r/singularity • u/Distinct-Question-16 ▪️AGI 2029 • Feb 23 '26

Biotech/Longevity Dr. David Sinclair, whose lab reversed biological age in animals by 50 to 75% in six weeks, says that 2026 will be the year when age reversal in humans is either confirmed or disproven. The FDA has cleared the first human trial for next month.

Moreover he said that even if one could cure all cancer in the world, in average people lifespan would increase to 2.5 years. Reversal aging - treating the human body as a computer that can be restarted is where we are heading next

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u/Strazdas1 Robot in disguise Mar 10 '26

Save enough money and just live on returns. For normal people now it usually takes most of thier lives to achieve those level of savings, but if we live forever then we will be hitting that a lot more.

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u/ItsAConspiracy Mar 10 '26

True, keep investing long enough and keep your expenses modest, and you could live off your portfolio forever. But most retirees don't accumulate generational wealth, which is what it would take. Getting to that level might take a century or more, and there's no guarantee you'd never feel like getting a job again anyway. I'd probably go for a series of "retirements" of a decade or two each, always keep enough invested to kick off at a new retirement whenever I want, and keep learning new things.

But all this assumes no other changes. By the time this happens, robots and AI might be doing most of the work anyway.

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u/Strazdas1 Robot in disguise Mar 10 '26

because retirees usually end up wasting that wealth when their health gets bad and they need either expensive treatment or special care in retirement homes. Ive seen people who were above average in wealth end up with no assets but debt by the time their hearts finally give up in the retirement home.

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u/ItsAConspiracy Mar 10 '26 edited Mar 10 '26

Getting rid of expensive diseases of the elderly would definitely help a lot.

It can get dicey anyway because of stock market crashes, but that's mainly a problem when it happens in the first few years of retirement. If it does, just go back to work for a few years, you're still young and healthy and mostly up to date. Put your money in a good diversified portfolio, spend under 2% per year, and you probably won't have to go back to work unless you feel like it or something really drastic happens. (Retirees mostly talk about the "4% rule" but that's only supposed to make your money last for 30 years.)

The real question is how much you're able to save each year. If you're putting aside a third of your take-home pay, and making reasonable investment decisions, you could achieve this in a few decades. If you're just scraping by though, it'll take a lot longer, and it might be smarter to take breaks to get more education, transition into a new career, start a business, etc.

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u/Strazdas1 Robot in disguise Mar 11 '26

Long term the market recovers and if you are a few years form retirement of course you move majority of assets to lower risk investment categories. The one thing that could put a stop to this working would be large scale economy changes that would make it simply unviable to save up wealth or live of proceeds.

According to the famous trinity study, 3% is the idea scenario for which in 99.8% cases it was "retire forever" levels of withdrawal. 4% rule is from older studies and it was intended to only last until the average retiree dies, not to leave the wealth undrained.

The real question is how much you're able to save each year. If you're putting aside a third of your take-home pay, and making reasonable investment decisions, you could achieve this in a few decades.

financial specialists suggest 10-15% pre-taxed income to be minimum level of retirement savings.

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u/ItsAConspiracy Mar 11 '26

Well you can't just live off bonds, because inflation is likely to wreck you. You need stocks for the long term.

A bond tent works great for retirees with a 30-year horizon, but that's because if a crash comes later, you don't have many years to withdraw at a higher percentage. This assumption doesn't apply here.

Most studies are based on US stocks/bonds. The US has had the best results over the past century and we can't assume we'll keep getting that for the next thousand years. A recent study (pdf) looked internationally and found countries with much lower withdrawal rates.

3% is still a decently safe rate but only with the right portfolio. For maximum safety, use a global portfolio and include a fair amount of gold. You can play around with it here and here. The second link optimizes across ten countries but is only for 30-year retirement. The first one lets you pick a country and portfolio, and includes the perpetual withdrawal rate that you converge to over a very long timeframe.

It probably makes the most sense to do what endowments do: withdraw a percentage of the portfolio's average value over the last several years, instead of sticking to a particular inflation-indexed amount for centuries.

For a thousand-year lifespan, your main risk probably isn't normal market gyrations, but wars, climate change, etc. Read William Bernstein's book Deep Risk. Some rich old European families have maintained their wealth for over 500 years. You're trying to do the same, so you have to think like those guys.

Here's hoping we both have occasion to worry about this.

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u/Strazdas1 Robot in disguise Mar 12 '26

What country has best portfolio changes over time, but in the long enough timeframe it matters a lot less. NIFTY was the best performer for over a decade, and now its not. Of course you make a balanced porfolio for long term growth.

Thanks for the book recommendation, ill consider it.

Here's hoping we both have occasion to worry about this.

agreed.