Bryan Johnson: Can This Rich Transhumanist Beat Death?
Bryan Johnson, venture capitalist and founder of Blueprint, discusses his $2 million a year effort to reverse aging on Just Asking Questions.
Bryan Johnson made his fortune when he sold his company Braintree to PayPal for $800 million, netting about $300 million for himself. He spends about $2 million a year creating a system to reverse his "biological age." He's 46 years old, chronologically, but claims he's de-aged himself following a program he's branded "the Blueprint protocol."
"I wanted to pose the question in this technological age: Can an algorithm, paired with science, in fact, take better care of me than I can myself?" Johnson tells Reason's Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe on the latest episode of Just Asking Questions.
They talked with Johnson about his daily routine, the results he's published including measurement of his nighttime erections, the transhumanist philosophy he outlines in his free e-book Don't Die, the role that artificial intelligence is likely to play in prolonging human life and health spans, and the value and limitations of self-experimentation in an era of pharmaceutical stagnation.
Watch the full conversation on Reason's YouTube channel or on the Just Asking Questions podcast feed on Apple, Spotify, or your preferred podcatcher.
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Imagine cheating death only to be forever known as the lamest Brian Johnson to cheat death one way or the other.
^^ Mannequin 3: Brian Johnson
So you must be the Brian Johnson who created the scene where the alien burst out of John Hurt's stomach in Alien?
[Sigh] No.
So, uh, you probably did a lot of push ups and, uh, apparently spent a lot of time measuring your own dick, huh. I bet that was interesting. Listen, I'll be right back...
in his movie he's figuring out a way to kill both of us with one stroke ... bored fragile billionaires can turn sociopathic
Anybody who thinks eternal life would be boring obviously has no excitement in their mortal life and obviously doesn’t think there are new things to learn and do, new places to go, or new experiences to be had.
And why would an immortal being trifle with mortals, for good or ill? It’s not like an immortal being would need to do so.
Bryan Johnson is only consciously exercising the choice that is equally available to the rest of us: Either live forever or die trying.
🙂
😉
dude I'm the biggest proponent of being alive forever around here see below.
My problem isn't with living forever. My problem is people more lame than Dr. Oz hocking a different set of pseudo-scientific, pop science, and folk medicine cures for mortality and people even more lame and sad (many of whom would rightly sneer at Dr. Oz) clap for them like seals.
If I lived a thousand years and it never got boring, it would be annoying to watch them do it, funny to watch them die, and kinda sad for some/all the people they duped. If you couldn't figure that out the first time you heard a "Pop this pill, try this fitness regime, live forever." spiel, or the second, or after a lifetime of hearing them, I don't think any amount of time is going to help you figure it out. And that would be a waste of immortality.
Well, he obviously would have the time to improve. What's your excuse for not improving lameness?
The answer is obviously no, but the search for the fountain of youth has led many to an early death and I'd wager that Brian will be one more casualty of that pointless search.
Pointless? And who decides that for him or anybody else?
If "Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty," doesn't it make sense for those who value Liberty to at least try and get eternal?
Whoah! Dude has changed since Back in Black! Oh, it's Bryan not Brian. Never mind.
Thank you Hannah Gatsby.
I'll take the sex drugs & rock-n-roll and the hopes one day we can be uploaded or I find out I'm a McCloud.
Did you get into Star Trek: TNG? Do you remember the episode where a kid's parents die and to avoid reality, the kid begins looking, acting, and talking like Cmdr. Data? Yeah.
yes ... and yes ... and that was some arrested development.
Does this guy look like Data to the rest of you?
Daily Calories = 2250
What?! No carb restriction?!
The way the US is headed with all the nut cases in the GOP and the democratic party, I don't know if I want to cheat death.
Surviving the collapse of freedom, prosperity, and civilization in this nation may be the only peaceful way out and will certainly be necessary to rebuild.
Life is about showing up, and that means being there to show up as well.
He doesn't look younger than his age. He looks about 46. When I was 46 I could pass for 40, without any special invasive medical treatments at all. He does look sort of like the famous android, Commander Data. I guess that's one way to live longer.
Transhumanists only want your good genes and circumstance to be an option for all. And an eternity means infinite options for mixing it up in front of the mirror.
If they can find a path to immortality, I'll sign up. But continual medical treatments to try to squeeze out a few more years doesn't sound all that appealing.
It’s actually a bit astoundingly cognitively dissonant that we’re back here again so soon after COVID.
As I suggest below, there are numerous studies demonstrating that while any given regime provides improvements, but the more you get into 1 hr., 5X week, 2500 kCal, 8.00 hours of sleep every night, the more it becomes “Give up 2 yrs. of your life to the gym and every Superbowl Party, Thanksgiving, Xmas, Easter Dinner, and any sunset-to-late night strolls along the beach you’re gonna have and you *might* get 6-8 mos. back, emaciated, in your 80s (assuming the government doesn’t lock you in a home full of carriers).”
And, to be clear, I say this as someone who’s in the gym 5X a week and who walks/hikes daily… because I enjoy it.
Obviously, you haven't seen his body. Cut, svelt, buff, but not immovably "swold" as the kids would put it...and Adonis-level fantastic!
And those holidays? Just a bunch of other days compared to an eternity of days worth celebrating!
And there will be plenty of time to develop neural uploads that duplicate the taste and texture of food associated with those holidays without the bad side effects.
That will give plenty of morale as that Nano-enhanced chiseled chest breaks the fists and bounces the bullets of Jackboots!
🙂
😉
He does look sort of like the famous android, Commander Data. I guess that’s one way to live longer.
If you actually become an android. Otherwise, it's just a way to distort the perception of your age and hock your own personal brand of Gloop!
He doesn't look especially good or healthy to me either. Especially with regard to age-related wasting. He looks like someone, as indicated above, who's heard every hair-brained life-extension scheme for the last 20 yrs. just assumed the vague assertions about the various magic pills were right without looking at the longitudinal and EOL data that had already been done... or even considering the plain-fact implications.
I'm no expert, but guys like Jake Gyllenhaal and Ken Florian look pretty good for mid-40s, especially given the circumstances.
Bryan Johnson: Can This Rich Transhumanist Beat Death?
No.
In your Subsidiaritarian Stepford Utopia, it wouldn't be worth it, but don't knock anyone else for trying.
Spoiler Alert!
His recipe is tasty and not anathema to my tastes at all. I'll love reading more! My big barrier to The Singularity is sleep.
Somebody needs to come up with a way to concentrate all the biological needs provided by sleep into less time until we don't need sleep at all! And, of course, without dangerous stuff like crystal meth. Clawing the face and violent outbursts are only a feature for Nazis but a bug for Libertarian Transhumanists.
I went to highschool with guys like this. When he might have died in his sleep , he'll instead be awake to be killed by terrorists or some such thing. What is crazy about him is he already is sure he is different and not the fool all other humans are.
Reminds me of that health food guy on Dick Cavett. Cavett asked him "so how long do you expect to live?" he replies "I plan to live to ___ and die being hit by a bus" Cavett takes a commercial break. The show comes back and guest is DEAD
https://lostmediawiki.com/The_Dick_Cavett_Show_(lost_Jerome_Rodale_death_footage_of_episode_of_talk_show;_1971)
a full life, great. A long life, everything points to it as a huge curse without the fulfillment part. Oh, to be around while all my friends, family, co-workers, fellow students, and neighbors die -- that is the dream of a fool.
This weirdo clearly took the "money" path to getting laid.
This sort of shit being associated with libertarianism is a great way to get more people to dismiss libertarians.