When Xi Jinping meets Donald Trump in Washington this week, there will be plenty to discuss: trade, AI, Taiwan, Iran, and the increasingly strange business of American-Chinese relations.
asserted
Jinping → meet → relations
Xi, who is 73 years old, is at the center of a fresh swirl of health rumors after skipping a dinner at the BRICS summit in India earlier this month and subsequently disappearing from public view for several days.
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who → skip → days
There is no confirmed evidence that he is seriously ill, and Indian officials have dismissed claims that he fell sick at the summit.
uncertain
he → be → summit
But the speculation has flourished in the vacuum created by the secrecy surrounding the health of China's leader.
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speculation → flourish → leader
Trump, meanwhile, is 80 and has insisted that he is in “perfect” health after a recent Walter Reed check-up, even as his bruised hands and occasional stumbles over speeches have raised eyebrows.
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hands → insist → eyebrows
The scrutiny over his aging is hardly new (and was applied to former President Joe Biden while he was in office, too.)
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he → apply → office
But when two elderly leaders meet to discuss the future of the world's most powerful countries, the question of what happens when the men at the top eventually leave the stage becomes rather difficult to avoid.
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men → meet → stage
This is especially concerning when some of them seem determined not to leave the stage at all.
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some → seem → stage
Last September, Xi and Vladimir Putin were caught on a hot mic discussing the possibility of immortality.
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Xi → catch → immortality
Tellingly, Xi said that 70 used to be an old man’s age but now, “at 70, one’s still a child.”
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one → say → 70
Putin responded that through repeated organ transplants, it should be possible to achieve immortality; his counterpart said that during this century, it should at least be possible to live to 150.
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it → respond → 150
It was an extraordinarily revealing conversation that captured something increasingly strange about the politics of aging: we might be able to extend our lifespans soon, but doing so will become a wealth and class issue.
uncertain
doing → capture → lifespans
In some ways, that’s always been true, but when it comes to world leaders, it means the potential stagnation of societies under a few old men (because it is always men) determined to hold onto power, whatever it takes.
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it → come → whatever
The result is a new political preoccupation with the biological limits of the men who run countries.
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who → run → countries
What happens when leaders refuse to contemplate succession?
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leaders → happen → succession
The questions that dominate social media discussions and headlines would’ve been unthinkable a generation ago: Is Mitch McConnell fully conscious?
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McConnell → dominate → discussions
Does Donald Trump wear a diaper?
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Trump → wear → diaper
Do Silicon Valley billionaires have so-called “blood boys”?
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billionaires → have → boys
Does Vladimir Putin keep getting organ transplants and if so, where on earth is he getting them?
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he → keep → them
The question underlying all of this: In an era of billionaires, biotechnology and increasingly fantastical promises about extending human life, what if the powerful no longer regard mortality as a deadline at all?
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powerful → underlie → deadline
Health startups and the tech bros
When health startup founder Brent Franson — whose Silicon Valley-based business DeathClock predicts when you’re going to die — went on the popular OpenAI-owned TBPN podcast, he ventured that we’re all going to die.
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we → base → podcast
Before he could finish that thought (that we’re all going to die, so we should think about how to extend our quality of life), the show threw up the big, glaring “X” it usually puts onscreen to call out lies.
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it → finish → lies
In northern California, Franson told me, it’s a mainstream idea that immortality will soon be achieved — at least for the people with the requisite wealth and access.
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immortality → tell → wealth
Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, OpenAI’s Sam Altman has invested $180 million into a startup that’s trying to help humans live much longer lives.
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humans → invest → lives
Both Russia and China are investing vast sums of money into researching how to prolong one’s life; Putin launched a national project to combat aging in 2024.
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Putin → invest → 2024
But it remains unclear how much any of this will actually benefit the rest of us.
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any → remain → us
“From the moment that humans arose, we've been… profoundly motivated by a disinclination to die,” says Sheldon Solomon, a social psychologist at Skidmore University who specializes in existential dread, i.e. the very human fear of our own deaths.
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who → arise → deaths
That fear of death has led to religions with promises of immortality and the afterlife, he says, as well as rich and powerful men trying their hardest to guarantee their place there.
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he → lead → place
From well-stocked Egyptian pyramids to quests for the Fountain of Youth to modern biology, “underlying contemporary science has always been: How do we live forever?”
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we → stock → biology
and these days “some people argue that the best way to do that is to abandon our wretched carcasses and upload ourselves onto a Google Cloud,” he adds.
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he → argue → Cloud
The people most concerned with this question, Solomon says, seem to be predominantly two types: “It’s the fascist demagogues — people like Putin and Xi and the dude that runs North Korea and Trump… but then you’ve got the richest people on earth: the Peter Thiels, the folks that run Google.
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that → say → Google
They’re also not obscuring their intentions, and that is to devote trillions of dollars to staying alive.
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that → obscure → dollars
That’s a problem, Solomon says, because the people leading the immortality question in 2026 are not concerned about the trashing of the planet.
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people → ’ → planet
Instead, “there’s just: We’ll be here forever and we’ll buy New Zealand or whatever it takes… or we’ll go Mars.
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we → ’ → Mars
There is peer-reviewed science that underscores what might be useful for living a longer life, but it’s probably not what billionaires are looking for.
uncertain
billionaires → be → what
A long-running Harvard study into longevity has found that socializing with other people is strongly correlated with living longer, and that’s something you can’t really optimize your way into or out of.
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you → run → way
The same study, however, found that “positive thinking” has a profound effect on how long you live.
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you → find → effect
If denial counts, then perhaps the Silicon Valley founders are onto something.
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founders → count → something
The problem with the concerns of our current set of very rich death-dodgers is that they’re stubbornly anti-science.
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they → ’re → dodgers
New organs or regular blood transfusions can only take you so far.
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organs → take → you
…and 44 more, not listed.
The Aporia
