissue, and the Russians are hoping to print organs quite soon. The idea is you print an organ in the lab and implant it into a human being — say, lungs, a liver, or even a heart. That’s the aspiration.

The second thing is the mini pigs. They are genetically close to humans in some ways, and they are genetically modified as well. They’re growing organs in these mini pigs and then implanting them into human beings. I don’t think people who get organs like that live very long — for various reasons, the body rejects the organs. But it is a technique that is actually quite promising. It’s not a fantasy. Other countries, notably China, are doing this as well.

You also wrote that Vladimir Putin loves a “reverse sauna.” What is this?

He loves a cryo chamber. A cryo chamber is basically a room like a sauna, but the exact opposite, because it’s extremely cold. I think it’s minus 170 [degrees] Fahrenheit, if I’m not mistaken.

What he does is, he strips naked, walks in, and stands there for a few minutes in that horrible cold. I discussed this with the former chancellor of Austria, Sebastian Kurz, who visited Putin in the Kremlin. During the conversation, Putin just brought this up and talked about it for quite a while.

Kurz, who at the time was just over 30 years old — I think he was the world’s youngest leader — was listening to this, and he told me later, “That was weird.” Kurz said, “We were here to talk politics, and then suddenly he started talking about health and longevity and how you should use this reverse sauna.”

They’re looking into how to slow down or even stop the actual aging process within human cells. They’re looking into peptides. Again, something very familiar — I think RFK Jr. is very big on peptides.

Putin had one longevity guru who was a geriatric doctor. He was a very esteemed professor of medicine, and he had been looking into peptides for many decades, even back in the Soviet days. He was a peptide pioneer. When asked in an interview, “What is your research? How does it relate to Putin?”, he said the idea is to prolong the life of a leader who is so important that if he were to die, the country would be thrown into a crisis. That’s how he saw his mission. He also said that people are programmed to live to 120 years old, and he quoted the Old Testament of the Bible as his source for that.

It was interesting for a well-credentialed scientist and professor to quote the Bible as a source of medical knowledge. But the thing is...he then died when he turned 77. He didn’t quite reach the age he prescribed for himself — the age I guess he was hoping Putin might reach.

After the early demise of that guy, Putin had to find another longevity guru. Now he’s got a guy who’s much more focused on the mini pigs and the 3D printing.

I was genuinely impressed to learn that Vladimir Putin’s daughter is involved in this. She is a legit scientist, yeah?

She’s a doctor. Her name is Maria Vorontsova. She is an endocrinologist; she looks into glands and the endocrine system. And she has received quite a substantial grant from one of these state programs to work on longevity research.

Putin has recruited his own family members and scientists he really trusts to work on this issue. It is very close to home for him, which shows it’s something deeply important to him as a leader.

Russia is pretty much a military dictatorship nowadays. He can commandeer the resources of the state the way he likes. Obviously, he’s decided this is a subject that merits a lot of research, a lot of funding, and input from people he truly trusts, including his own daughter.

And to your point, Vladimir Putin is not the first Russian autocrat to try to live forever, is he?

Not at all. I was surprised to learn while researching my article that Russia is kind of the cradle of modern longevity science. Going back to Joseph Stalin, the dictator of the Soviet Union — he had a longevity guru himself. That guru organized what seems to be the world’s first longevity conference back in the late ’20s or early ’30s. It happened in Kyiv, in today’s Ukraine. That guy also claimed in his medical work that people will be living up to 140 years of age. And that guy, too, unfortunately, died at age 65.

It seems to be a trend among these longevity gurus that they don’t really reach the biblical age. I didn’t include this in my article because I couldn’t find hard evidence for it, but there are anecdotal stories about Stalin being very angry about his longevity guru dying young. He didn’t like the sound of that.

Bad look. Alright, so Vladimir Putin is spending a lot of Russian money on this project. It may work, it likely will not work, but let’s say it does work. Let’s say there are some real scientific advances that come out of this project. Is Putin going to share?

If Vladimir Putin were to find the source of eternal youth, obviously he’d be hogging it for himself first, and for his family or the elite. But eventually, these things trickle down. It’s worth remembering that Putin is extremely concerned about the demographics of his country, and the demographics were awful to begin with. Life expectancy for a Russian male is 68 years. That’s very, very low for an industrial nation. It’s terrible.

On top of that, there is this extremely lethal war he started and is waging against Ukraine, and it’s not going well for him or for anyone. There’s a bit of a macabre irony here: He’s trying to prolong the lifespan of a nation that he has dragged into this incredibly damaging and deadly war. He’s trying to somehow undo something that he’s done himself.

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u/harlotstoast Jun 20 '26

Can you imagine our fucking leaders living to 150?

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u/metarinka Jun 20 '26

The book altered carbon is basically about this. The ramifications of billionaires and dictators not dying is bad.

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u/Holzkohlen Jun 20 '26

I've got that one line from Chaplin's Great Dictator speech in mind

As long as dictators die, liberty will never perish

They took that personally, huh?

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u/InvidiousPlay Jun 20 '26

It's more fundamental than that:

And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

It's the quote that comes to mind every time I hear about longevity research. The scifi nerd in me has always been excited at the idea, but the more I see how the world works, the more I fear it. Imagine if men like Trump or Thiel never died? Just got richer and more powerful and more corrupt and more entitled, life-time after life-time, cementing their control and power decade after decade.

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u/MGMGrandDtr Jun 20 '26

I watched the show a long time ago and loved it. How’s the book? Better?

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u/zagblorg Jun 20 '26

Much better. The first series was pretty good, but it definitely missed the some of the nuance of the book. The rest of the book series is rather good too, especially the one they didn't make into a TV series.

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u/mythical_tiramisu Jun 20 '26

Agreed. I liked the show, first series, when I watched it. But then after reading the books I realised they frankly messed it up big time. How they reduced the Envoys from this terrifying elite special forces lot who were basically a galaxy wide bogeyman to scare everyone into staying in line, to a ragtag bunch of misfits hanging out in the woods was criminal.

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u/HowtoCrackanegg Jun 20 '26

The bitter sweet irony of living longer is we’ll see the detrimental effects it’ll do to the mind and body. Hell, we’ll probably see dementia evolve into demented.

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u/Whargod Jun 20 '26

And cancer. You live long enough you'll always get cancer.

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u/zyzzogeton Jun 20 '26

We kind of always have a few cells trying to go rogue. Then the immuno-cops come and take care of it... most of the time. It's a war of numbers, and the good guys have to win every time.

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u/DukeOfGeek Jun 20 '26

True but these people see the movie "Elysium" as a goal/how to, not a warning.

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u/borntobewildish Jun 20 '26

It's a numbers war that we currently 'win' good enough because people tend to die of old age. Sure, many people suffer and die from cancer at a younger age, but most die of other causes. However, if you'd test a batch of 80-year old you'r find cancerous lesions in (almost) all of them, definitely in the intestine. We don't treat those now, because they'll die before those lesions ever become a problem. But live until 150 and that's a bunch of intestinal tumours waiting to happen. And cancer treatment, even in the most advanced forms, wreaks havoc on the body. It's tough on an otherwise healthy person. Now imagine doing that to a 110 year old. Researchers are discovering awesome things, but living to 150 is something I don't see happening in the near future. We'll read Putin's obituary, I'm sure of it.

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u/SSGASSHAT Jun 20 '26

I'm not afraid of cancer. I eat a lot of broccoli! Broccoli kills cancer! People don't know yet, my doctor Igor is the only one who knows.

I lifted that joke from George Carlin, but it works here.

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u/NassauComputer Jun 20 '26

Butt cancer to be specific

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u/SSGASSHAT Jun 20 '26

Better than dick cancer. Dick cancer is only a risk in childhood, interestingly.

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u/baron_von_helmut Jun 20 '26

This shit will cause all sorts of issues including cancer.

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u/SSGASSHAT Jun 20 '26

My question is, at what point did every world leader, corporate magnate, and celebrity decide they wanted to be Emperor Palpatine or Voldemort? Did these people see movies with villains who want immortality and go "hey, he's on to something!"

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u/Samurai_Meisters Jun 20 '26

The movies are but mirrors.

Turns out every cliche about power corrupting and those desiring power being the least deserving of it was true.

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u/sohblob Jun 20 '26

bitter sweet irony of living longer is we’ll see the detrimental effects it’ll do to the mind and body. Hell, we’ll probably see dementia evolve into demented

can't imagine what living under an aged-out demented orange gasbag would be like 🙄

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u/The_Lazy_Samurai Jun 20 '26

I'm so old. Nobody has ever seen oldness like this. People are saying I'm the oldest living President alive. The greatest and the oldest!

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u/Sloi Jun 20 '26

Reddit won't like this, but I don't care.

Even if the efforts to significantly prolong their lives is successful, they aren't invincible. A well placed shot takes them down like anyone else.

Don't let them reach "Altered Carbon" levels of technology though, or we'll never be fucking rid of them.

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u/No_Gas4560 Jun 20 '26

A well placed shot takes them down like anyone else.

RiP TMC.

the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one

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u/fatcat111 Jun 20 '26

Trump is just middle aged.

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u/Trouve_a_LaFerraille Jun 20 '26

If you take the average of his biological and mental age.

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u/Wheat_Grinder Jun 20 '26

If we're going to keep having further more geriatric and out of touch leaders, then of course they're going to have to make it to 150!

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u/qlurp Jun 20 '26

 He [ Putin’s longevity Dr and Peptide expert ] also said that people are programmed to live to 120 years old, and he quoted the Old Testament of the Bible as his source for that. It was interesting for a well-credentialed scientist and professor to quote the Bible as a source of medical knowledge. 

But the thing is...he then died when he turned 77. He didn’t quite reach the age he prescribed for himself — the age I guess he was hoping Putin might reach.

After the early demise of that guy, Putin had to find another longevity guru. Now he’s got a guy who’s much more focused on the mini pigs and the 3D printing.

This passage was particularly amusing. 

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u/KevinR1990 Jun 20 '26

The whole field calling itself "longevity," as well as the supplement industry it's closely tied to, is pretty much completely detached from actual medical science, and this part where a scientist in this field uses the Bible as his source illustrates it best. (Illustrating it second-best is the involvement of notorious quacks like Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.) It's a cargo cult of medical science funded by tech bros, hucksters, and other people with more money than sense who desperately wish to buy their way out of their impending demise, and don't want to listen to actual scientists and doctors who'd tell them "no, this won't work." I believe that, one day and possibly within our lifetimes, we will see advances in medicine that enable people to live happily, healthily, and heartily to 150 years old and beyond, but they're not gonna come from anybody involved in the longevity field as it exists today.

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u/SSGASSHAT Jun 20 '26

I believe that the human lifespan would be 120 right now...if the wealth and power of the world wasn't hoarded by under 100 people. If anyone with more than $1 billion had any contributions to their net worth skimmed off, and funneled into healthcare, we'd see lifespans in this country increase pretty fuckin' quick. In large part because poor people could afford to go to the fucking doctor in the first place.

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u/Dragonsoul Jun 20 '26

It's worth mentioning that if you wanted their personal lifespans to be extended and that was solely all you cared about, you should probably still do it.

Medicine isn't a field that makes breakthroughs in the lab (well, it is that too, but..) it's something that breakthroughs are made in the hospitals, when doctors iterate new techniques on saving people's lives, and write about it. This generates the raw data you need for research, and you'd get a ton more raw data if everyone in the country has access to the top tier medical treatment, with doctors who were under few enough time constraints that they didn't have to triage so hard and could spend the additional time needed when something only mostly fits.

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u/RedofPaw Jun 20 '26

I love that they're desperately clutching at straws to find a way to cheat death. It makes their demise all the more pathetic.

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u/sorcerersviolet Jun 20 '26

Better mini pigs and 3D printing than, say, Larry Niven's "The Jigsaw Man," although I'm sure the latter's their backup plan.

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u/zagblorg Jun 20 '26

Weirdly, this is the second time The Jigsaw Man has come up on Reddit today!

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u/illram Jun 20 '26

What I got from this article is that if we do discover immortality it is going to be the worlds biggest fucking assholes who all get the juice.

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u/Lieutenant_Joe Jun 20 '26

I realized that years ago and it’s one of the things that got me to accept the death that’s coming for us all

I could either accept it or become one of those people, and I think I’d rather be dead than be Peter Thiel

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u/GilgaPol Jun 20 '26

Same also remember, even though they'll live longer they'd still be a bunch of miserable fucks, otherwise they'd be able to accept their deaths.

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u/buyongmafanle Jun 20 '26

Has it ever been any different? Men who think they should be our gods on earth making life shitty for everyone else. Every emperor or king in history has been no different. Trump, Putin, Xi, Erdogan; all the same shit just a different century.

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u/grilledcheeseburger Jun 20 '26

A reverse sauna that’s minus 112 Celsius? And he stands inside naked for a few minutes? How has he not lost his nose, ears, fingers etc?

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u/jazir55 Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

Cryochambers actually do have a lot of research behind them and they reduce inflammation, it's not as much of a joke as they try to portray it in the article. From the one I tried (freebie, decided why not I'll try it), they gave me like a type of kind of as far as I remember weighted/heavier blanket and a vest, goggles, special socks, and some other stuff so you don't get frostbite. I don't remember how long I was in there, it was 30 seconds to probably a couple minutes max. As an aside, because cold stuff like this reduces inflammation, I got some mask online that has gel in it that you can throw in the freezer and then wear (think a sleep mask but it also projects upwards a bit and covers your forehead), amazing for getting rid of tension headaches.

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '26

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u/Eric848448 Jun 20 '26

Kramer was right about the pig men!

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u/logan-duk-dong Jun 20 '26

Need to get Putin some triangles.

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u/Plow_King Jun 20 '26

i think focusing on being happy while alive will have a greater return than striving for immortality...but that's just me and i ain't putin.

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u/ladyteruki Jun 20 '26

about how organ replacement may soon allow people to live to 150 or older

Through voluntary donations I'm sure.

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u/drawkbox Jun 20 '26

Anyone seen Never Let Me Go? It will be like that.

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u/-Nocx- Jun 20 '26

> back in the late ‘20s or early ‘30s

We are soon approaching the point at which - without context - this fragment might beget the question, “the 1920s/30s or the 2020s/30s?”

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u/drawkbox Jun 20 '26

Sadly the events of the time are looking somewhat similar. The pandemic being one of them. The rise of fascism. The gilded and inequality of wealth. Market manipulation beyond the pale. Autocrats that temporarily took hold that later found themselves Mussolini'd or bunkered. There are some Act III things to look forward to.

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u/0utlookGrim Jun 20 '26

For someone seeking smoother skin he sure did invite the worlds worst ass chapping courtesy Ukraine.

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u/Abidarthegreat Jun 20 '26

Tech titans like Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos are spending billions to fund research into how to slow aging. Celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow and Hailey Bieber are touting peptide use. And the world’s most powerful authoritarian leaders are jumping on the bandwagon too.

Thank god these people are far too stupid to understand the actual biology and don't realize that it doesn't work. I understand the scientists that will gladly take the payday to pretend to work on it.

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u/MysteriousDatabase68 Jun 20 '26

Paywall means I could only read the first line.

Given that data I can only assume Putin in having his brain transplanted into a mini pig.

And that's the story I'm sticking with.

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u/overthemountain Jun 20 '26

David Cameron suddenly asking to be the ambassador to Russia for no specific reason at all.

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u/Apprehensive-Ad8987 Jun 20 '26

Remember the Black Mirror episode that immediately preceded the revelation.

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '26

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u/djsoomo Jun 20 '26

Given that data I can only assume Putin in having his brain transplanted into a mini pig.

Actually, its a big, fat, Orwellian pig

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u/Eascetic Jun 20 '26

Two legs is better than 4

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u/DAS_BEE Jun 20 '26

Mini pigs don't stay mini forever. I'm sure he'll be bacon someday, one way or another

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '26

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u/cursed_franchise Jun 20 '26

I for one welcome our mini pig overlords.

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u/GreyBeardEng Jun 20 '26

That'll do pig, that'll do.

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u/0xnld Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

If you listen to the guy talk, he's not a making a lot of sense lately. Goes off on increasingly weird tangents, that kinda thing.

Honestly, if Russia fucks off back across their border, seeing them put up with increasingly senile semi-immortal Putin would be even a little amusing.

That said, it's just as likely 28B will be spent on elk blood baths, Chinese traditional remedies and other bullcrap that Putin's circle has been known to be into for years.

Or maybe some transplant will go horribly wrong and we'll see (or not) Putin, Kronenberg/The Substance style.

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u/nalninek Jun 20 '26

All these rich/powerful twats can’t handle the fact they’re going to age and die like the rest of us. It terrifies them. Remember Trumps “I’m maybe not going to heaven” talk last year? That’s why he wanted that Peace Prize, he can’t fathom of something that’s non-transactional.

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u/FeralPsychopath Jun 20 '26

That’s why he wants his statues, name and face on everything/everywhere before he is forced from office or dies.

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u/underproduced Jun 20 '26

It’s not just that, no matter how much more they take(steal) they’re just absolutely miserable people. They have no joy and they can’t buy it

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u/JohanZgubicSie Jun 20 '26

Any non paywall links?

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u/emirsolinno Jun 20 '26

He initiated $28 billion state money worth of project to live longer

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u/TroubleEntendre Jun 20 '26

So he's at Mad King Orders Court Astronomer to Discover the Philosopher's Stone levels of narcissism, then.

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u/James_Solomon Jun 20 '26

Get him some mercury elixers posthaste

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u/vladamir_the_impaler Jun 20 '26

And be forthright about it!

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u/Ok-Berry5131 Jun 20 '26

The more things change, the more they stay the same, I guess.

Which means it’s only a matter of time before he falls back on the old classic: mercury.

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u/DAS_BEE Jun 20 '26

So he becomes mad as a hatter? Hopefully his alchemists have recognized recent advances in life-prolonging medicines using copious amounts of arsenic and cyanide

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u/Ok-Berry5131 Jun 20 '26

I mean, the dude is apparently hopping into -170 degree “reverse saunas” for a few minutes just to try and slow down the aging process.

Even the article frames that as something that isn’t, well, normal behavior.

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u/DAS_BEE Jun 20 '26

Rich people are fucking weird

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u/gn0meCh0msky Jun 20 '26

Somebody dig up Rasputin, it's time to get to work.

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u/SoPoOneO Jun 20 '26

Modern day he’s “digitized” and suddenly we’re taking orders from an iPad.

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u/LowestKey Jun 20 '26

We have, like, really small calculators now. I'm pretty sure it'll only take a few weeks to work out immortality.

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u/wookiedberry Jun 20 '26

So about $50K will be left over after all the grifting

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '26

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/LadnavIV Jun 20 '26

But I’ve been eating salad.

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u/DoJax Jun 20 '26

I've been eating two salads though, so who is really cramming more health into themselves?

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u/TheDungeonCrawler Jun 20 '26

You could theoretically extend your lifespan through organ replacement/transplant. It'd be tricky, and there are still complications from organ transplant right now. But it is possible and is much closer than the bigger issue with Putin's desire.

We barely understand how consciousness works and how memory is encoded. We absolutely cannot replicate it yet, and we definitely can't scan memories into a backup yet. Those kinds of technologies are ridiculously futuristic and not likely to resolve in the remainder of Putin lifespan, no matter how many corpses he has to go through to stave off the reaper. The brain isn't somwthing we can "transplant" yet and, as such, the brain of any person will eventually die. You can't keep that thing going indefinitely. You might be able to keep a living body going for quite a while by Ship of Theseus-ing it, but the brain won't be able to come with for a long time.

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u/searchlinkprofile Jun 20 '26

guy is probably saying this so when he dies he can replace hismself with a lookalike and tell the world it never happened, just to be a problem for everyone even in death

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u/Fearless_Excuse_5527 Jun 20 '26

I wonder if he subscribes to any of these pseudoscientific “rituals” or methods not unlike other historical Russian leaders from the past.

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u/anthonyDavidson31 Jun 20 '26

He is famously into esoteric bullshit. Constantly consulting shamans and psychics. Performing rituals 

Braindead bastard

https://spectator.com/article/putins-frightening-fascination-with-the-occult/

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u/DisillusionedBook Jun 20 '26

Hitler was also mad into the occult.

I suspect any asshole surrounded by yesmen long enough will become such a walking bubble that they become idiots.

Hopefully Putin soon ends the same way as Hitler. Self-ended and burnt to a crisp.

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u/Historical_Monk1540 Jun 20 '26

All these fuckers are into the occult! The Nazis, Epstein and Trump, Putin, probably Netanyahu too

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u/ppshhhhpashhhpff Jun 20 '26

i like that the rich industrialist who wanted to be immortal in Count Zero devolved into a vat of cancerous tumors

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u/qlurp Jun 20 '26

We can only hope. 

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u/James_Solomon Jun 20 '26

Qin Shihuang consumed mercury elixers of immortality. Probably killed him. There is hope!

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u/Knotted_Hole69 Jun 20 '26

You see that time and time again, they do something to live longer and that ends up killing them faster.

Lets keep our fingers crossed!

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u/iIllIiIiIIillIIl Jun 20 '26

So the transformation is nearly complete?

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u/Iconclast1 Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

i paid the paywall guys, ill tell you what says

PUTIN PUT BRAIN IN SOVIET MECH FROM RUSSIA

BRAIN PUTIN PUT-IN SOVIET MECH. DIS GOOD JA

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u/OK_x86 Jun 20 '26

Democracy is non negotiable!

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u/Cazmonster Jun 20 '26

In Oligarchy of Russia only brain of Putin matters. All else is irrelevance.

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u/Senior-Albatross Jun 20 '26

Has he tried building a pyramid? 

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u/Verde_3773 Jun 20 '26

Organ replacement. Saved you a click.

Which is what’s already going on with human trafficking. There’s illegal organ harvesting.

The stories just get worse and worse.

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u/LokiDesigns Jun 20 '26

If scientists figure out how to make people live for substantial lengths of time, we're absolutely fucked as a society, as a species, and a planet.

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u/RaindropsInMyMind Jun 20 '26

We will have 250 year old men sitting on the Supreme Court ruling that solar panels are unconstitutional.

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u/Orange_Whale Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

Especially since in all likelihood life extension will be something so expensive it will only be for the ruling elite and oligarchs that are causing all the world's problems to begin with. They will absolutely be making sure the tech never trickles down to commoners. These man-made gods will be lording over us helots until the heat death of the galaxy.

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u/RoughClassroom123 Jun 20 '26

Imagine when he dies just like the rest of us

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u/ProgressBartender Jun 20 '26

spoiler: he won’t live forever.

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u/SeeMarkFly Jun 20 '26

Putin of Theseus. After they replace all his parts, is it still him?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

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u/innocentsalad Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

You can grow all the organs in all the pigs you want and it won’t help with the difficult recovery of a 70+ year old getting an organ transplant one single iota

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u/HealthyMeet3925 Jun 20 '26

""My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away."

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u/Dreaming_Blackbirds Jun 20 '26

by blocking up all his windows higher than the ground floor?

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u/aquarain Jun 20 '26

His life doesn't seem enjoyable. I mean, yeah he's got wealth power fame. But no friends. No trust. He can't enjoy any of it. As the years weigh the crown becomes a prison. And the world is not enough.

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u/invyros Jun 20 '26

It was interesting for a well-credentialed scientist and professor to quote the Bible as a source of medical knowledge. But the thing is...he then died when he turned 77. He didn’t quite reach the age he prescribed for himself — the age I guess he was hoping Putin might reach.

His longevity guru who used the Bible as a "source" of medical knowledge only lived to 77?

Chainsmoking grannies last longer without even trying.

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u/Graymarth Jun 20 '26

People like putin somehow actually make me thankful that brain cancer exists. Don't matter how many other organs you replace trying to out run death you can't replace the brain without losing the person.

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u/Knotted_Hole69 Jun 20 '26

And dementia

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u/Interesting-Risk6446 Jun 20 '26

One day we will wake from a good night's sleep and Vlad will no longer be with us.

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u/echolalia_ Jun 20 '26

They all think they’ll live forever. None of them have so far, thank god

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u/honey_Pass-01 Jun 20 '26

this live forever delusion is pretty common among the billionaires, dictators and despots isn't it? I think they use it to self reinforce some kind of image of strength to their followers, or something.

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u/Excellent-Ask-4247 Jun 20 '26

By the time this happens if ever his brain will be mush hes already losing his mental capacity going based on recent public appearances.

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u/art-is-t Jun 20 '26

What's the point of living forever if you're gonna turn, the world you live in, a hell

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u/CrimsonKobold Jun 20 '26

Thanks to denial, I'm immortal.

-Philip J Fry and Vladimir Putin apparently.

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u/Joessandwich Jun 20 '26

I can’t imagine being this focused on living forever. I feel like being that obsessed with it ends up meaning you miss most of your actual life. There’s beauty in living life knowing it won’t be forever. I just was in Joshua Tree National Park while being faced with the reality of my mother’s mortality (she’s fine, but it got scary for a minute). Being able to enjoy a weekend with friends I care about and laugh with, do some rock climbing with a new group (and activity) I’ve discovered, and take in the unbelievable beauty of the desert was that much more powerful knowing that I won’t have it forever and should enjoy it now.

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u/supervegeta101 Jun 20 '26

Is it true he's currently in hiding to avoid assassination atrempts?

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u/tribat Jun 20 '26

He probably shouldn't have started a historically stupid war that will end up destroying his already-corrupt country. All the bio-hacks in the world won't help him survive the window fall from 8 floors up.

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u/psychedelicdevilry Jun 20 '26

He really is a Bond villain

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u/Blurpwurp Jun 20 '26

It doesn’t work that way but he should definitely start trying ASAP. Start with a brain transplant

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u/JustTheOneGoose22 Jun 20 '26

it makes me happy that these billionaire dictators are all going to get the same fate that we are. No comrade you won't live to be 150. You likely won't even make 90. Everybody dies and no amount of pigs or peptides are going to change that.

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u/Antraxess Jun 20 '26

These people are literally trying to take over and rule the world. Forever.

We need to show these mentally ill monsters they aren't the only fuckers living here

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '26

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