‘Tech billionaire who spends two million dollars a year to live rent free inside an entire country’s collective head.’
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Some people would propose believing in any god to be a metal illness.
Beth
#314
RapAdmin
#315
The real scientific insights from Bryan Johnson’s immortality quest
Tech millionaire turned longevity pioneer Bryan Johnson devotes more than 6 hours a day to trialling different methods to turn back the clock. Can the rest of us learn anything from his radical approach?
…
The other 6 hours and 20 minutes that Johnson devotes daily to longevity work are spent, variously, measuring his waking body temperature, using serums for hair growth, working out for an hour – cardio, strength, balance – taking a 20-minute sauna, using red light therapy and hypoxia therapy (the latter is a new addition, involving breathing in varying concentrations of oxygen) before eating breakfast. This is a mix of ground nuts, seeds and blueberries, extra virgin olive oil, pomegranate juice extract, cocoa, collagen protein, pea and hemp protein, cinnamon powder, Omega-3, Omega-6, grapeseed extract and macadamia nut milk, among other ingredients. All this is to “follow the data and the science” to turn back the clock.
“A lot of people hear this and they think, ‘That’s crazy’,” he says. “The way they can think about it is I’m a professional rejuvenation athlete. I’m like an Olympian, but for longevity.”
Read the full story: The real scientific insights from Bryan Johnson’s immortality quest (NewScientist)
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Thinking about the (rough) economics of this:
6 hours and 20 minutes per day is 380 minutes, out of 1,440 minutes per day, or 26.4% of the time.
So if he does this every day, if he achieves a 26.4% increase in lifespan (which is massive), he has only broken even. One might say that a person would be better to spend that 6h20 doing things to live their life to a fuller extent. The only way it works is if we do hit some sort of longevity escape velocity, which is more of a gamble IMO.
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RTHR
#318
6 hours and 20 minutes per day includes the time he spend on daily care, eating food, exercising 1h, showering, sauna and skin caring. From a “maintaining health” perspective, spending a few hours on this routine is also inevitable. It’s really difficult to save these time.
And for the other stuff he is doing in 6 hours and 20 minutes, he probably is making money from them. Like, working while doing hypoxia therapy.
He’s running 4 companies but I don’t think he would work whole day for them.
And he barely spend any time on cooking, cleaning house, etc. That cost much time too.
Even if he looks so busy, it’s still better than most of people.
4 Likes
Rob01
#319
Bryan Johnson also indicates he enjoys the longevity activities. I don’t know how he could do it else wise. He makes arguments about the various ways one can live their life to a fuller extent. One person might say I live to the fullest extent eating fast food, going to bars, drugs, work hustle mentality, tanning, watching TV, porn or whatever and if you look at that one could say that person is not very aware and perhaps crazy. The other person is doing exercise, sauna, red-light, HBOT, etc. There are many people like the first person; perhaps most. Then you look at how happy Americas are:
And it’s not so good. So something is not right with the standard definition of how the average person lives to the fullest extent or there would be more happiness. Bryan has a different definition and it’s very hard for the person in the 1st group to empathize and understand this vastly different definition. Bryan says he’s happier then he’s ever been in his life is some of his videos. I totally believe it. I feel my happiest when my body, mind, and spirt are all in tune and that takes work/hours every day.
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Curious
#320
Bryan Johnson now lives with a healthy purpose. Living with a purpose makes you feel good since it brings clarity, motivation, and fulfillment to life. Pursuing meaningful goals with relevant actions tends to increase positive emotions like joy and meaning, which contribute to overall happiness and emotional well-being.
This sense of fulfillment comes from doing things aligned with your core values and goals, which helps you feel connected to something bigger than yourself and more engaged with the world around you. A purpose in life can provide motivation to take action and reduce feelings of emptiness or existential loneliness.
Living with purpose often involves engaging in communities, which reduces isolation. Having a sense of purpose might lead to a deeper sense of belonging and creats a sense of meaning which increases the possibility for happiness.
5 Likes
Yeah, very fair points. And obviously I am spending time on longevity stuff right now reading and replying to posts here, haha. I just find the cost:benefit analyses particularly interesting, because there must be some tipping point where it becomes not worth it any more.
Yeah, I agree with this too. And generally speaking, I enjoy most of my longevity-related pursuits too. I don’t love saying no to yummy chocolate brownies and ice cream all the time, and leg day at the gym can sometimes make me question my life choices. But overall I’m way happier (and healthier) since starting this lifestyle.
So I’m not shitting on Bryan for spending a lot of time on his pursuits. I am more like curious about time invested vs time earned. I made a new topic a few weeks ago about this, where it kinda (tongue-in-cheek, semi-seriously) argues that if you just slept less you’ll actually “live” longer. The negative repercussions of cutting 1h of sleep are not that bad, but you gain 1/24 = 4% extra waking hours, which is essentially a lifespan extension right there. Cutting from 8h to 6h gets you a massive 8% increase in time you can spend doing things, and doesn’t seem to shorten lifespan based on epidemiological data.
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Curious
#322
Correct, it might become an obsession that destroys your mental wellbeing and there is always a risk beleived rationality leads you into taking unknown but unhealthy actions.
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LaraPo
#323
You are also “doing things” while you are sleeping. Your brain organizes and stores memories. Your lymphatic system clears out waste products. You are having dreams - and that alone is interesting (more entertaining than watching Netflix).
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Neo
#324
The other HUGE one is if one believes in continued exponential progress in science, technology and medicine and hence gives at least some meaningful probability that longevity escape velocity might occur within the next 3-6 decades (based on his age/health status today)
It could be that just living 2-3 years longer is the difference between intercepting longevity escape velocity and obtaining more decades of even more centuries of life vs missing it
2 Likes
A_User
#325
How did you come to the estimate of 3-6 decades and does that include AI progress?
Neo
#326
The forest: No precision here, just making a conceptual point
The trees: His age + three decades is roughly the average life expectancy of a while, male America. The odds are that just based on his screening, diet, socioeconomic status, etc you can add 1-2+ decades. Some scenarios even without ASI give him the additional 1-2 decades.
On when LEV might actually occur - from my vantage point it’s very difficult to predict, could be within 2 decades, could take 10. So my main point is when weighing the cost vs benefit is that any extra time might be the difference for the individual on whether they can make to LEV and be in an OK enough shape to benefit from it.
Science there are many different scenarios that are plausible, thinking about things as range might be helpful
So neither
- AGI/ASI will for sure solve this soon so no reason for me to optimize health or longevity,
nor
- LEV will for sure not happen, so I should only maximize pleasure from current life expectancy time horizons perspective and not invest too much in health and longevity optimization
seem like good ways of thinking of this
2 Likes
Virilius
#327
I hope more states and countries go the Montana route and allow companies to test their research products on willing human test subjects.
2 Likes
A_User
#328
If you’re expecting LEV in 10-20 years that is within even the 30 years you mentioned, unless your predicted range is wider. It could inform the amount of effort to put towards it, like what % of your day including work. Some might even start companies or spread the message depending on the expected range.
If you are in your 20’s do you really have to spend much effort on this?
1 Like
Neo
#329
Some of the smartest young people, in the heart of Silicon Valley and AI seem to things so (see Laura Deming, James Fickel, Alex Coville, etc).