This post was written through Wispr dictation.
So when I first learned about who Bryan Johnson was, that was back in 10th grade and it was Eddie who told me about it. Told me about him and I didn't know much about him besides this guy is just an online personality, an online figure whatever. But then it was when I started becoming interested in biotech that I was actively looking into this guy and seems like this guy kind of knows his stuff regarding longevity but again he's very shallow and I actually still think he is kind of shallow because he's not really at the research front. He's an investor and this kind of a money funnel for other researchers that do research and he does um kind of translate all the research that he finds onto the internet which is helpful but all the experiments that he's doing with himself is honorable and useless at the same time because his health is the all the protocols are using that he's using for himself are like extremely specific and not universal because everyone's genetic information is just vastly different right even though we are all humans we have different cell lines, we might have different genetic diseases, we're prone to different things and therefore his n=1 test is not that great. The fact that he is trying to expand that using his own organoids is semi-intuitive and better because at least he's not running tests on one single individual now. His experiments regarding longevity might be slightly better but the problem remains that the organoids are not derived from any other donor except for himself. He's using his own iPSCs for this kind of protocol testing and that he calls "testing drugs on many Bryans." So I don't think this is that viable in the long run.
I kind of looked into his views and he is aligning really closely to all the tech lords or the epitome of the tech people right the people within Palantir. I think they've all believed the same thing regarding transhumanism; it's just that he has a higher emphasis on extending his lifespan and longevity. I am I have a strong stance against that because I'm highly skeptical of the successful rate or the success rate during the transferring or the upload situation from our human brain to the artificial neural networks simply because right now that is just not as complicated as our own human brain and I don't think that intricacy can work. It's like the Ship of Theseus.
Instead of betting on that which I think is far more arbitrary and ambiguous—how do we draw the line of what's you and what's not? I think what we should tackle is how do we preserve our consciousness while reversing our bodily aging situations. Regenerative medicine in practice, if done in a such precise and matured way, it can solve it can cure aging for almost all of your cells. Then there's epigenetics where it can solve the fundamental problems regarding DNA. So it's actually going back to the root of your DNA and try to reprogram it so instead of just making it younger it's actually kind of preventing you from developing certain longevity/aging-related diseases. And maybe there's nanotechnology coming next and cyber technology coming next but even with cyborgs, I still think brain right the brain part preserving your biological consciousness is still kind of my argument. So I think that's as far as I would go. I wanted to kind of go to the Don't Die Summit before when he was in New York earlier this year but I didn't end up going because my parents persuaded me otherwise. But again he's interesting and I think it is a spectrum because you can fully hate him for the wrong reasons that you say that he's a bad billionaire and whatever or millionaire. I don't think that's necessarily true; he's not a bad person. I think his worldview and his vision of longevity is something that I don't perfectly align with because I truly think that for longevity we need biological essentialism at least for our consciousness and the brain needs to be solved not necessarily the body but he wants the incomplete transition because he wants to prevent other natural causes of death for example accidents, whatever.
So I think it is a spectrum because we have his end where all of them are devoted believers and their anti-death their anti-anything. They believe in transhumanism and I think that this degree is someone fanatic in my view. My view might change depending on the progress of a GI/A SI but again I just don't think the complexity will ever match. Even if it matches, what constitutes as your vs your uploaded consciousness? Is that really the same thing or is it different? So we go back to the problem with regarding the Ship of Theseus.
And there's like the middle people which I think is me. We all kind of agree that we should have very healthy lifestyles and he's not a bad person for telling everyone how to preserve your biological body. I think the only distinction between me and him is that he is trying to preserve his body so he can live long enough to transition himself into AI and merge with AI, whereas I am only looking at lengthening and preserving our biological consciousness. So I'm actually on the maybe on the left end because I'm more tolerant about bodily transition into cyber technology if they do fail. But I do think with regenerative medicine, all these. Don't we don't really have to go through that much of a cyborg transition? So I'm on the kind of the mid-left end of that.
But there are also people just on the site on the right who think he's cool, who think he's funny, who think he's kind of awkward but he's funny and he's not that unrelatable. And he is just telling things and they are trying to the people who are trying to optimize for their health might agree with what he's saying. I think a lot of things he says are backed by science and therefore he is very reliable as a source of information.
Anything that's pretty good and we are on the right side where people who just hate on him for the wrong reasons. Anyways at the end, he's an interesting person with a very interesting worldview that I somewhat align with. I do think everyone should live healthy. I think the U.S. and everywhere else in the world should optimize for people's health, especially in the United States where obesity is a huge issue because people don't regulate their diet etc. And also they just don't sleep and don't have very good protocols.
I also fall into the same trap but I'm trying to optimize for better health. I am currently paying for Bevel for my Apple Watch that's basically a Whoop replacement with much better continuity and comfort. It makes more sense for me to use this combination of the hardware and software together to optimize for my health.
So people care about healthspan but I care about both healthspan and the biological lifespan. And when I say biological, I'm purely talking about brain aging. I think is the most important in the last line of defense of consciousness. We can lose limbs, we can lose some organs and get transplants, we can get artificial replacements. I'm just not confident about being the brain being replaced and that's why I am at this point. I am not aligned with people who believe in transhumanism and the complete transhumanism for example Alex Karp, people who want to build ginormous data centers to advance AI to the point that ASI is achieved, as well as people like Bryan Johnson who just blindly believes in the progress or exponential progress of AI.
I also think I read a book about "The Singularity is Near" and there's like a sequel to that book "Singularity is Nearer". The author of that book I think is also kind of believing the same level of transhumanism as these people which I don't completely align with. What I'm trying to solve is a problem that is much harder. Okay I don't think it's much harder but at least it's like kind of honest in the same lane right? But just a more conservative view and less radical technologically speaking.