Listen now (78 mins) | If you haven’t heard of Bryan Johnson or watched the new Netflix documentary about him, "Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever," Bryan is a person who has given his life—and his body—over to the science of longevity.
“…Don’t die is the zeroth order of priority for existence. Once you exist, the most important goal is to still exist.”
Many people have committed great evils simply in pursuit of the above. Longevity may be Bryan Johnson’s religion, but it won’t provide a moral code that’s worth living. I appreciate his quantitative approach to health and free public access to the resulting data but find his driving philosophy morally bankrupt.
Let me posit a scenario: If he’s out taking a walk, gets hit by a drunk driver, and finds himself in need of a transplant, his philosophy is more likely to lead him down the Chinese organ transplant model than any other because this model is the best option for securing a healthy organ. The moral quandary of imprisoning healthy people and extracting their organs on demand is never addressed by the above guiding principle. Even if you can grow perfect, healthy organs on demand, you will inevitably run into the same quandary in some other area.
Bari, tell Suzy (since she seems to be so concerned about it) that plasma draws are the fastest, most effective route to reducing microplastics in the body. Blood draws are just as effective but cannot be done as frequently. There’s a study on Australian firefighters (the chemicals they spray on fires contain high levels of microplastics) that came out in the last few years that demonstrated this. Activated charcoal was also shown, in Petri dish tests, to bind to microplastics. If you go the binder route, just make sure you’re eliminating regular as the bind is a loose one and has more likelihood of failing the longer it remains in the body, thereby releasing the toxins and forcing the body to reprocess it, ultimately causing more harm than good.
Heather: That exact quote you referenced really struck me as well.
Bari did a great job trying to tease out his philosophy on the purpose of human existence. But his answer was a strange kind of circular logic - "Once you exist, the most important goal is to exist." To what end?
Listening to him talk about his Mormon background was instructive. Performance (as he said, upholding the Commandments) leads to salvation. But he's still "performing" for his updated idea of salvation: biological eternal life. There's absolutely no difference.
He puts my own Christianity in stark relief. When Christ said, "It is finished," he meant it. No more desperate striving. Johnson's technological AI God will never give him an easy yoke or a light burden.
I think the Hindus beat him to this punch by about 3000 years in living an ascetic lifestyle, although the Hindu model has meaning built in to it, whereas this model places intrinsic value on mere longevity and existence. I guess we're all cockroaches in his model.
I listened to this episode earlier this week, and I've been processing the conversation for a few days now. I have questions about the human experience, and Bryan's thoughts about the more personal and emotional implications when pursuing "extreme longevity," particularly as he moves into his 50s, 60s and 70s. But more concerning to me are the implications for the wealthy and powerful vs. the rest of us as this longevity science becomes a reality for those who may choose to try it on for less "noble" purposes.
What are the motivations of wealthy and powerful people who might want to live "forever?" Would advances in longevity science serve to consolidate control? Would it serve to stop the natural turnover in leadership (which is already problematic)? What might this longevity experiment portend for future generations?
There is more to consider than just the science, but that is all that was discussed in this podcast. And this is possibly at the request of Bryan Johnson, who doesn't appear to grapple with anything beyond the science and technology of his personal experiment.
The conversation was thought-provoking and took me beyond what was contained in the conversation, and it was unsettling.
Interesting interview, but the “we are creating GOD” comment was egregious and revealed a lot of this man’s ego. Disappointed there wasn’t more questions/pushback on that statement.
Ryan: I agree that comment revealed a lot about Mr. Johnson. Technology/Data/Rationalism - those are god to him. He believes real truth, and therefore meaning, can be found via making "sacrifices" (staying hungry, recording his biometrics) and being "good" (eschewing food temptations, scheduling sleep). He's actually more of a religious zealot than almost anyone I've ever heard about.
I love Bari's work, but this interview failed to ask any of the basic questions about class, purpose, relationships, procreation, society, etc. It also failed to ask him to acknowledge that only so much of our health and well-being is within our control. His quest to push the limits isn't a terrible thing any more than someone who seeks to dive to the deepest depths or go to Mars. But it's also not noble either.
I listened to the podcast. I found nothing compelling about what Mr Johnson preached but rather felt sad for him. I hope he finds what he is looking for
Alexander the Great attained longevity through his legacy, you're speaking about him 2300 years later. Why is longevity through the intangible somehow noble, but longevity through the physical (our bodies) less so?
Maybe because medically and scientifically induced physical longevity is a different mission. This isn't about the creation of a cultural empire. This is a man's antiseptic mission for super-agency over longevity at the cost of - - - spontaneity? genuine human connection? life's small pleasures? Throw in a little dirt and mud?
What kind of person genuinely wants to exist forever in this world? And I mean genuinely wants to exist FOREVER, to the extent that he is living the life of a sterile laboratory specimen?
Maybe because it's so overtly outside the natural human experience that it just doesn't sit right.
Just one caveat to Johnson if he suddenly finds a fix: please don't share it with Joe Biden. Or Hunter. Or Jill. Or Kj_P, or "Admiral" John Kirby, or Kamala Harris, or Joy Reid, or...you get the point.
I think a lot easier to believe in God if you want to believe you can live forever, rather than follow his extreme regime! (Not easier to follow the spiritual teachings of most religions to a high degree, but thankfully God is merciful).
HONESTLY?? So now that we are discussing death and life cults...when are you going to Honestly look at the theological differences between Islamism, Christianity and Judaism? We are entering the new age of theology. Be on board first Bari. LLM's are absolutely unable to do theology. Try it. Every LLM will have guardrails that make a real comparison between how these religions understand life, God and sacrifice impossible. Ask an LLM, say Gemini, why Islam embraces death of the apostate for salvation, whereas Judaism does not? Remember every GPT is a generative PRE-TRAINED transformer, and the training data is highly curated. There is no way to avoid a political religious bias from creeping into the pre-training. Only people can do theology. Only people can apply reason to what is beyond reason: God. Theo=God + Ology=reason. "In the beginning there was the Logos [ology] and the Logos was with God [Theo] and the Logos was God." Theology: Reasoning about God. Oh and atheism and agnosticism are theology too. Many a good theologian has been atheist.
Rather than lengthen my life, this interview shortened it. I am surprised that Honesty would subject us to such insufferable, self absorbed billionaire. I hope there aren't too many more of these or I will have to go elsewhere, as much as I've counted on Honesty to disseminate good information.
It is important to understand that this sort of insanity is becoming mainstream. It is no different that Jonestown or Q-Anon. When God dies all things are believable.
As Thomas Sowell says “ there are no solutions , only trade offs”
Would I not have my children but live forever? Would a lose those amazing meals with fabulous wines with the people I love most in the world? Life is about living isn’t it?
“…Don’t die is the zeroth order of priority for existence. Once you exist, the most important goal is to still exist.”
Many people have committed great evils simply in pursuit of the above. Longevity may be Bryan Johnson’s religion, but it won’t provide a moral code that’s worth living. I appreciate his quantitative approach to health and free public access to the resulting data but find his driving philosophy morally bankrupt.
Let me posit a scenario: If he’s out taking a walk, gets hit by a drunk driver, and finds himself in need of a transplant, his philosophy is more likely to lead him down the Chinese organ transplant model than any other because this model is the best option for securing a healthy organ. The moral quandary of imprisoning healthy people and extracting their organs on demand is never addressed by the above guiding principle. Even if you can grow perfect, healthy organs on demand, you will inevitably run into the same quandary in some other area.
Bari, tell Suzy (since she seems to be so concerned about it) that plasma draws are the fastest, most effective route to reducing microplastics in the body. Blood draws are just as effective but cannot be done as frequently. There’s a study on Australian firefighters (the chemicals they spray on fires contain high levels of microplastics) that came out in the last few years that demonstrated this. Activated charcoal was also shown, in Petri dish tests, to bind to microplastics. If you go the binder route, just make sure you’re eliminating regular as the bind is a loose one and has more likelihood of failing the longer it remains in the body, thereby releasing the toxins and forcing the body to reprocess it, ultimately causing more harm than good.
Heather: That exact quote you referenced really struck me as well.
Bari did a great job trying to tease out his philosophy on the purpose of human existence. But his answer was a strange kind of circular logic - "Once you exist, the most important goal is to exist." To what end?
Listening to him talk about his Mormon background was instructive. Performance (as he said, upholding the Commandments) leads to salvation. But he's still "performing" for his updated idea of salvation: biological eternal life. There's absolutely no difference.
He puts my own Christianity in stark relief. When Christ said, "It is finished," he meant it. No more desperate striving. Johnson's technological AI God will never give him an easy yoke or a light burden.
Link to the microplastics study referenced above:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8994130/
Does anyone have the link to the microplastics study/analysis Bari referenced?
https://www.plasticlist.org/
Thank you!
I think the Hindus beat him to this punch by about 3000 years in living an ascetic lifestyle, although the Hindu model has meaning built in to it, whereas this model places intrinsic value on mere longevity and existence. I guess we're all cockroaches in his model.
What a sad dude.
This podcast is better than the Netflix documentary! Thank you for providing thought-provoking interviews!
I listened to this episode earlier this week, and I've been processing the conversation for a few days now. I have questions about the human experience, and Bryan's thoughts about the more personal and emotional implications when pursuing "extreme longevity," particularly as he moves into his 50s, 60s and 70s. But more concerning to me are the implications for the wealthy and powerful vs. the rest of us as this longevity science becomes a reality for those who may choose to try it on for less "noble" purposes.
What are the motivations of wealthy and powerful people who might want to live "forever?" Would advances in longevity science serve to consolidate control? Would it serve to stop the natural turnover in leadership (which is already problematic)? What might this longevity experiment portend for future generations?
There is more to consider than just the science, but that is all that was discussed in this podcast. And this is possibly at the request of Bryan Johnson, who doesn't appear to grapple with anything beyond the science and technology of his personal experiment.
The conversation was thought-provoking and took me beyond what was contained in the conversation, and it was unsettling.
Interesting interview, but the “we are creating GOD” comment was egregious and revealed a lot of this man’s ego. Disappointed there wasn’t more questions/pushback on that statement.
Ryan: I agree that comment revealed a lot about Mr. Johnson. Technology/Data/Rationalism - those are god to him. He believes real truth, and therefore meaning, can be found via making "sacrifices" (staying hungry, recording his biometrics) and being "good" (eschewing food temptations, scheduling sleep). He's actually more of a religious zealot than almost anyone I've ever heard about.
I love Bari's work, but this interview failed to ask any of the basic questions about class, purpose, relationships, procreation, society, etc. It also failed to ask him to acknowledge that only so much of our health and well-being is within our control. His quest to push the limits isn't a terrible thing any more than someone who seeks to dive to the deepest depths or go to Mars. But it's also not noble either.
I listened to the podcast. I found nothing compelling about what Mr Johnson preached but rather felt sad for him. I hope he finds what he is looking for
Is longevity the sole measure of a successful life? (Alexander the Great died at 32.)
Alexander the Great attained longevity through his legacy, you're speaking about him 2300 years later. Why is longevity through the intangible somehow noble, but longevity through the physical (our bodies) less so?
Maybe because medically and scientifically induced physical longevity is a different mission. This isn't about the creation of a cultural empire. This is a man's antiseptic mission for super-agency over longevity at the cost of - - - spontaneity? genuine human connection? life's small pleasures? Throw in a little dirt and mud?
What kind of person genuinely wants to exist forever in this world? And I mean genuinely wants to exist FOREVER, to the extent that he is living the life of a sterile laboratory specimen?
Maybe because it's so overtly outside the natural human experience that it just doesn't sit right.
Just one caveat to Johnson if he suddenly finds a fix: please don't share it with Joe Biden. Or Hunter. Or Jill. Or Kj_P, or "Admiral" John Kirby, or Kamala Harris, or Joy Reid, or...you get the point.
I think a lot easier to believe in God if you want to believe you can live forever, rather than follow his extreme regime! (Not easier to follow the spiritual teachings of most religions to a high degree, but thankfully God is merciful).
HONESTLY?? So now that we are discussing death and life cults...when are you going to Honestly look at the theological differences between Islamism, Christianity and Judaism? We are entering the new age of theology. Be on board first Bari. LLM's are absolutely unable to do theology. Try it. Every LLM will have guardrails that make a real comparison between how these religions understand life, God and sacrifice impossible. Ask an LLM, say Gemini, why Islam embraces death of the apostate for salvation, whereas Judaism does not? Remember every GPT is a generative PRE-TRAINED transformer, and the training data is highly curated. There is no way to avoid a political religious bias from creeping into the pre-training. Only people can do theology. Only people can apply reason to what is beyond reason: God. Theo=God + Ology=reason. "In the beginning there was the Logos [ology] and the Logos was with God [Theo] and the Logos was God." Theology: Reasoning about God. Oh and atheism and agnosticism are theology too. Many a good theologian has been atheist.
Rather than lengthen my life, this interview shortened it. I am surprised that Honesty would subject us to such insufferable, self absorbed billionaire. I hope there aren't too many more of these or I will have to go elsewhere, as much as I've counted on Honesty to disseminate good information.
It is important to understand that this sort of insanity is becoming mainstream. It is no different that Jonestown or Q-Anon. When God dies all things are believable.
You always make me think Bari.
As Thomas Sowell says “ there are no solutions , only trade offs”
Would I not have my children but live forever? Would a lose those amazing meals with fabulous wines with the people I love most in the world? Life is about living isn’t it?
This guy is absolutely insufferable.