The $2M Plan To Age In Reverse - Bryan Johnson

1. 0:00 – 0:40

   Intro

   1. BJBryan Johnson0:00

      My body's aging extremely slowly. I have 50 biomarkers, the things you would normally expect like cholesterol and triglycerides and things like that, that are in the perfect optimal clinical outcome range. I have 100 biomarkers that are less than my chronological age. Several fitness tests where I test out at, as an elite 18 year old. My body runs three degrees Fahrenheit cooler than normal. So, no matter how you're looking at it, whether it's my DNA methylation, my fitness test, my biomarkers, my phenotypic markers, whatever you're looking at, the data says the same thing. I'm in near perfect health. (jet engine roars)

   2. CWChris Williamson0:34

      Brian Johnson, welcome to the show.

   3. BJBryan Johnson0:37

      Thank you for having me.

   4. CWChris Williamson0:39

      Do you fear death?

2. 0:40 – 6:11

   Does Bryan Fear Death?

   1. CWChris Williamson0:42

   2. BJBryan Johnson0:45

      No. I love life.

   3. CWChris Williamson0:48

      Is there a distinction between those two?

   4. BJBryan Johnson0:53

      I- I do not have a ... I- I know what fear feels like, and I don't experience that emotion when contemplating death.

   5. CWChris Williamson1:06

      I spent a good bit of time looking at the longevity, uh, Subreddit many, many years ago when David Sinclair first came on the scene. And, um, one of the things that I kind of realized, or I thought I might have realized, was it seemed like a little bit of a rehabilitated denial of death, in a way.

   6. BJBryan Johnson1:24

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CWChris Williamson1:25

      Uh, it seems like there are certain elements of the longevity community that, that do see that. Uh, but based on what I've looked at from what you're doing, it seems like a very enjoyable, fun experiment where you're trying to-

   8. BJBryan Johnson1:37

      (laughs)

   9. CWChris Williamson1:37

      ... see how far you can push your body. But I'm trying to work out, you know, is there, deeper down in the recesses, is there something ... Is there a denial of death? Is there a fear from, from what's coming in the future driving you at all?

   10. BJBryan Johnson1:50

       My, my main source of inspiration is having read hundreds of biographies. I love learning about people in their time and place that were able to work on impossibly hard things. So talent is the ability to hit the target no one else can. Genius hits the target no one else can see. And the majority of us in life, we play the games that society gives us, so that's hitting the target. So currently, you know, it's social media followers and, you know, this and that. Uh, so people like to play games where points can be kept and you can be compared to people and ranked. Uh, genius is a different game. It's trying to find things that don't exist. And you need to have the stamina and fortitude to go out and pave your own path and do things that are not recognized, appreciated, or valued even in your lifetime. And so to me that ... Reading biographies is about people who do that, is they really try to survey all of existence. They are somehow immune to their time and place, and are able to see these things. That's really ... So in my- in my understanding of my reality, I seek to be like those people.

   11. CWChris Williamson3:07

       And with that, it means disregarding current wisdom around approaches for health, fitness, sleep, diet, nutrition, training, everything.

   12. BJBryan Johnson3:19

       Everything. The reason why we exist, what we do with our existence, everything.

   13. CWChris Williamson3:25

       Okay. So in your view, what is the reason why we exist?

   14. BJBryan Johnson3:33

       Lucky us, we exist. I mean, I do not recall asking to exist. It just happened. And I really enjoy existing, and I would like to continue to exist. And these questions, for example, like, what is the meaning of life? I think that is an example of what it means to exist. I don't think there is an answer. It just is ... A person's answer is reflective of that, of the time and place. Like you- you ... Basically, it's a mirror of the social and cultural norms. And the person's trying to express themselves within those norm structures and, again, trying to hit targets. Uh, but to me, it- it's ... We live at this really special time. Uh, no, no, uh, human before us, no generation before us has ever been in the situation we're in, where we're on this precipice of potentially radically extending and altering what it means to be c- uh, conscious being. And it's just ... It's delicious beyond, uh, words. And I think the faster we can fully embrace this opportunity, the better off we are. But I think we're, we're still a little bit zombified. Like, we just haven't quite seen it. And, um, w- we'll be better off t- if we can try to catch these, these, these waves.

   15. CWChris Williamson4:56

       I like the idea of the meaning of life being basically dependent on the local ecology and the local time. So if it was, uh, Britain in 1100 AD, it would be in service of God. You know?

   16. BJBryan Johnson5:11

       That's right.

   17. CWChris Williamson5:11

       It would ... It, it would be hoeing the garden and the sun beating down on your back, but you're doing it because you need to praise the Lord. And if it's w- you know, pick your time, pick whatever it is that people desire. I find it-

   18. BJBryan Johnson5:25

       That's well said.

   19. CWChris Williamson5:25

       (laughs)

   20. BJBryan Johnson5:26

       I mean, just, just building on your comment, like, if you basically look throughout thousands of years of human history, and if you look at the emergent spiritual practices and religions that have emerged, and you put a Chinese ... You know, you put a wall in between the technology of that time and place and the ideologies that emerged, so just not even including the personalities who gave birth to these ideologies, they're simply a reflection of what was technologically capable in that time and place. That's it.... uh, you know, human guru narrative aside, that's just it. It's just a mirror on what ... on the practical extent to which humans can aspire.

   21. CWChris Williamson6:08

       Okay. So, in this regard, does technology

3. 6:11 – 12:52

   Technology’s Role in the Meaning of Life

   1. CWChris Williamson6:11

      unlock our ability to think about our meaning and our place in the world?

   2. BJBryan Johnson6:20

      Yeah, I mean, the ... Behind Blueprint ... I mean, a lot of people observe that Blueprint, uh, they think that Blueprint is about health and wellness and anti-aging. It is really a contemplation about the future of our existence. And, what I think we've demonstrated is that we've built an algorithm that takes better care of me than I can. And we know what happens when algorithms get better at us at doing things. Flying airplanes, calculators, uh, digital navigation, you name it. We embrace them because they do a given thing better, and they help us achieve our goals better than we could ourselves, so we can free our minds up and do other things. With Blueprint, I think I've ... I'm showing, uh, following Nietzsche of God is dead, I think the mind is dead. That if, if the algorithmic ability, if I can measure, you know, the 35 trillion cells in my body and an algorithm can better manage entropy than I can, of course I'm going to opt into it and free myself up to do other things. And I think that's where we're at as a society. I mean, uh, so yes, does unlock, does technology unlock it? Yes. I mean, I think at the most fundamental level and the most meaningful philosophical, uh, revolution to happen in a long time, the mind is dead is here. Like, it just arrived.

   3. CWChris Williamson7:55

      I think a lot of speculation about artificial intelligence, maybe five years to 10 years ago, was that, yeah, sure, we'll be able to automate certain things. It'll be able to do kind of normal forward-thinking processes, but it can't do creativity, it can't do art, it can't do writing, it can't do music. And then, it turns out that it probably can. And given enough time, it's going to be able to do it better than us. One of the interesting things to reflect on from your point there was that, um, a navigation system. Everybody uses Google Maps or Apple Maps or some equivalent now, right? Why? We used to navigate by our favorite roads. We would look at a map and have an A to Z out and go through all of the different routes, and there would be a co-pilot that would be giving you the wrong directions. Why is it that we were so, uh, quickly prepared to switch from this-

   4. BJBryan Johnson8:46

      Mm-hmm.

   5. CWChris Williamson8:46

      ... personal orienteering approach to using a GPS? Well, it's because no one was existentially connected to their ability-

   6. BJBryan Johnson8:53

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CWChris Williamson8:53

      ... to do wayfinding.

   8. BJBryan Johnson8:55

      Yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson8:55

      I think that there is a, uh, a difference in kind in terms of how people see their own regulation of their physiology, right? That there is some sacred sense-

   10. BJBryan Johnson9:05

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   11. CWChris Williamson9:06

       ... that I shouldn't go in and tinker with what nature has already done. That it is-

   12. BJBryan Johnson9:10

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CWChris Williamson9:10

       ... able to regulate itself, it can optimize, so on and so forth. There's, uh, you know, even see this around vaccines as well, that the difference between-

   14. BJBryan Johnson9:17

       Mm-hmm.

   15. CWChris Williamson9:17

       ... somebody taking a pill versus getting an injection. There's just-

   16. BJBryan Johnson9:20

       Yeah.

   17. CWChris Williamson9:20

       ... there are certain relatively arbitrary sort of rules that we place on what feels sacred-

   18. BJBryan Johnson9:25

       Mm-hmm.

   19. CWChris Williamson9:25

       ... what doesn't, what we should tinker with, what doesn't, what we're prepared to relinquish control of and outsource to a computer, and what we're not. And given that we've, as we just said, we thought that AI could do certain things, and there was a limit, and it seems like that limit has been pushed through. Uh, it seems quite timely that you are, um, trying to break through another frontier of assumption, not creativity, but I guess self-regulation of the body, uh, also using technology.

   20. BJBryan Johnson9:54

       Very well said. Yeah.

   21. CWChris Williamson9:57

       Let's take it.

   22. BJBryan Johnson9:57

       I would give you (laughs) ... Yeah. You, you absolutely, uh, synthesized that beautifully. I'll give you two thought experiments, which I think capture the essence of this. I hold these Blueprint brunches at my house. I call them the First Supper. And to prepare people, I'm g- I, t- explained to them, "I'm going to introduce a few ideas to you that are most likely going to break your brain. They're going to ... (laughs) Basically, you're going to experience one or multiple existential crisises in this two and a half hour dinner. So here's a few thought exercises to get your brain prepared." It's like, I do those three, and then I give them a thought experiment, and I say, "Let's, uh, let's imagine a scenario where an algorithm is built specifically for you, your personalized algorithm, and it takes better care of your wellness than you can yourself, by, is, is far superior, physical and mental, spiritual wellbeing. You can have this algorithm. The, the catch is, you have to be willing to accept its recommendations and follow its protocol. Would you be willing to do it?" And about a third of the participants say, "Yes. Like, anything to free me from myself, yes." A third say, "Uh, sure, but I want to change a few things." It's like, "LOL. (laughs) That's not the thought experiment." (laughs) And then, a third group gets deeply offended. You know, just what you were saying, you touch upon if they can't decide what to eat and what to drink and when to do it, they don't understand their existence. Uh, so that was the first thought experiment. The second thought experiment I layer on top of that is when you and I ... If, if we say, "How good is technology going to be in 20 years time?" Without questioning it, you and I are going to agree, it's better. Now, are we gonna say there's nanobots in our bloodstream repairing our DNA in real time? Or is it AGI? Whatever our speculations are, it has this dramatic assumption that it's better.If you and I say, "What are you and I going to be like in 20 years from now?" We don't even question it. It's worse. We just, uh, don't know how f- how slow or how fast the decay is going to be. But what if, uh, in the 25th century, people were talking about what humans in the early 21st century changed that fundamentally altered the future of human existence? It was that humans figured out how to attach themselves to the speed, the compounded rate of improvement that we see in our technology today. So, when you and I go through that second thought experiment, we say, "What are you and I going to be like in 20 years?" We don't know, but better. Unquestionably, we believe that.

   23. CWChris Williamson12:45

       It's like the, uh, human Moore's law affiliation.

4. 12:52 – 17:50

   The Most Compelling Data from Bryan’s Work

   1. CWChris Williamson12:52

   2. BJBryan Johnson12:52

      Correct.

   3. CWChris Williamson12:53

      I like to meme, I like to meme things. Okay.

   4. BJBryan Johnson12:55

      (laughs)

   5. CWChris Williamson12:55

      So, um, we've, we've flirted around what it is that you're doing at the moment. What are the headlines of what you've managed to achieve with your protocol so far?

   6. BJBryan Johnson13:04

      I think the most compelling data is that I've ... Using a state-of-the-art DNA methylation algorithm, I have slowed my speed of aging by the equivalent of 31 years. My body now accumulates aging damage at the speed, uh, uh, better than the average 10-year-old and better than 88, uh, percent of 18-year-olds, which means, you know, people at 10 years old are accumulating aging damage. Uh, most don't realize that. Just as you get older, you accumulate damage faster and it compounds. And so, my body's aging extremely slowly. Uh, number two is I have 50 biomarkers. The, the things you would normally expect, like cholesterol and triglycerides and other things like that, that are in the perfect optimal clinical outcome range. I have 100 biomarkers that are less than my chronological age. Several fitness tests where I test out, uh, as an elite 18-year-old. My body runs three degrees Fahrenheit cooler than normal. So, no matter how you're looking at it, whether it's my DNA methylation, my fitness test, my biomarkers, my phenotypic markers, whatever you're looking at, the data says the same thing. I'm in near perfect health.

   7. CWChris Williamson14:14

      Pretty impressive. Pretty useful. What is the projection ... Presuming that you don't get into a car accident at some point, what is the projection of your age? Your potential longevity?

   8. BJBryan Johnson14:29

      Yeah, I mean, people, uh, are ... A familiar frame of reference would be, what is the return of investment on this company? And investors typically want like a 3X return or a 5X return or a 10X return, we'll be out of the park. Think about that on lifespan. If you can be around for the future of these technologies coming, your return on life investment could be 5X, 10X, 100X, 1,000X. No one knows. You could have a massive return in life. And so the goal is, be around. It's worth doing the hard work right now to dramatically slow your speed of aging. What I've been trying to do with Blueprint is, when people talk about aging, it's always this, "Oh, it's coming," and, "Oh, it's exciting," and, "Wouldn't it be amazing if..." But no one had, in my estimation, said, "Okay, let's take all of the current scientific evidence. Let's put it in one person and let's see where we're at. Let's just give it a go. Let's see what the data says. Is the fountain of youth here right now? If not, how close? How far? Where are we at?" And that's what I've been trying to do, is to say, "Actually, you know what?" It's (laughs) it's pretty compelling what's available right now.

   9. CWChris Williamson15:41

      Are you familiar with the concept of longevity escape velocity?

   10. BJBryan Johnson15:45

       I am.

   11. CWChris Williamson15:46

       Yeah. So, it, it sounds like you're kind of referring to that basically, that the longer that you stick about, the better the technology will be down the line, which means that it will be able to extend your life longer. And if there is a point at which the technology is able to bypass or, uh, the technology gets stronger than the rate at which we age, you go, "Okay, what ... My point is to, to stick about until that," and that would be longevity escape velocity. So, I- I've had a ton of people on the show talking about longevity, health, and fitness, and it seems that the conception, the overarching principles aren't necessarily as universal, especially when we add your, uh, approach into the mix. What is the overarching principles that guide your approach for longevity?

   12. BJBryan Johnson16:30

       Mm-hmm. Yeah. This is ... This has been a fun learning for me. You can have four anti-aging scientists read the same five papers and then ask them to design an anti-aging protocol, and you'll get five different anti-aging protocols. (laughs) There's just no agreement and there's, there's not a way of settling the agreement. And that's why I've endeavored to do this, is I do it and then I share my data. And, yes, there's limitations of it's n of one, but it's better than n of zero.

   13. CWChris Williamson17:07

       Okay. Given your markers, given what you have learned, what does the framework look like? Or what does the, uh, what are the principles, uh, and the longest levers that you're looking at?

   14. BJBryan Johnson17:18

       Uh, it's a process of measuring extensively. I think I'm potentially the most measured human in all of history. Then it's taking that data and it's trying to assess the very best evidence. Now, that's, that's an art. Because again, you can, uh ... And have scientists look at the same data and they come with, come away at different conclusions. So, it's looking at the evidence, then it's implementing protocol. Uh, in a subject like myself where I'm trying to be perfect in protocol adherence,

5. 17:50 – 26:01

   Why Bryan is Vegan

   1. BJBryan Johnson17:50

      and then it's repeating. Data, evidence, protocol. And do it again and again and again.

   2. CWChris Williamson17:58

      Why are you vegan? What's the thinking behind that?

   3. BJBryan Johnson18:01

      Uh, by choice. So, it ... Blueprint does not express opinions about anything.It doesn't say whether veganism is good or bad, or meat is good or bad. It just is a process to say measurement, evidence, protocol. And so I basically just ask my team, "Is it possible for us to do a vegan protocol and be within the targets of the optimal clinical outcome ranges?" So the only exception is I take collagen peptides. I'm trying to find a vegan source for that. But yeah, it's a preference, not a necessity.

   4. CWChris Williamson18:34

      Why do you prefer it?

   5. BJBryan Johnson18:37

      Uh, because I would like to ... I hope that a scale, a scaling law of technology, that the more intelligent a system gets, the more compassion that it has.

   6. CWChris Williamson19:02

      So this is an ethical veganism substrate, uh, a little foundation that you're playing on top of reducing animal suffering, I'm gonna guess.

   7. BJBryan Johnson19:11

      It, it's a ... It's a contemplation that, uh, the, the problem that humanity ... The only problem we have to solve as a species, really, is goal alignment. Like, we have these godlike powers now. We just simply need to figure out ... not simply (laughs) ... we need to figure out how to cooperate. And that means not just humans, but humans and planet Earth, and humans and AI, trillions and trillions and trillions of agents of intelligence. Whether they're cells or whether they're bots or whether it's plants or whatever it is, we have this gigantic tapestry of computational goal alignment. And it's a problem of a size and scale that just baffles the mind. It so far exceeds anything we're cont- we're, we're, we're at m- we're capable of. And so when I think about the real game we're playing here, uh, at the largest possible scale of this mathematical model, uh, I hope that we trend towards compassion. Because while we are alpha on this planet right now, that's not ... I don't think we're alpha anymore. And I think that we are going to want the attribute of compassion to exist in this broad tapestry of intelligence.

   8. CWChris Williamson20:37

      Would it potentially be easier, simpler, more efficient, more effective for you to add animal products in? Have you ever considered trying to do that? Is there a point in the future, uh, which you'll say, "Let's do a six-month test where fish comes in or seafood comes in or, or red meat comes in"?

   9. BJBryan Johnson20:59

      Yeah. I've shared everything. I, I've shared the entire blueprint protocol so people can do it, and they could share their data. I personally don't want to do it.

   10. CWChris Williamson21:11

       Right. I understand. In order to get the nutrients that you need without touching on animal products, I imagine that that's a very large amount of vegetables that you need to eat.

   11. BJBryan Johnson21:28

       I mean, I don't know large. I mean, the, my ... If you just look at the evidence and you say my ... I'm trying to goal align 35 trillion cells that make up me, and the objective function is to reduce entropy. So I'm, I'm running this, this massive computational model with 35 trillion cells on goal alignment with myself. And I'm basically saying, can everything inside of me, uh, try to go after one goal, which is less entropy? And we're looking at all the evidence, we're looking at all the different data, but to me it's a really interesting quandary because we think about goal alignment in cooperation of can we get AI to align with eight billion humans? Can we get a hundred and, you know, 60 some odd nation states to cooperate on planet Earth? Like, we're always thinking about these big cooperation problems, but the, the cooperation problem, the goal alignment problem almost never is asked of each one of us. We get to always point our finger at everyone else and blame everyone else and ask everyone else to align their goals with ours. We're not being asked to do the tough work to say, "Hey, you know what? Inside of each of one of us is an absolute war." It's a Balkanized war with our var- with our various selves. And so to me, the mastery of self is the ultimate challenge for anyone to go after. It's harder than going to the moon, it's harder than going to Mars. And that's, I think, where if we're going to succeed as a species, that's the hard work we need to do.

   12. CWChris Williamson22:53

       We do not have complete control over ourselves though, right? We don't even know what ourselves are. We are self-deceptive. We often have contradictory and destructive behaviors and desires that we want to engage in. And how do we know? We don't, we don't have a metric that says, "I, I want d- I want a relationship, but I also want to be good at business, but I also want status, but I also want to have fun with my friends, but I also want to sleep well, and I also want to be healthy." You know, for us to be able to pull all of these together-

   13. BJBryan Johnson23:24

       Yeah.

   14. CWChris Williamson23:24

       ... is challenging. And I want to get onto self-destructive behaviors, but before we even get to that, how can someone work out what it is that they want to want in life?

   15. BJBryan Johnson23:36

       (laughs) Yeah. So if (laughs) ... Uh, this is fun talking to you. (laughs) Um, this is the exact problem I've been trying to solve, and this is why I say the mind is dead. So when I approached this problem with myself, the difficulty I had was I myself was out of control. I would overeat. I would engage in all kinds of self-destructive behaviors. I was 50 pounds heavier than my healthy weight. I was marching myself into the grave, and I couldn't stop myself no matter what.And so that was, like, the, like, the personal problem I was trying to solve, which then mapped to, like, some other ambitions I had. But when I look at myself and I'm trying to distill those kinds of questions, like, "Who am I? What do I want? What are my goals?" there's thousands of Brians chiming in. Like, right now, it's, you know, it's 10:30 AM Brian speaking. 5:30 PM is going to have a different, Brian's gonna have a different answer. Saturday Brian is going to have a different answer. Uh, with friends, Brian's gonna have a different answer. Like, there's thousands of different ways I'm going to answer it, based upon my biochemical state. I trust none of them. And that's why, you know, th- I don't know how to tackle this complexity. So what I said is, like, "What is the most basic and simplest possible thing I could do that would actually wrestle my chaos into some order and, you know, like, try to eliminate the unruliness of- of my existence?" And that's what Blueprint has done, and that's why I follow the algorithm. It- it's- it's freed me from this insanity which used to be me.

   16. CWChris Williamson25:22

       But you had to make a value judgment at some point, right? You had to say that, "The goal that I'm going for isn't to maximize status." It's not even within the world of health and fitness to maximize muscle mass, to compete in a bodybuilding show, to maximize my enj- endurance or my HRV or my VO2 max or whatever it might be. There was a point at which you had to go through a process of stepping back and saying, "What do I want to want?"

   17. BJBryan Johnson25:50

       Yeah.

   18. CWChris Williamson25:50

       That was the first step. That had to be the first step.

   19. BJBryan Johnson25:52

       Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, step number one, don't die (laughs) . Stay alive.

   20. CWChris Williamson26:00

       Well, that's the

6. 26:01 – 36:52

   How to Identify & Overcome Self-Destructive Behaviours

   1. CWChris Williamson26:01

      problem with alignment, right? You know, that's the-

   2. BJBryan Johnson26:03

      Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson26:03

      ... concern that everybody has as soon as you get a self-aware recurrent improvement-

   4. BJBryan Johnson26:07

      Yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson26:08

      ... AGI.

   6. BJBryan Johnson26:09

      Yeah.

   7. CWChris Williamson26:09

      Okay. So, um, Daniel Kahneman often talks about this idea of, um, uh, two, uh, levers that you can use to encourage behavior change. One of them being, uh, try harder, and one of them be sort of stop doing the things that are stopping you from doing the thing more.

   8. BJBryan Johnson26:27

      Mm-hmm.

   9. CWChris Williamson26:27

      So press on the accelerator further or release the brake. And I think what I like about your approach is that you... Your- your first priority, as far as I can see, is stopping pressing the brake before starting to press the accelerator.

   10. BJBryan Johnson26:38

       Hm.

   11. CWChris Williamson26:38

       Stop doing the self-destructive behavior. What is your framework for identifying self-destructive behaviors and overcoming them?

   12. BJBryan Johnson26:49

       It's a- a complicated question, and I've tried to simplify the thinking of it. Anything that increases my speed of aging, I label as self-destructive. Anything that slows my speed of aging is rejuvenative. So I try to just make it very clean left or right.

   13. CWChris Williamson27:12

       And what about overcoming it? How do you do that? You've got the many Brians coming in.

   14. BJBryan Johnson27:17

       Yeah.

   15. CWChris Williamson27:18

       And, uh, you know, I've heard you talk previously about the fact that it's not about what 5:00 PM Brian wants to do, he's a dick. It- it's- it's what the plan (laughs) says that he's supposed to do.

   16. BJBryan Johnson27:29

       Yeah.

   17. CWChris Williamson27:29

       And then when 5:00 PM Brian comes around... I have a friend who uses the term, "I'm just working for the boss." So when it's his tu- time to do something, to get up and start writing a book or whatever it is-

   18. BJBryan Johnson27:40

       Yeah.

   19. CWChris Williamson27:40

       ... that he needs to do, "I'm just working for the boss. I don't make the decision. The boss already made the decision previously. I'm working for the boss."

   20. BJBryan Johnson27:46

       Mm-hmm.

   21. CWChris Williamson27:46

       The boss also happens to be you.

   22. BJBryan Johnson27:48

       Yeah.

   23. CWChris Williamson27:48

       But it's not as simple as, "I have made a prescribed set of rules that I'm supposed to follow."

   24. BJBryan Johnson27:55

       Yeah.

   25. CWChris Williamson27:55

       "Therefore, at 5:00 PM, when my felt sense changes, oh, I remember the protocol." There- there's motivation and- and there's- there's a felt sense of what we're supposed to do. So, like, take me through, or what are the lessons that people can take away for improving that adherence, for not having to rely on motivation as much, for improving their discipline if that's even what you refer to it as?

   26. BJBryan Johnson28:17

       Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah. I, uh, I'm currently putting together a team of behavioral change experts, and I wanted to do this as a public experiment. I'm going to invite whoever wants to participate in a 30-day challenge to try to get their self-aided destruction scores to zero. And so the easy ones we'd target would be eating too much food, eating junk food, skipping exercise, not meeting your bedtime. Like, just some really basic ones. Not getting to the nuanced ones where, you know, is gaming good or bad? Under what circumstances? You know, like let's leave those complicated ones out. Just can you stop the blatant self-aided destructive behaviors? And then to have five behavioral change experts repres- you know, present their school of thought, like, "Here's our protocol. Here's how you go about doing it, CBT versus whatever." And then have people choose the school of thought that they resonate with. And then just have the teams compete for who can lower their self... you know, their SAD scores the most. So I'm in no way an expert in this area on behavioral change, and I just thought it'd be a cool thing to try to popularize SAD, that, um, (laughs) we've normalized SAD in society so much so that you can do it out in the open with friends and everyone's cool with it. No one calls it out, and it's all expected. And if you don't participate in SAD, you get called out and ostracized from the group. You're the one who's meant to feel like you shou- you don't belong. And so for me personally, uh, it was, uh... Food is a gateway for bad behavior for me. And that was really th- where, like, the dam was breaking. And so doing this protocol of Blueprint was a way to arrest the most violent destructive behaviors I had, and then the other ones have just been baby steps on top. Once I got control there, uh, that kind of discipline has been, uh, naturally extending everywhere else in my life.But, uh, this is- I guess this is why I get excited about the future of being human is, if this algorithm legitimately can arrest my worst, uh, proclivities that I'm helpless to- to get to arrest, you know, uh, can it do other things for me too, including can it get into my mind one day of stopping all the self-destructive harm I do on my- uh, to myself with my own- my own mind? And so, this just takes a remapping of what it means to be human. But, uh, I've never been happier or more fulfilled. And, you know, it's- it's funny because people, when they observe my behaviors, their assumption is that I'm sad, which is weird, (laughs) which is ironic. Meanwhile, you know, they're drowning in their own sad behaviors, uh, and I'm the one that should be ostracized. So, it's a really funny self-defense mechanism to try to soothe oneself from what they're doing.

   27. CWChris Williamson31:12

       What were the steps that you found most effective at stopping yourself from binge eating?

   28. BJBryan Johnson31:21

       It was, uh, separating myself into multiple. I'm not one person, I am many. And then, it was identifying the specific most egregious version of myself, which was Evening Brian. He showed up at 7:00 PM every night, so I identified who he was. I gave him a name. I listed out his persuasion tactics, like, you know, "It's been a long day. You deserve it. You did really well at this. You- you worked out really hard. You probably already burned the calories off. You know, tomorrow we start..." All the persuasion tactics. And then when he shows up, I- I treat him as other. "Hi, br- Hi, Evening Brian. I see you're here. I see what you're trying to do with your persuasion tech- uh, techniques, and you're not. Like, you have been unauthorized to make decisions on how to, you know... You can't eat food. Like, period. You have no authorization." And so, it's like this- this game of going about doing it. And in my mind, when I do that, I can see Evening Brian throw a tantrum. You know, the- the fact that his authority has been revoked and how offended he is and how out- outraged he is and how he's just... If he could be violent, he would be. Uh, but it's this- this phenomena that's psychologically so interesting to watch how I myself play within myself on these- in these dialogues. And at first, it was really, uh, it was contentious. You know, and like, you feel that tension, and you're so close to breaking, for him overpowering. But it was really, uh, personalizing these aspects of myself and making them other, and then I could work on them one at a time.

   29. CWChris Williamson32:56

       That's interesting. So, othering yourself, creating a distance between you and the things that you tell yourself, understanding that- that it is you, but it's- it's a malignant version of you. It's like an-

   30. BJBryan Johnson33:13

       Mm-hmm.
7. 36:52 – 46:34

   Data-Based Optimal Training Regime

   1. CWChris Williamson36:52

      behavior? You can't know what you don't know.

   2. BJBryan Johnson36:54

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson36:56

      Talking about training, that was one of the other levers. Binge eating, skipping training sessions. What has the data said to you about the optimal setup for a training protocol for yourself? What does it consist of? How often do you do it? What time of the day, et cetera?

   4. BJBryan Johnson37:16

      Mm-hmm. Yeah, I work out an hour a day. It, uh, cardi- it's a... Basically, I try to flex and stretch every muscle of my body. And we've worked back through the science of what is cardio zones to be in. And we also look at this in terms of measurements of my VO2 max, of my flexibility, of my tendon and ligament strength, of my... We measure my muscle with ultrasound. We do whole bo- who bo- whole body fat on MRI. So we're loo- we're using these quantitative endpoints. We probably do 100 different markers that quantifies my exercise protocol. And they're all markers that we can map to optimal clinical outcome ranges. So, uh, again, the, the goal I'm and problem I'm working on is my 35 trillion cells having less entropy. So I'm not trying to engage in, uh, a, a marathon. I'm not trying to, right, achieve some athletic, uh, record. And so really, it's, it's that one goal. And so, um, yeah, so it's just a bunch of, uh, weights, uh, cardio, flexibility, strength training.

   5. CWChris Williamson38:27

      I notice, looking at your routine, that you've got a good bit of knees-over-toes Ben Patrick stuff in there.

   6. BJBryan Johnson38:33

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CWChris Williamson38:34

      And that's been borne out in the data as something which is very effective?

   8. BJBryan Johnson38:39

      Yeah, as we measure my l- my tendons and ligaments, uh, specifically, they've all dramatically improved.

   9. CWChris Williamson38:46

      And this is a good bit of backwards sled drag, some of the ATG knees-over-toes lungy stuff.

   10. BJBryan Johnson38:54

       Mm-hmm.

   11. CWChris Williamson38:55

       What were you most surprised by? Uh, what are the exercises or the, uh, contributing, uh, routines that you do where you're like, "Fuck, I wouldn't have thought that that would have been in there. I wouldn't have thought that the data would have been happy with me doing this"?

   12. BJBryan Johnson39:07

       Hmm. I suppose, overall, I'm surprised by how robust I feel. I've actually never felt this robust in my entire life, even when I was 18 years old and an, uh, an athlete in high school. And I don't have a single ache and pain in my body. I've never been more flexible. I've never had better cardiovascular capacity. So I guess I'm just surprised that at the chronological age of 45, I would be peaking in my life, uh, of ability. And I don't feel like I'm entirely... I mean, I think I could, there's more I could gain. But I suppose I didn't... I previously viewed this as trying to stop an inevitable downward trend, but it's actually dramatically improved and maintained.

   13. CWChris Williamson39:59

       Are you adding in walks each day on top of this? You know, an hour a day, for me, if I was to think about it, doesn't seem like much to optimize, you know, the absolute optimal amount.

   14. BJBryan Johnson40:10

       Mm-hmm.

   15. CWChris Williamson40:10

       I would have presumed it would have been two and a half hours, and it would have included all manner of high-intensity interval training and a shitload of Zone 2, and then there would have been a, 45 minutes of yin yoga stretching with breath work. (laughs)

   16. BJBryan Johnson40:21

       (laughs)

   17. CWChris Williamson40:21

       Do you know what I mean? I would have thought it would have been more.

   18. BJBryan Johnson40:23

       Yeah, yeah.

   19. CWChris Williamson40:23

       But why isn't it more? Why aren't you training more?

   20. BJBryan Johnson40:27

       Uh, there's a w- I mean, it's a, it's a tricky puzzle we're trying to solve. I mean, so we... I'm on a caloric restriction diet, so it's, uh, 2,000 calories. And I take 100 pills a day. And so the scientific question we're trying to solve is if in the year 2023 someone like myself wants to be an explorer like Shackleton or Magellan or Le- uh, Lewis and Clark, and I want to say, "All right, I want to go to the absolute limits of what's possible in the form of slowing my speed of aging," then we're trying to optimize for, uh, caloric input, uh, cardiovascular activity, heart rate variability. You know, when you do too much exercise, there's a U-shaped curve where you start inflicting harm on the system. And so you're trying to tune all of these things. With caloric restriction, it has a side effect of lowering testosterone, so, you know, I need to supplement testosterone to get myself in the normal levels. And so we're just playing this really tricky playoff, uh, trade-off space all across the board. And we're always making minor adjustments here and there, trying to maximize for, uh, this very narrow goal of slowing entropy in my body.

   21. CWChris Williamson41:39

       Interesting. Yeah, because if your RDA of, of cals is what? 2-6? 2-5?

   22. BJBryan Johnson41:47

       Uh, sorry?

   23. CWChris Williamson41:48

       What would be your recommended-

   24. BJBryan Johnson41:50

       Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep, yep.

   25. CWChris Williamson41:51

       What, what maintenance for you would be? 2-5 or 2-6-ish?

   26. BJBryan Johnson41:54

       Yep. 2-6, yeah, 2,600-5,000, yep.

   27. CWChris Williamson41:55

       Right, okay. And you're at 1,980 or something like that, basically, 2,000.

   28. BJBryan Johnson42:00

       Yep. Yep.

   29. CWChris Williamson42:00

       Uh, if you were to train more, because that's not... I mean, you're quite light, right? You're about 160 pounds, I think?

   30. BJBryan Johnson42:05

       Mm-hmm. Yes.
8. 46:34 – 53:04

   Why Having Less Body Fat is Good for Longevity

   1. BJBryan Johnson46:34

   2. CWChris Williamson46:34

      Very interesting. So you mentioned there that, uh, we, we both mentioned there that you're running, um, quite low body fat percentage. Why is that the optimal position for somebody to be in? You, you would have thought-

   3. BJBryan Johnson46:51

      Mm-hmm.

   4. CWChris Williamson46:51

      ... well, ancestrally, the average body fat for somebody-

   5. BJBryan Johnson46:53

      Mm-hmm.

   6. CWChris Williamson46:53

      ... that was moving around a lot would have probably been significantly higher.

   7. BJBryan Johnson46:57

      Mm-hmm.

   8. CWChris Williamson46:58

      Uh, how is it, or, uh, uh, what's your thinking behind the fact that in the fives range, which is like ridiculously lean-

   9. BJBryan Johnson47:05

      Mm-hmm.

   10. CWChris Williamson47:07

       ... um, h- h- how, w- w- why do you think that that seems to be optimal as opposed to having high level of body fat?

   11. BJBryan Johnson47:12

       Yeah. I mean, in questions like this, I would always defer to my team. You know, I can, I can echo what I've heard them say. But I mean, I, I learned this as a pilot. I trained, I got certified to fly, uh, in several airplanes that got typed. Uh, but I had a rule for myself that I always flew with someone else who was a professional. Because when I was in the cockpit, even though I knew what I was doing, I was never as fluid and as competent as them, uh, when they, it's all they did every day, all day, is thinking about that, versus me jumping in and out. And so, um, and then also just knowing that if you have five longevity experts doing the sa- doing this, they're all going to just disagree. But, um, yeah, we've just been following the evidence of, you know, caloric restriction has some meaningful evidence. And, you know, like, we're looking at these ma- these lifespan and healthspan studies, and we try to follow it. And so I don't know if, uh, 5% body fat is a target of more of where the body has settled out at in the protocol.

   12. CWChris Williamson48:12

       It's a byproduct of the fact that you're doing this caloric restriction, and that is where your particular body ends up sitting at. Somebody else would be at three and a half, someone else would be at seven and a half on the exact same protocol. Okay, interesting.

   13. BJBryan Johnson48:24

       Yeah. Yeah, and, and-

   14. CWChris Williamson48:24

       One of the things that I haven't heard you talk about is heat and cold exposure. This is the current most popular-

   15. BJBryan Johnson48:32

       Mm-hmm.

   16. CWChris Williamson48:32

       ... bro science approach for-

   17. BJBryan Johnson48:35

       Mm-hmm.

   18. CWChris Williamson48:35

       ... a longevity routine. Are you using ice baths? Are you using sauna exposure? Do you consider it a hormesis stressor? Have you tested with it?

   19. BJBryan Johnson48:43

       We, um, we kind of don't do anything that's popular right now.... and, uh, we, we've looked pretty carefully at, uh, cold and hot exposure. We've looked at, uh, hyperbaric, and it's not to say that these things don't have benefit. It's that they don't have benefit in the ways where we have objectives. And so, I mean, there's an unlimited number of things I can do on a given day that would potentially be useful to me, but we have an extremely specific goal of slowing my speed of aging. And when you have that narrow of a goal, it just creates a really clean workspace to say, "Does this thing have inclusion or does it not?" And so, no, we don't do any colder or heat exposure.

   20. CWChris Williamson49:31

       That's interesting. I- I'm starting to kind of get a conception about this, this single ordinating principle, slow down the speed of aging. That means that there are other things that other people who have slightly different-

   21. BJBryan Johnson49:42

       Mm-hmm.

   22. CWChris Williamson49:42

       ... ordinating principles might need to add in.

   23. BJBryan Johnson49:44

       Mm-hmm.

   24. CWChris Williamson49:44

       But let's say that it was your goal to optimize, uh, dopamine throughout the day. You're, okay, well, maybe you would look at adding in cold exposure. Maybe you would even look at adding in cold exposure multiple times throughout the day, and maybe-

   25. BJBryan Johnson49:57

       Mm-hmm.

   26. CWChris Williamson49:57

       ... you would do some research to look at whatever the equivalent of a circadian rhythm for dopamine is, and-

   27. BJBryan Johnson50:01

       Yeah.

   28. CWChris Williamson50:01

       ... well, maybe we can bring it up on flat points, and maybe we can boost it on other points, and maybe we'd be taking a bunch of supplements.

   29. BJBryan Johnson50:08

       Yeah.

   30. CWChris Williamson50:08

       And that would be the ordinating principle if we want to maximize dopamine throughout the day. It's interesting that, um, slowing the speed of aging, and you would have done it had it been something that you think would have contributed to it, hasn't folded heat and cold exposure in. You said, "We're not doing the things that other people are doing," but you're not doing them because other people... You're not not doing them because other people do them, you're not doing them because presumably, the data doesn't suggest that it's something that would be worthwhile.
9. 53:04 – 58:47

   Is It Better to Have Fewer Goals?

   1. CWChris Williamson53:04

      me the value of a single ordinating principle.

   2. BJBryan Johnson53:07

      Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson53:08

      Ryan Holiday's book from last year, Discipline is Destiny, the biggest takeaway that I took from that conversation was that without a goal, without an ordinating principle, there can be no discipline before that.

   4. BJBryan Johnson53:20

      Yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson53:20

      Because the discipline is in service of the outcome.

   6. BJBryan Johnson53:23

      Yes.

   7. CWChris Williamson53:23

      What are you being disciplined for? Like, what is discipline? And given the fact that we are these multifactorial, multivariate creatures with all conflicting goals and self-deception and 5:00 PM Brian and 7:00 PM Brian and tired Brian and hungry Brian-

   8. BJBryan Johnson53:37

      Yes. Yes.

   9. CWChris Williamson53:37

      ... if you don't have a very, very clear goal, it's almost impossible to be disciplined in the service of it, and... Okay, in your opinion, then, is it more difficult to live a life with more than one goal, or the more goals you have, does life become exponentially more difficult, working back from that?

   10. BJBryan Johnson53:58

       Yeah. Yeah. After doing this for a while, uh, this is why I arrive at the mind is dead. So if it's the... So let's just walk through this, the process. Like, if I say an algorithm now takes care of me better than I can myself with the goal of minimizing aging. So it's all, it's a singular objective, um, that simplifies all the decisions around it. But what I'm really trying to demonstrate is this is a system of goal alignment. So it doesn't matter what you choose as your goal. When you can take 35 trillion agents and goal align them around a singular thing-You've built a tapestry of goal alignment. So, blueprint can scale to anything. Blueprint can scale to climate change, right? The, the Earth is the body. You take millions of measurements. You look at the evidence of what is a proper biosphere for the coral reef and the acidity in the oceans, and all the above. You apply a protocol and you repeat. Data, evidence, protocol. The same is true for everything else. And what I'm really trying to say is, if we are thinking about the future of existence, the problem we have to solve is goal alignment. And that, we have to do that so we don't destroy our biosphere. We have to do that so we don't have dystopic outcomes with AI. We have to do that so we don't annihilate each other because we're, all of our propensity towards violence. It is the singular goal we have as a species. And so, I'm trying to prove, uh, this, this system with myself, the one thing I have control over.

   11. CWChris Williamson55:59

       I would maybe be tempted ... When you say the mind is dead, it's nice, because it's like playing off that God-is-dead thing. But you must have, throughout your day, thoughts that you enjoy, creative insights ab-, that reflect on your life, introspection about memories, dreams, and hopes for the future.

   12. BJBryan Johnson56:20

       Sure.

   13. CWChris Williamson56:20

       So, there is still a very real role for the mind. It seems, it's a little bit more like decision-making is dead in that regard. Um, but yeah, I think y- you've spoken a couple of times about where your emotions are at, regulating emotions. Uh, you even said earlier on that spirituality or, uh, like, uh, being spiritual is a component of this. Fold in h- your protocol for emotional health and, and spiritual health as well, how does that play a role? How have you learned to optimize that? What are your frameworks and, and, uh, perspectives on it?

   14. BJBryan Johnson56:54

       Yeah. Yeah. You're right that the sitting beneath the abstract layer of the mind is dead. There's all this nuance of y- like even when autopilot flies the airplane, I'm still landing the airplane and taxiing the airplane. So, my mind is still engaged in some of these activities. But the bulk of the autopilot, you know, like it's nice to know I've got that when I'm flying. And so, but what it is really trying to convey is the only tool we've ever had in existence to manage ourselves is our mind. And when I look at myself, my objective is to destroy my nemesis before my nemesis destroys me, and my mind is my most powerful nemesis. And so, as we, as we start breaking out the complexities and the nuances of what role do our minds have in society going forward, and if we are trying to look at this large computational problem of goal alignment, what is that role? And to me, it's a legitimate question. But the very first thing that I can say confidently about myself is, who inflicts the most self-destruction upon me of anything in existence? It's myself. If we say as we as a species, who inflicts more pain upon us than anything else? It's ourselves. If I say probabilistically, who's a bigger worry to me, AI or humans? Humans. Like, I'm trying to get to the root of where is the threat, uh, coming from and what might we do to try to offset that? Now, what, what spawns after that in terms of what kind of spiritual practices we have and how do we find meaning, those are all really cool and fun questions we can play with on, you know, o- once we have the free space to do so. But we're not in a safe s- safe place right now as a species at all. Like, we're under extreme threat. And so, what I'm really trying to do

10. 58:47 – 1:09:56

    How Bryan Deals with Negative, Unwanted Emotions

    1. BJBryan Johnson58:47

       is address the, the things that are most pressing that threaten our very existence and survival, so we can get to this play space.

    2. CWChris Williamson58:55

       What about when you face negative, unwanted emotions throughout the day? They're going to arise. The, the sort of things-

    3. BJBryan Johnson59:04

       Sure.

    4. CWChris Williamson59:04

       ... that you have significantly less control over than what goes in your mouth-

    5. BJBryan Johnson59:09

       Mm-hmm.

    6. CWChris Williamson59:09

       ... than how you train-

    7. BJBryan Johnson59:10

       Yeah.

    8. CWChris Williamson59:10

       ... than the time that you go to sleep, than the temperature of your cooled and heated mattress.

    9. BJBryan Johnson59:14

       Yeah.

    10. CWChris Williamson59:14

        Um, you know, these are unknown unknowns in some regards. So, how have you learned to deal with emotional regulation, uh, in an effective way?

    11. BJBryan Johnson59:23

        Mm-hmm.

    12. CWChris Williamson59:23

        And what strategies can people take away from that?

    13. BJBryan Johnson59:25

        I mean, I, I was chronically depressed for a decade. Uh, likely the result of being an entrepreneur and working my talent off building Braintree Venmo, having three little babies, in a bad relationship, you know, like all the stuff that you go through hard n- hard times in life. And so, if I look at that time, and I look at the avalanche of negativity that buried me every second of every day, it absolutely pinned me to the ground and I was suffocating. I couldn't breathe. Uh, if I look at now, relatively speaking, the amount of negativity in my mind, there's like zero. Uh, so getting these basic things right in my mind, in my, in my life, like sleep and diet, eliminating these self-destructive behaviors, I almost rarely ever now have a genuinely, um, what would I call it? A genuinely self-destructive thought. Now, I may contemplate and say, "Boy, I wish I wouldn't have said that thing," or, "I wish I would have said this thing differently," or, "I wasn't as nice as I wanted to be," or, "I feel a little ashamed about this kind of thing." Like, sure. Those are all little mind ... You know, we all do that with our self-introspection. It helps us improve. But I would say, generally speaking, I've eliminated the most hurtful and self-destructive things that plagued me to the point of suicide. And, uh, I just never thought that would be possible.

    14. CWChris Williamson1:00:46

        Andrew Huberman, the first things that he said on a podcast episode I did with him was, "You do not control the mind with the mind. You control it with the body."

    15. BJBryan Johnson1:00:54

        Yeah.

    16. CWChris Williamson1:00:54

        And it seems to me like your mind is downstream from what you've been doing with your body. But I have a...... pet obsession for evolutionary psychology. And it seems to me that almost every animal, humans included, aren't meant to be satisfied, wh- what the in-built base programming, um, outcome, the, the, the, the state that humans are supposed to be in is minor dissatisfaction. There's the-

    17. BJBryan Johnson1:01:22

        Mm-hmm.

    18. CWChris Williamson1:01:23

        ... um, uh, life is an, uh, life is suffering from the Buddha, right? The word for suffering is Dukkha, D-U-K-K-H-A, I think.

    19. BJBryan Johnson1:01:32

        Mm. Mm.

    20. CWChris Williamson1:01:32

        And then some scholars contest that that word doesn't mean suffering, it means unsatisfactoriness. Life is-

    21. BJBryan Johnson1:01:38

        Hm.

    22. CWChris Williamson1:01:38

        ... unsatisfactoriness. You know, the holiday that you plan to go on, the steak that you intended to eat-

    23. BJBryan Johnson1:01:44

        Yeah.

    24. CWChris Williamson1:01:44

        ... there is always something, the sand between your toes, it could've been a tiny little bit more salted, it could've been a little bit less well-done. It seems pleasantly surprising to me that you, as somebody that is trying to optimize the body as much as possible, downstream from that, has found a very large amount of peace in the mind as well, given what my assumptions would've been about what, uh, unperturbed human mentality would've been.

    25. BJBryan Johnson1:02:17

        Yeah, I mean, thinking about your frame, if, if I were to try to over-simplify our existence, and it's like we become conscious and we become aware that we're in some sort of, of, uh, unpleasantness, (laughs) hunger or, you know, need for status or ambition, like whatever. But we just spend our entire existence trying to address our unpleasantness. That's it. That's all we're doing. And then we make up all these stories and games and, uh, like the Buddha was saying, like, "Hey, like, this is s- this is, this is existence, and the only way to deal with existence is to eliminate this permanently." But, to me, that's really what we're... We're, we're just walking around trying to deal with our conscious selves. And what I like about where we're at as a species is, yes, that's been the case, but it may not be the case. If we have the, the ability in the form of computational intelligence, and we now can physically, predictably engineer atoms, molecules and organisms, we're in uncharted territory. And this is why I think zero, uh, the future is like a, a zero as a principal future. We have no ability whatsoever to model out what's going to happen. And that's never been true with human society. You know, and so, um, sure, that may be the state now, we're running from constant displeasure, but, uh, this is why I still have this computational goal alignment system, 'cause it leads us to the future we can't model out or predict. And it may be the most extraordinary thing humans have ever, have ever experienced.

    26. CWChris Williamson1:03:56

        You know, the optionality is so vast that basically any prediction goes out of the window, and the unknown unknowns start to get exponential.

    27. BJBryan Johnson1:04:03

        Yeah.

    28. CWChris Williamson1:04:03

        Uh, Naval has a quote which you'll be familiar with, "Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want." Given that you sold a company for $800 million, which has permitted you... Uh, uh, aside from the conversation about you need the physical resources, monetary, time, et cetera, to be able to focus on what it is that you're doing, Naval also has a, um, really great insight, which is, "It is far easier to achieve our material desires than to renounce them." And what you're talking about previously is, um, the unsatisfactoriness, the inherent unsatisfactoriness or, or displeasure that people feel on a daily basis is something that you have largely been able to dispense with. If you hadn't had such success monetarily, you know, achieving the status that you needed, do you think that open loop would be intruding still on your life? Even if, let's say, somehow you, you managed to have the, uh, someone else was paying for all of these things-

    29. BJBryan Johnson1:05:06

        Mm-hmm.

    30. CWChris Williamson1:05:06

        ... to be done for you, right?
11. 1:09:56 – 1:14:48

    How Important is Sunlight Exposure to Appearing Youthful

    1. BJBryan Johnson1:09:56

       I, I, uh, yeah, I'd just say, uh, that my personal participation varies according to the group I'm in, and what we're trying to achieve.

    2. CWChris Williamson1:10:05

       Interesting. Um, one of the other things that you've looked at, and that you're optimizing, is, uh, sort of youthfulness on the outside, not just on the inside, the way that you look. What is your perspective on sunlight exposure onto the skin? Also, onto the face? Not just from a youthful perspective, but also from a health and physiology perspective?

    3. BJBryan Johnson1:10:30

       I don't know. (laughs)

    4. CWChris Williamson1:10:32

       There we are.

    5. BJBryan Johnson1:10:33

       (laughs) I'll tell you that I typically avoid the sun, because my skin is almost always healing from some kind of laser. You can see here on the screen, you see all these dots all over my neck?

    6. CWChris Williamson1:10:45

       Mm-hmm. What's that?

    7. BJBryan Johnson1:10:47

       Uh, from laser. So, my, I had, we just, we just bought, uh, another laser, and my face is still healing from this. Uh, so my, I'm, my skin is sensitive to the sun because it's in these healing conditions. So, generally speaking, I'm always aware of the UV index when I go outside. I do wear sunscreen, and we measure my skin health, uh, robustly. We use multi-spectral imaging, where it looks at UV and red and browns and pore size. We use autofluorescence. We use MERS scores. We do biopsies. So, we're looking quantitatively at the skin from every angle so that we can say with some degree of confidence how my skin protocol is doing with all the treatments we're doing. Uh, but yeah, uh, generally speaking, as I understand it, UV exposure has, uh, negative effects on the skin of a certain type, with a certain duration, with a certain, you know, exposure rate. So, just generally, I don't get, uh, a lot of sun exposure.

    8. CWChris Williamson1:11:46

       Are you aware of the brand of sunscreen that you've ended up zeroing in on? Presumably, it's very well researched with a bunch of chemicals that aren't going to make you die sooner.

    9. BJBryan Johnson1:11:58

       Yeah. We use CeraVe AM, which is a 35, uh, UVA/UVB. And then also, uh, EltaMD, which is also UVA and B- EANV.

    10. CWChris Williamson1:12:08

        Okay. Are they, uh, regularly available?

    11. BJBryan Johnson1:12:10

        Mm-hmm.

    12. CWChris Williamson1:12:10

        Or is this some Vietnamese pharmacy website that-

    13. BJBryan Johnson1:12:14

        (laughs)

    14. CWChris Williamson1:12:14

        ... people need to order it from?

    15. BJBryan Johnson1:12:15

        Yeah, yeah, regularly.

    16. CWChris Williamson1:12:17

        Oh, cool. Okay, that's good.

    17. BJBryan Johnson1:12:18

        Yeah.

    18. CWChris Williamson1:12:18

        Um, yeah, it's, uh, again, I think that it's very interesting to see what, what's showing up in the data. Uh, you know, a ton of my friends, very, very big into earthing, into spending time outside in nature, rejuvenative practices, and a big chunk of that involves sunlight exposure.

    19. BJBryan Johnson1:12:38

        Yeah.

    20. CWChris Williamson1:12:38

        A, a non-insignificant cohort of them are ones that have massive problems with putting sunscreen on their body, on their skin-

    21. BJBryan Johnson1:12:46

        Yeah.

    22. CWChris Williamson1:12:46

        ... because of what's going to happen dermally. Is it going to get absorbed and cause me to-

    23. BJBryan Johnson1:12:50

        Yeah.

    24. CWChris Williamson1:12:51

        ... uh, full of estrogens? Um, I think that stress testing-

    25. BJBryan Johnson1:12:55

        Yeah.

    26. CWChris Williamson1:12:55

        ... a lot of these assumptions, as you are doing, is very interesting. I think that it's helping to, um-... see where the rubber meets the road.

    27. BJBryan Johnson1:13:04

        Yeah. I mean, to your point, so it is funny, every time I say anything about anything, I get these predictable responses, "But what about cold exposure, heat exposure, sun exposure?" You know, uh-

    28. CWChris Williamson1:13:24

        Oh, wow, I've hit-

    29. BJBryan Johnson1:13:25

        Did I-

    30. CWChris Williamson1:13:25

        ... all of the basic bitch questions today.
12. 1:14:48 – 1:24:52

    Does Bryan Regret Not Starting Earlier?

    1. CWChris Williamson1:14:48

       time-saving.

    2. BJBryan Johnson1:14:49

       Yeah.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:14:49

       One of the things to consider, you, you mentioned that you're 45. You mentioned that you'd spent, you know, a decade of your life very aggressively building a company. During that time, you were aging at significantly probably quicker than your biological age was. Does that mean, uh, from a- an internal body clock perspective, that up until somebody really starts to take this stuff seriously or, or happens upon it just by chance because they end up having a, a really perfect lifestyle naturally, you're always gonna be running ahead of your, of your current age? Therefore, is there a part of you that regrets the fact that you didn't do this 20 years ago?

    4. BJBryan Johnson1:15:30

       Yeah, uh, entirely. Yeah. I, um ... My parents didn't know any better because they were following social norms. But I ate sugar cereal for breakfast, sodas. I was in the sun constantly with no sunscreen. I mean, I shot guns with no ear protection. You know, I mean, I just did everything, um, I could have done that would hurt my health, I did, and aggressively. Like I, you know, I was like, uh, full of life. And, um, I certainly had a lot of fun. I'm sure also it, it's very hard to correct damage that has happened. So with my children, for example, my 17-year-old who is with me right now, he's almost entirely on Blueprint. And, um, you know, he, to his credit, he, um, fully realizes and he's so grateful for starting this at his age. And so, I mean, it's exciting for him, you know, at this age to be on this protocol and while, I mean, his friends at school, they, they, he just got accepted to a p- prestigious institution for college. He went there for this-

    5. CWChris Williamson1:16:45

       Congratulations.

    6. BJBryan Johnson1:16:46

       Yeah. I mean, he did a wonderful job. He, I mean, he worked his tail end off in school. And, um, he went to this orientation, and he sent me this video. And here are like some of the most talented humans on planet Earth, and they're downing sugar, junk food, drinking, not sleeping. And I was like, "Oh my God, this is just ... I'm so sad." This is the future of humans. And like we've normalized these behaviors so much and they're sitting within this edifice of intellectual aspiration doing these things. And I thought, what a disconnect between, uh, what we're trying to birth intellectually and what they're doing physically. And I'm glad that he had the wherewithal to be like, "You know, Dad, I'm glad I'm not doing these things. I know how badly, uh, poor sleep affects my cognition. I know how badly junk food, you know, affects my, my mood." So, but I don't know. It's been on my mind ever since. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:17:45

       There are trade-offs though, you know. There will be a time where your son needs to pull an all-nighter before some sort of project gets put in. Like we inevitably, given the fact that not, uh, uh, he right now doesn't just have live as long as possible or reduce the speed of aging, sorry, as his single ordinating principle. It's also, don't flunk university. You know, it's also probably, um, make my time at university sufficiently enjoyable that I have memories that I am fond of when I look back. Uh, it's maybe-

    8. BJBryan Johnson1:18:16

       Yeah.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:18:16

       ... get a, get a girlfriend. It's maybe play a sport. It's maybe do a bunch of other things. So again, we've mentioned this earlier on, the single ordinating principle is great because it creates a very easy filter through which every decision needs to be made. There will end up being compromises that will need to be made during everybody's life, right? Even during yours at some point. You'll have an opportunity which is so good that you think this is for the greater good of Blueprint, but it is going to mean that for this next week of traveling and blah, blah, I am actually gonna speed up my aging, so on and so forth. The difference is there are, there is much lower hanging fruit that some of his peers could pick up on. Like, uh, maybe put the full fat Dr Pepper down. Like, maybe Domino's isn't the best way to fuel yourself the night before an exam, et cetera, et cetera. Um-But I think that that displays quite nicely the level of a lack of wisdom around what actually makes people operate effectively.

    10. BJBryan Johnson1:19:18

        Yeah. I mean, if we, I, I understand practically what you're saying, right? The trade-off space you've represented. Um, what I would think would be worthwhile for us to think about is, you just pulled out of your pocket all of the favorite things we humans like to pull out of our pockets, right? Create enduring memories, uh, we want this experience, you know, like, we're justifying the trade-off space. And in the, in doing that, what we're saying is, um, we always have the override switch to do this at all times. And what I want to pose is, and this is wha- how we currently think about ourselves as a species, when we walk into this future, we bring those assumptions that remain hidden to our own awareness. And so I like working with this concept of gen zero, of this idea that we, a, a group of humans walking into the future that is willing to divorce themselves from all human norms and customs. Because if you look at this and you say, "Okay, how powerful is artificial intelligence? How fast is it going to move? And what is our relationship in power going to be in relation to this thing?" We don't know. And so I, I understand what you're saying on the trade-offs, but it comes with a question from this position of luxury that we can always choose under any circumstance and make those trade-offs. And I want to say I'm open-minded to the future of our existence may be more wild and weird and different than we can ever contemplate. And if you, again, if you, if you just look at the mathematical, if you look at the curves of improvement, I think we're closer to that, uh, situation than we realize. And this is what I'm really trying to get across with Blueprint is, is, is the mind really dead? Like, are we genuinely in a situation where algorithms better care for us and we're no longer pulling the funny business of like, "Oh, well, here's a cool story. I'm going to deviate from the algorithm because of it."

    11. CWChris Williamson1:21:40

        Mm-hmm.

    12. BJBryan Johnson1:21:40

        Um, and, you know, this just generates, like, violent responses inside of people because it steps on their sacredness. But I think this is a relevant conversation for us to have.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:21:49

        I think it's, I think that you're right. I understand the point that you mean. I think what, what it does presuppose is that axiomatically, everybody else's single ordinating principle would also be slow down aging as much as possible. There are people out there for whom they would say, "I have taken it from first principles that say that they have all of the insight that you do and more." And they say, "My life wants to be something which is not that. My goal is to see as many different countries on the planet as possible. I don't care about how long I live. Or maybe I do care, but it's third thing down the list."

    14. BJBryan Johnson1:22:25

        Yep.

    15. CWChris Williamson1:22:25

        As soon as you fold that in, as soon as you fold in any other goal, this is when the trade-offs come. And I understand that as soon as you say there is, uh, there are trade-offs that need to be made, you open the door to the executive function of you making a decision, not being outsourced to the Blueprint-

    16. BJBryan Johnson1:22:42

        Yeah.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:22:42

        ... or the boss that made the choice. I understand that that's a very dangerous game to play. And I, I, from your perspective and with your goals at the moment, I think it makes complete sense. But that does presuppose that everybody else's goal also should be to live as long. As soon as you open the door to that not being the case, I think that the trade-offs has to come in.

    18. BJBryan Johnson1:23:01

        Yeah. Also, it's not even, I'm not even presupposing that everyone needs to have my goal. I'm saying that if you look at the, the drivers of our existence, where artificial intelligence is a force that needs to be reconciled with, that our biosphere and planet Earth needs to be sustainable, and that needs to be negotiated with, and that we humans need to not kill each other, that needs to be negotiated with. So what I'm saying is, we currently do this in society, like, we say, "You can't kill someone. That's against the rules." You can't run someone over with your car. That's against the rules." Like, we do this in many ways today. We're already doing this massive goal alignment thing in society, it's just it's going to get much more computational in nature, because right now we see that when humans do whatever they want whenever they want, it has negative effects on the biosphere that make it unsustainable. So one of those things has to give. Either the biosphere has to give and become sustainable by itself, or humans have to be negotiated with on what their behaviors are allowed to do. And this is what I'm saying, when, when you look at the large scale goal alignment problem, the presumption that we all have this, we can do whatever we want, whenever we want, however we want, may not be true. It's a different set of, of, of considerations we're walking into. And so I bring up this as really not to predict the future, but as a thought experiment to say, if we are serious about creating a future that we're going to enjoy, I would much rather have an honest conversation about the potential things we need to be thinking about and the changes in our lives, because everything that... You know, society is so delicately balanced where we don't ask anything of the individual. It's always blaming someone else and expecting someone else to change. We're never pointing at self. It's always, the presumption is always, "I can do

13. 1:24:52 – 1:25:43

    Where to Find Bryan

    1. BJBryan Johnson1:24:52

       whatever I want because it's me." But, uh, again, I think we need to call into question all these primary assumptions.

    2. CWChris Williamson1:25:00

       Brian Johnson, ladies and gentlemen. If people want to keep up to date with all of the stuff that you do, where should they go?

    3. BJBryan Johnson1:25:05

       Uh, Instagram and Twitter.

    4. CWChris Williamson1:25:09

       I love it, man. Dude, I find you very, very interesting, and very, very enjoy this, uh, very much enjoyed this kind of a conversation, one that ranges from principles, to philosophy, to enacting, uh, strategies as well. It's very, very cool. I appreciate the stuff that you do.

    5. BJBryan Johnson1:25:26

       Yeah, I really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you for having me on.

    6. CWChris Williamson1:25:29

       (instrumental music plays) What's happening, people? Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks. And don't forget to subscribe. Peace.

Episode duration: 1:25:43