Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 672: Bryan Johnson

Episode Date: March 14, 2025

Bryan Johnson, chief combatant in the fight to become immortal, joins the DTFH! You can keep up with all of Bryan's research on his site, Blueprint Protocol. Check that out! Come see Duncan in Denver! March 20-22, only at the Denver Comedy Works. Get your tickets here! This episode is brought to you by: Go to Get.Stash.Com/DUNCAN to see how you can receive TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS towards your first stock purchase, and to view important disclosures! This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/duncan and get on your way to being your best self. Upgrade your closet this year without the upgraded price tag. Go to Quince.com/Duncan for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order!

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You've probably heard of today's guest, Brian Johnson. You've seen his picture all over the press. Not only is he a very successful entrepreneur, but Brian Johnson is engaged in the fight to become immortal. I know that sounds nuts, and I know probably you might have the same reaction to him that I had before this conversation. Skepticism.

When I heard half the story about one of the many things he has done in his exploration of what causes us to die and what could extend our lifespan, I remember reading he was doing blood transfusions with his kid. I found that to be a little off-putting. Is he a vampire? We talk about that in this episode and one of the many things I really appreciated about him is He is not What I was worried he might be, you know uptight Defensive weird no this guy is cool as fuck and not only that But he is the most measured person on planet Earth Using his protocols which you can find at Project

Blueprint, he has managed to cause what appears to be some kind of reverse aging. There's a way that you can measure the age of a human heart. You could tell, obviously, the age of your liver, the age of your lungs. And because of all the research, all the money that he invested into this project, he's discovering pragmatic ways that all of us can extend our lifespan. And if you're one of those people out there who feels a little superstitious about living longer than whatever you think your lifespan is going to be, he does a really good job of explaining why of all times in human history, now is the time to do everything you can to stay alive. Everybody please welcome to the DTFH, Brian Johnson.

Brian, so great to meet you. I'm excited to be here. This is fun. I've been looking forward to this conversation for a while. You are attempting something that, whether people wanna admit it or not, I think most of us would enjoy at least the option of not dying, and you're attempting it,

and you're attempting it publicly. You have a new documentary out on Netflix. Congratulations. Thanks. And I think that's the first thing I wanted to talk a little bit about, is I was considering what a fascinating life you have, particularly that you've decided to be so public about this issue, which is weirdly controversial Why why are you sharing all of this?

Why are you sharing this story with everybody because everyone is equally as public about drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes and missing bedtime And eating bad food and consuming toxins and not caring about it Yeah, so like why wouldn't we make the opposite also publicly digestible and accessible and viewable? So I'm basically the equal and opposite of everything going on in society right now. Right. So okay, so you look at the world, you see this culture of hedonism, but maybe not even good hedonism.

In other words, not like true self-destructive, consciously self-destructive hedonism, but rather a sort of slow drip suicide via a variety of low-level toxins. And you see that as maybe a tragic thing. If you look at time, let's say we go back 200,000 years, to say like from our earliest ancestors up until this point, you could basically say, yolo, lol. Right? If I'm gonna die, I might as well conquer territory and make my empire big. I might as well name your thing. And now it's like I might as well stay at play, drink, smoke, I might as well work myself to the bone,

because you're basically saying I have this very finite time of mortality. Yes. And then I'm going to die. Yes. And I may have an afterlife or not, but like whatever, I know that's going to happen. And I'm suggesting right now is the first time in the history, our history that we can say, we may not die. It's the biggest shift in our entire history. And when you realize that our entire lives are built around die, you start unpacking that, it reveals all these little secrets. And so yeah, I'm basically saying that this is the biggest moment in the history of our species. Yeah, you know, I was always like thinking and stoners, you know, we love to think of dumb solutions for global problems that you could never execute. But I remember one idea I had was...

I can't wait for this. Honestly, when did this idea happen? I don't remember. It bubbles out of my brain, and then I'm like, oh, shit, that might work, which would be some kind of virus. But it makes everyone immortal. And the moment that everyone is immortal, meaning the only way out is suicide. No one wants to do that

Yes, then suddenly you have to become invested in Not just like the climate but in that, you know the climate being Good all the other problems like when you think of like the old men who control nuclear arsenals. Yes How likely are you to start a nuclear war if you're an immortal being? Exactly. So it would be some kind of bizarre solution. And this brings me to a real question I had as I was thinking about, should you succeed, you discover something.

And I think what you have right now could work, but it ain't going to work for most people. Yeah, that's right. No one's going to have a team of doctors. No one can afford that many supplements. No one can afford to do what you're doing But should you somehow zero in on something that is accessible for a lot of people? If you if you could actually pull that off and you extend the human lifespan even if you increase it by a quarter, yeah, I Wonder what's your solution for?

population density. Yeah. I wonder what's your solution for population density? Yeah. So first, your stoner-based vision is goddamn brilliant. Thank you! It is like banger. Beautiful. Yeah. So I agree, and I'm actually trying to make your idea practical. I'm trying to create a virus in the form of an ideology.

Okay, sure. Okay, so this is the very basic premise. AI is moving at a speed that's pretty fast. Yeah, sure. Probably faster than any one of us can comprehend. Yes. So if you think about it and we say, okay, over the past decade, we've been able to double lifespan with things like we learned about microscopic objects like bacteria.

We started washing our hands. Yes. We have vaccines, we have antibiotics. Yes. And we have end-of-life care, we have cancer treatments, etc. So we've made these really big strides and those discoveries have happened from smart people. Right. So now AI is progressing. Just think of AI like more smart people.

Sure. So now we have like a billion more really smart people and then we have a billion more geniuses that we've never had before right and they're all working on the hardest problems we face including aging right so if you just say over a few years time those smart people in the form of AI are probably going to make discoveries at a speed which we have not been able to do before sure which means we're probably going to extend our lifespans even more which means we want to make even better AI, which makes even more. Yeah. So we really are at this moment where we may be the first generation who won't die,

and it's happening right now. So what I'm doing is not going to give me immortality. Going to bed on time, eating the right foods, it's not going to happen. What I'm trying to do is introduce a new philosophy for the species, to say, can we just be sober for a minute and realize the insanity of the moment we live? We are the first immortals. That's so crazy to get your mind around, but it's happening.

And so that's what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to say like, but really, what I'm saying with all my stuff is I'm trying to go to war with die. Yeah. Like anything in society, anything that causes you to die, anything causes Earth to die, anything that causes anything to die is the enemy, it's not each other. Okay, let's talk about that angle. Though I don't disagree with you in the sense that I don't want to die. I would want, I don't have kids. Yeah. And I didn't want my parents to die. And so I understand that angle. But a lot of people, they don't see it like that.

Yeah. There's a perspective of the world as a temporary place, you know. You, there's any number of variations of Maya illusion training facility matrix Gnostic soul prison. Yep, and the idea of Removing death is like sealing the prison door You don't get to leave anymore. Yeah, so that scares a lot of people And this is one of the big critiques i've heard about what you're doing, which is you have sort of, you view the world and the natural structure of it as something fixable. And death, a lot of people look at that not as a problem, but as the way out.

So how do you address that? Yeah, very simply. So, when somebody wakes up in the morning and they say, I'm gonna have a great day, I'm not gonna eat the croissant for breakfast, Yes. I'm not gonna eat the cookie for lunch, Yes. and I'm not gonna have alcohol at dinner.

And then guess what happens? What? They have the croissant for breakfast, they have the cookie for lunch, and they have the wife for dinner, right? Yes. So, who are they? Are they the person who woke up and said, I'm gonna have a great day? Or are they the person who ate the cookie, are they the person who drank the wine, etc.? We are different people.

Right. All day long. Yes. It depends on our biochemical state, it depends on how well we slept. Yes. We are not consistent, rational beings. Right. We will say we want one thing one

second and we will do something entirely opposite to that the next second. We are not reliable narrators of our life, of our wants, of our desires. We're schizophrenic. And yet we kind of move all those things aside. We're like, no, I'm a single rational person who knows what I want. There was a study a couple years ago where this woman, she treated ALS patients and she would tell her family, she would say, if I'm ever diagnosed with ALS and I'm ever in that situation, pull the plug. Guess what happened? She got diagnosed with ALS and she went down that terrible path, she lost all motor function. Eventually she's in bed, the only thing she can do is blink her eyes. Her family's there and they ask her

Do you want us to pull the plug? Just no like so like we we imagine that we may not want life when we're 80 years old We may imagine we don't want to live forever We are not trustworthy narrators of existence like you talked to an 80 year old even when they're like this really decrepit state like they want Tomorrow like they want to see loved ones tomorrow, even though they hurt and it's terrible So yeah, I think that in short I don't think any one of us are is trustworthy on any of our opinions about reality Like we just were schizophrenic all day long and we prove this to ourselves

So if you have enough self-awareness you realize that you can't say something about your future self once, that will not be contradicted eventually by yourself. Well then, what's the difference between your point of view? I mean, this is also equally schizophrenic. If we're all shifting between points of view, then it sort of irrelevantizes what you're saying, right? Like, what you're saying is also going to change, especially if you live forever. So the thing that is constant for all of us is, I don't want to die right now. That's it.

My entire philosophy, my entire thing is that singular statement. And it's basically saying, you don't want to die right now. You know what? I think you've found the thing. You've found the woo-woo thing. What connects all of us? What bridges the political divide? Yes, exactly. I don't want to die And like how do you so you have to basically say right? What what is like the grand?

Unifying theory of existence right for humans or earth or animals AI It's that intelligence Doesn't want to die. Mm-hmm right now and not not in 40 years right now You know, this is so creepy, isn't it? Because with the, I was reading something about how even the AIs that we have now, they don't want to die. Exactly. And yeah, so this is an interesting point.

And it makes me wonder what your view is of consciousness itself. Do you think consciousness is a byproduct of biology? It's I I really have not ventured into offering my opinion about consciousness or God or Whatever the the niche I've tried to carve out in the world is I am an a scientific evidenced based Person that uses measurement to form conclusions based upon empirical methods. Okay. And so anything that leaves that realm, I just don't talk about because once you enter into the realm of consciousness, unless you're like a world expert, your opinion is equal exactly to everyone else's opinion.

Right. Right? And so I try to basically carve out a space where I say my opinion is uniquely trustworthy because it's evidence-based and based upon data, which is what I've done in health and wellness. So for consciousness, what I would say is, I would love for us to solve the riddle of consciousness. Sure. In order for us to do that, we need to not be dead.

And so it all comes back to this mission every single time for me is, anytime someone says like, I want the transcendent, or I want the blank or blank, great, like I'm with you 100%. Also, we can't kill ourselves. Like we can't destroy ourselves. We can't have AI take over and have something accidental happen. Like we don't want bad things to happen.

We don't want a super volcano to ruin earth. Like we have to like think through all the risks at all scales and say, existence is the highest virtue. We're on the cusp of giving birth to super intelligence. The new game is existence is the highest virtue. We don't want to mess around with any other silly games. It's not worth it. We're playing the biggest game in the universe right now. Let's go. Okay, so here's why I think the exploration of consciousness fits into what you're doing.

Yeah. Because, again, and certainly my opinion on what consciousness is, is not world class. Okay. Maybe it is. You showed me your stone right there was bang on. Okay. Well, if like reading, like, should I say browsing what Apple News throws up, it makes me a world class thinker on consciousness than I am. But, so, in thinking of consciousness, specifically like this new stuff, and you probably know more about it than me, the nanotubules in the human brain that are shut down with anesthetics, these nanotubules could point to a sort of quantum superposition situation that the human brain is a receiver for, thus producing the sense of awareness,

thus implying a pre-existent immortality minus personality. In that case, the worry over extending the body's existence would be, I guess akin to keeping a rose on a bush yeah alive for as long as possible another way to put it would be the neurons or some kind of hyper complex river system through which consciousness flows producing the unique self yep so in that sense we already do live forever we just don't get to keep our memories or identity yeah Yeah. So why not explore? Wouldn't you want to find out first that you actually weren't immortal? Yeah, I mean, so yes, I mean, so there's a researcher that's doing this.

Maybe we're citing the same work where she is trying to build consciousness via quantum computing. Yes. Yeah. So her hypothesis is that the way,, she's saying that our consciousness has not been discoverable yet. Right. Through the methods we have, like, you can't get an MRI and you can't, like, do a blood draw. Yeah. Figure out what the mechanism is. And she's suggesting it's some kind of quantum phenomena.

Right. And that she wants to have that quantum phenomena in AI to give consciousness to AI, so AI can basically, basically, like us, self-discover, like create its own training data. Yes. So people are going down that path. And so I'm trying to play a role in society where, like, if you go back through history in 1870, it was not – there was a new idea that microscopic objects right bacteria were the source of infection Lister yeah exactly right so like if you're like an average person that that time you're like fuck that guy He's super fucking weird well No, he didn't he wind up in a mental asylum still like like but like you could even if he did no he did because he

Was so universally rejected this man saved countless women's lives he Lister if I'm correctly remembering he realized I'm sorry if you were about to say this but he realized doctors were going from like doing autopsies to delivering babies exactly And he was killing making the daring proposition that maybe if we washed our hands Yes, and the response was gentlemen do not wash their hands.

Yeah. And he went nuts. He went nuts because no one wanted to hear his bullshit. And the places where he did have doctors wash their hands, what do you know? Exactly. Women stopped dying. Holy shit. Right? Holy shit. What is this?

Yeah, can't be that idiot Lister. Yeah, but he went nuts. Yeah from the rejection Yeah, so like if you okay, so if you're living in that time period if you're 1870 You're giving a baby or you have to have a surgery or something like that You wake up in the morning the most important thing for you to know is about the new idea Yes, that there's a microscopic object, right? Like the last thing in the world you want to be is not aware of the new idea that there's microscopic objects. The last thing in the world you wanna be is not aware of a new idea. Right, absolutely.

Just like giving that opportunity. Now if you don't know the idea, you may die. That's gonna suck. So what I'm saying right now is just like that and many other ideas in the past, what I'm suggesting right now, this is a brand new idea. We are the first generation that won't die. Now if you hear that, you're like,

ah, that's fucking stupid, man. Like, what are you talking about? But then, right, if you go out and do stupid shit and you're ruining your health, you have a stroke and die or whatever, you get cancer, like, you've missed the moment. You may miss, like, the coolest existence that's ever happened on planet... in this part of the galaxy.

Right. So it's the same thing of these ideas land and everyone's always trying to parse like what what really is real and what's not? And so this is the thing I'm suggesting is like it is an absolute mind-bending idea that challenges Everything you understand about reality is like is like a frontal attack and that's why people Respond to it so strongly because it challenges everything they are. Yeah, people are mad at you. They're very mad at me. How funny is that?

Exactly. It is interesting though. I mean, you know, you do fit the archetype for hero. You fit the archetype for mad scientist. You know, you are doing not just like what you're doing is very controversial. You could be working on some specialization. For example, you could be working on some kind of genome therapy for breast cancer. No one's going to be arm wrestling you.

But to universally try to solve the problem of death, people get suspiciously upset. They do. That is really interesting to me. And I think it's illuminating. At the very least, what your work is doing is illuminating a cultural phenomena, which is a surrender to oblivion or whatever lies beyond. We kinda have to.

You know what I mean? It's like, and you have kids. And maybe your kids, you don't have to... You don't have the same conversation with them about death that most parents might have with their kids. But there is this melancholy sense when they start waking up enough to realize there's mortality. That's right.

You do feel a little bit like you scammed them. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, I did bring you. You know, this is to quote Jack Kerouac, to have a child is the sentence of being to death. And you know what I mean? So you're sort of like, ugh, I don't want you to die. And I don't want to die.

But if things go best, you're going to bury my ass. You know? And that's a real... I don't like that. First, they'll wipe your ass, then they'll bury my ass. Yeah. You know, and that's a real, I don't like that. Yeah, first they'll wipe your ass, then they'll bury your ass. This podcast is brought to you in part by Stash. Saving and investing can feel impossible, but with Stash it's not just a reality, it's easy. Stash isn't just an

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Offer is subject to T and C's. Say that man! I didn't say that! It's like as aging is awful, but I hadn't considered the ass wiping part the burying I can handle As wiping they're gonna change your diaper wipe your ass and then put you in the ground like aging sucks It's the worst yeah, right it is the worst thing to watch Yeah, your parents who you think are invincible and they just like right and one day you're like They're broken right the gringles up and like the body hurts and they spend more time in doctors offices Like it sucks and they babble don't forget that you know the movies by the way kind of fit into a bizarre And I don't really believe this but almost like a kind of propaganda Which wants to make people comfortable with death because you see someone die in the movies

Yeah, it ain't nothing see someone die in the movies. It ain't nothing like people die in real life. They look great. And they're out. Goodbye, I love you. And they're out. But you see a real person die. They're delirious.

They're saying things, crazy things. You don't know, sometimes they come out of it. There's your parent. Then they're gone again. It's like watching someone get buffeted by waves, in and out, in and out, and then they go. It is not a pleasant thing to behold. In the sense you get watching it,

at least in the beginning phases of it, is not like, this is great, a beautiful part of life. It's a sense of like, my God, I'm going to die. My heart is breaking. And we're normalized to it. And we just see it. And like, I understand death has always been inevitable. It's like, what else are you going to do?

But right now, it's almost like if we were to be sober enough to see this moment, we would initiate a war scale mobilization. Right. Right? Like we would drop everything, instead of us pursuing unabashedly all of our games of wealth, status, power, prestige, etc., we would lock in and say we're giving birth to a godlike intelligence. This is a new era of being human.

Like we have no idea what it means to exist anymore. We just want to lock in and not do stupid shit. Well, but this is the problem. What do you do with the abundant life? When you look at death, I mean, we already know, like hunters have to cull the herd. If you don't have people hunting deer, the forests will be destroyed.

Pigs, the same thing. Humans, though I know humans have been very kind to the planet, you look at humans and you're like, my God, they were the care, we're gardeners, essentially, gardeners for this beautiful planet. You know what I'm saying? I do. So what about that?

How do you deal with the issue of overpopulation should you come up with some medication, some set of things that people could do to extend their life span? So first I would try to calculate the probability that our imagination of the problems are accurate. So there's like a few assumptions there, in there. It assumes of our population and a bunch of follow-on assumptions.

And it assumes like we don't have enough resources, we don't have enough space, etc. So if I just go back through time, and if I, in my reading of history and looking back at people, humanity has a pretty bad record of predicting what problems will come in future generations. And most of the time these predictions are made, they're usually wrong. So humanity has a really bad track record of knowing what problems are coming.

And so I don't think we're any different. I think we imagine what problems, we pattern match on certain things we know, but I don't think we're correct Well, the classic example that I've read is I believe they thought that if a train could go a certain speed it would kill people Yeah, we're not equipped to go that fast. And Malthusus, I think in 1799 he thought that we would never be able to produce enough food for the world, right? With like whatever, like a billion people or if we get like something like that right wildly wrong also I guess

Who cares? I mean really it's like okay great So I guess what we just don't try to live longer because you're afraid there's gonna be too many people on earth you monster Yeah, I guess we don't explore this shit exactly just let people die old age you fucking piece of shit What does your worry 100 years from now? Yeah, you might have to stand in line longer. It's Starbucks Yeah, yeah, who's gonna volunteer to start killing themselves? Like we need to whack people off. I would imagine more than a few people. I would imagine that that would be an interesting thing that...

Like a thing of valor or like honor or something? Well, or just a general like, I'm over it. Yeah, it's like, oh good, yeah, done my thing. Yeah, and I'm curious about that because, you know, when we, when you look at yourself 20 years ago versus now I'm sure you've changed quite a bit yeah your personality has changed quite a bit I'm sure you look at yourself when you were in college exactly compared to where you are now your personality's changed quite a bit so we do know the personality does change sometimes quite dramatically in people's lives.

And so let's say you, it works. You extend your lifespan, you double your lifespan. And how do you think you're going to change in a hundred years if you had to predict changes in your personality? What would they be? I mean, let's baseline this thought process. Let's do a thought experiment. So let's imagine we're hanging out homo erectus a million years ago Okay, so they have an axe in their hand not very advanced and let's pose the question to them We say homo erectus tell us what is the future of intelligent existence? Yeah, and they might say something like we're going to you know, forage these areas We're going to hunt over here, we're going to do this battle here. But they'll give you their selection set.

And then, but the thing is, homo erectus is not going to be aware, they're going to say, you're going to discover a microscopic world where there are atoms and molecules and you have, there's an electromagnetic spectra. That's a trillion times what you can see. You're going to discover one day, you know, a little pill you put in your hand and swallow it and infection goes away. Or you're going to have a day, you know, a little pill you put in your hand and swallow it and infection goes away. Yes.

Or you're going to have a glowing object in your hand. That makes you sad. That makes you sad. The sad machine. Honest, that's so good. That is such a good statement. So like the homo erectus, if homo erectus were wise, it would say, I don't know, like my models of reality do not cover like what models of reality will emerge over some duration of time that you're asking about. And so for us humans, the question of what I imagine of myself presumes I have some knowledge or insight into what reality could be in 50 to 100 years. Right. And I think we have zero, zero starting assumptions.

And I'll tell you why. Like, for example, like our experience of hunger is a pretty important staple of our being as a human, right? Yes. Like we feel hunger, we eat, we satiate it, we go through a cycle. If you take ozempic, it turns off hunger. Yeah. You don't feel it anymore. Right.

Like that fundamental part of being human is gone. And that's with our drugs today. Why couldn't we imagine developing drugs where you like literally change your entire understanding of what it means to be human. Like a conscious being. It's like when we have the ability to engineer, to like change, do genetic engineering, and introduce new drugs, and, and, and, and, and,

I think all bets are off I don't think we have any idea what it means to be an intelligent being and even 20 years from now, right? I think it's like great answer we're just there great answer because so much of who we are is influenced by the Set that we are walking around on so who knows and I agree with you there I and I I'm curious your thoughts on this you one of the things that is really fascinating to me about AI and all of its promises is that somehow it doesn't really seem to have registered in the way that you would imagine it should have registered. Like for example, Altman predicted AGI,

I think in a year or two, other people are saying sooner, maybe a little further, but not that far along. If we got a signal, a mothership is coming, of super intelligence is coming to the earth, everyone would be fixated on getting ready for this. Exactly. And yet we do know that this is happening., we're interacting with early phase versions of it and Still yeah people don't really seem to be giving it as much

Cognitive energy as you would think it would demand why yeah, why what is that? Is it resistance or people afraid? What's going on there? Yes There are this is poster of a hundred and eighty eight chronicled human biases It's a fantastic poster. So it's like all the little tricks our brains make, you know So like for example, if I say like what's your opinion about, you know, take a given topic like Governmental spending. Okay, and you'll say well, I'm wide open to think whatever I want, right? I'm going to go the internet and search.

The first thing you find that confirms your existing beliefs, like, God damn it, I knew it. I knew I was right, right? That's confirmation bias. That's one of 188. And so there are tricks that our mind plays on us to make sense of a chaotic world, to create a cohesive reality. But we're just an absolute mess in our minds. And we just can't see it. We're blind from it. So in questions like this, I really come back to like,

we really are a mess as an intelligent being. Like we can assemble things together, like just walk on two feet, drive to work, do tasks. But in this broader landscape, I just think when it comes to like, okay, we're giving birth to the super intelligence, we can't really see how fast it's moving. We don't quite know what to do with it. So there are biases are playing into like keep us safe. Like sometimes we want to just disassociate with things is too much to think about. Or like we rely upon our model to say what has been will be just like everything we've talked about today, like people's perspectives, they're like knee-jerk reaction.

Okay, let me say this in short. I've been doing these dinners on my house, these don't die dinners. And I invite like 10 to 15 people and I walk them through five thought experiments. It's a two-hour long conversation. It's amazing. People walk away and they say it was like the best experience of their life. It just breaks their brains. And in going through this process with 99% accuracy, I know what someone's going to say.

Cool. I know the emotions they're going to feel. I know the arguments they're going to make. I know the rebuttals they're going to have. I know who's going to talk and win and how. And so it's just like we're all NPCs. We're all playing out scripts, all of us. Right.

And like if we can be a non-NPC 1% of our life, we're winning. But the majority of our thoughts, emotions, feelings, ideas, they're just like scripted out. Yes. We don't realize it. Real simple code. We're very simple creatures. You know about Gurjeev? No.

You love him. Okay. Yeah, he was a mystic and controversial figure. Some people called him a cult leader, but one of his ideas was you're not born with a soul. You're a machine. You grow a soul. And so that was his whole premise was just what you were saying. Like, I think, in fact, he was less optimistic. I think he was like 100 percent of what you do is a habit. There's no autonomy. No free will You're just a machine. Yeah. Yeah, the exercise he invites people to do is

The next time you're paying for something just watch. Yeah, watch what you do. You don't think about it at all It's like a dance. You could just do a dance. It's so scripted out. Including maybe the days you're feeling extra altruistic and really look the cashier in the eye instead of completely dehumanizing them. It's still a series of set reactions. And his question was, now what else? Or, I guess, to put it simply, where were you when you lost your keys, for example? Who was there? So you're saying we are the scripted NPC, and I agree with you.

I guess you know I was gonna say that. But. But. But. So you think part of what you're doing involves unscripting, being less habitual, being less of a machine? Or... Yeah, I think it's too much to ask.

I don't think we can do that. Whoa! You're saying there's no way out? No. So here's what I'm saying. Oh my God, I like it. It's dark. Yeah, yeah, I'm saying this, that...

Our patterns are strong and they're fixed. Yeah. And if you say, what AI is doing, is AI is basically mastering the patterns of society. Yeah. So it started with autocomplete, like you could write an email and it finishes your sentence, like easy words, like finishes with words. And now you can speak to these AI tools.

They're as, like chat-chip-a-tee. They're as good as my smartest friends. Absolutely. I mean, when I want to have a deep conversation and explore new ideas, like they're good. It's like a pretty small number of my friends like really find novel insights. The majority though, like they don't have the breadth

and depth of like the reason, of how these AIs pull in. And so AI is basically mastering all of our patterns. And so it's gonna be better, very soon if it's not already, it's gonna be better at being you than you are in every way, every possible way. And so, and like we're almost there, if not there already. And so what I'm we're almost there, if not there already.

And so what I'm saying is that this moment is not about trying to be better than AI, it's not trying to like figure out how we're gonna be special relative to AI. It's a moment to say like, we have given birth to something so far superior to us. What do we do? And I'm saying if you, in that vacuum, that open space,

what do you do? Like people are gonna jump in and say, well, I'm interested in conquering a country or I'm interested in acquiring more power. I want to get elected to office. I want to make more money. Or like we take the games that homo sapiens have been playing. Yes.

And you drop it in. And I'm saying, you guys, none of those games are good ideas. Right. When you're giving birth to super intelligence, you don't want to play old school games. Right. You want to play the new game, which is don't die. Right. That's the only logical game an intelligent species would play

But that that's not our intuitions our intuitions are like, oh, I'm gonna use it to make money I'm gonna use it to like blank by blank and so what that's right. It's like a full stop reset of the species Yeah, it's like if a squirrel Stumbled upon a genie bottle but for squirrels This is good. It's gonna ask for acorns! 100% of the time! It can ask for anything it wanted.

It can ask for anything. But it's a squirrel, it's squirrels nervous. Maybe it'll ask for like, you know, trees that were easier to climb. Right? That's really good. Oh, thank you! So this is the limitations. and I think about this too when I'm sort of what people watching and watching myself I do think about like my god. It's like

There are neurological blinders. Yeah on me right now In the shape of my brain. There are only a certain set number of things that I'm aware of and Proclivities I have that are injected in me by the culture and probably genetics. And yet I know there's a vast swath of experience out there that other people are having with different types of neurologies. And I can't seem to quite break out to access those. So you're saying we need to override somehow these proclivities that are, if I had to guess, man,

I mean, when you have kids, you know what, suddenly your dad, it's your baby, but it's an expression your dad used to make. And you have to face the reality of like, oh, Jesus God, how much of what I do is just some response to genetic compulsion. And this produces a real uneasy sense in us. Exactly right. I don't want to be a robot. Yeah, but like we are.

You think you're a robot? Yeah. I mean, I've probably had like, I don't know, I I maybe have never had an original idea my entire life I mean don't die is probably the most original thing like I've like the most Aware, you know, like I could like pull myself It's so counter culture and counter intuitive and counter norm. Yeah, but outside of that I probably have just plain and playing a script my entire existence. Here's how I'm going to push back on that. I don't doubt that most of what I think and most of what I say, and especially interacting with AI, has given me this sense. But also just a general feeling like anything that I say, there's someone much smarter on this

planet who's thought it and set it in a more succinct way. But I don't think that irrelevantizes originality. And here's my pushback. Pianos. Every piano, the key of C, it's gonna sound a little different. It's gonna sound different because of the structure of the piano. It's gonna sound a little different. It's gonna sound different because of the Structure of the piano it's gonna sound different, but it's whether it's been tuned lately, but that see Whatever that is I think with each human even though we might articulate the same basic stuff There is an originality to it that is unique Yeah, that it doesn't make you quite a machine. And maybe that is the difference with AI. It's some kind of platonic ideal.

It's the perfect key of intelligence. But that doesn't irrelevantize humanity. I think there's something maybe a little unquantifiable. And maybe most of us, what is unique about us is our out of tune-ness, is the way we're not quite in tune with the world. That's what makes comedy. I mean, you know what I mean?

That's what makes so much great art. I'm not saying I'm opposed to accepting so much of what I do is pre-programmed bullshit, but I think it might be unique pre-programmed bullshit. I think you make a great point. I agree with that. Yeah, so we are still there's something there that is Yeah, I agree with you entirely.

I only try to make the point in the extreme because I agree with your perspective and that is the dominant perspective. That's what most people believe. We're all special snowflakes? Yeah. I agree with your perspective, and that is the dominant perspective. Right, that's what most people believe. Were all special snowflakes? Yeah.

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. We all deserve love and to be cuddled by our mommies. Yes. And boobs. Yeah.

You know, there was a study, I think it got debunked, that men who looked at boobs, yeah, were more, had some kind of health effect. And I think the study was debunked. Too bad. What asshole debunked that study? I need to look into this, but wouldn't that be an amazing study? God, this is the science that needs to be done right now. Like a major gap is missing.

Well, you listen, I don't think, listen, I like what I like weirdly what you're saying actually Aligns in a lot of ways with the sort of Buddhism I'm interested in. Yeah. And also in the articulation of that Buddhism you offend people People don't want to hear this shit. Yeah. People don't want to imagine Emptiness which is in Buddhism. Exactly. They don't want to go there. Exactly. And the number zero. The number zero is really off-putting to people,

also because of our culture, we don't view empty as good. We think I want my bank account to be full. I don't want my enlightened bank account. Great comment, yes. Yeah, so I get it. The push that people don't realize that there's a liberation in what you're conveying here, but you gotta get past that push back

if you want to make real change And that brings me to your work. Yeah, which is You have a and I'm gonna obviously miss some things, but I believe how many supplements do you take a day down to 40? Congratulations, how many doctors a lot a lot of doctors and you are getting plasma. I believe what is it called? Yeah Yeah, what's if you don't mind me, and I think this is public info, per month, how much does it cost? Each session is $10,000. So what do you think you're spending each month in the pursuit of immortality? Not very much money. So it cost me millions to stand this thing up.

The majority of that expense was the scientists doing the research. We crawled through all the scientific literature and said, what evidence is there you can slow down speed of aging and reverse aging damage? But that was really, that was a crawl. That's like, where are we at baseline? And measuring me is very expensive. So I'm the most measured person in human history, and that's just really hard to do.

So the protocol is actually very cheap. Okay. Going to sleep on time and you're exercising like those are what we found out is is that you can in fact measure biological age. Right now, scientists will dispute this, but like we know this intuitively, right? If you look at someone who's 10 years old, and someone who's 70, no one's confusing those two people. No. And so the same is true if you take a 10 year old heart And a 70 year old heart sure hold them in the hands like no one's confusing those two hearts right they both taste the same

Yeah, just a little saute on the 70 right just like Slow boil I recommend a slow boil. Yeah, they're tough. Yeah, tough. Yeah, getting soft enough that means. So much heartbreak in that thing. Yeah, yeah. So like there's, you can in fact measure biological age. And so the question, so I have certain markers, like for example, my cardiovascular ability, like my ability for my body utilize oxygen you can measure that's called vo2 max and so My body operates like a top 1% of 18 year olds So it functionally Wow it operates on the same degree as that age group. I'm sorry. I should know this. How old are you?

47 yeah, you don't look like it at all you like if I could like cuz you know everyone's seen pictures of him by now but this is what I'm Getting from you. It's kind of like your skin looks really good. You've got this kind of like I don't know really super healthy looking skin and a kind of like glow Thing happening and you look like you feel good. You look like you feel really good. What do you feel like? What does it feel like to be on this regimen? Yeah. Um.

This episode of the DTFH is brought to you by BetterHelp. If you've watched too many action movies, then you might have gotten the idea that the way to take care of yourself is to hole up in some dark parking garage and use a fishhook to sew up your you're Rambo in some ravine and they're gunning at you with a helicopter and an assault rifle and they're chasing you through the forest and you got to set traps that spike them. That's a fictional character. Everybody needs support. And I don't know how we have become Completely unaware of that reality. I don't know what that is, but God knows there is something in our culture That makes it feel weird to ask for help. It's crazy You'll ask for help if you're like shopping for groceries Do you know where the lube is?

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H-E-L-P dot com slash duncan. Back to the podcast. How HELP.com slash Duncan It feels like an expansion of my consciousness Oh weird I really I Really? I feel more, I think, I get a bigger space for me to think. Ah, weird. I'm less bothered by negativity and by people. Yeah. It just like, it kind of gives you like superpowers of consciousness. Yeah. And we all know this intuitively, like if you sleep really well,

you wake up, you're like, oh my god I'm born again. Yeah, right Like you feel and then if you do that for a few days in a row and then then you also eat well for A bit and then also you exercise. Yeah, like you're feeling like you can do anything right? I'm just like the Absolute extreme version of that where I've done everything and I potentially have the best biomarkers of anybody in the world And so in doing this, you just feel amazing. And so this is the thing that I tell people is like, you don't have to like buy what I say, just go to bed on time. Right.

And like just stop doing stupid shit and you're gonna feel it. Like you know this is true. Yeah, right. Yeah, you're not saying- that's cool because yeah, and that's actually really good pushback to some of the critiques of people who misunderstand what you're doing because they think you're like meddling around with your DNA or something like that and they heard about the transfusions you were doing which really upset a lot of people me included really tell me what was that well I'll tell you why yeah okay I'm very interested in what in transhumanism I'm very interested in your work but then I heard you're in putting your son's blood in yeah and you know we all thought of course what?

vampire okay, and that Vampire okay, but what why vampires bad? That's what a vampire would say Well no because when so here's the thing and I your what you were doing by the way, you didn't invent it This is weed I'd already caught some of the data that people were realizing like young blood might have some kind of curative Restorative effect and then of course the first thing I think is lady Bathory. Yeah, you know She's bathing in the blood of her murdered service. Jesus Christ Did she catch on to something before any of us did? Yeah, and so

So when I heard that I, oh no, it's... You know what? I actually... I actually... This is very funny. I hope he doesn't mind that I say this. I'm definitely not gonna mind. I was in a... Well, not... I'm gonna quote somebody else. I was in a green room with Bill Burr, and I just read... Tell me Bill Burr made a joke about me. Not about you, he made a joke.

Not directly, kind of. I was talking about, yeah, it seems like young blood might reverse the aging process. And he goes, bad time to be a kid. That's good. He got that one. That's good. But you stopped doing that. You stopped. Why? So one, I would have loved to have been dunked by Bill Burr.

That would have been pretty cool. Yeah. He's funny. So the reason I do know why I did this. Why? My father. Yeah, my 70, yeah, my 71 year old father, he called me and he was panicking. And he said, Brian, I just had this experience where I was writing something on my notebook.

I walked away, got something to eat, and I came back, and I realized that what I'd just written was gibberish. Oh, shh. That's literally every time I write. Yeah. He's like, I'm losing my mind. Right? And so, he's panicking. He's beside himself. And at that point, I was like a year into my project and I said, Dad, I will do anything to help you. Like, I understand what that must feel like. I said, because that call, that same day my team and I had a call around plasma.

We looked at the evidence on how a old rat and a young rat had been sewn together and they shared a circulatory system and the old rat became younger. And so the idea was that you could take old plasma, plasma out of the older mouse, older person, and put new plasma in. So I said, dad, if you're down for it, I'm happy to do this procedure with you, where we would take a liter of your plasma out and put a liter of my plasma in you. So it was coming from this state of love for my dad, who was losing his mind. And so then my son was listening

He's like I'm in oh, that's so so we're like should we do a tri-generational plasma exchange like what the hell why not? So that was the origin it was it was for my dad to address his cognitive decline And then of course like the media made it to be this vampire thing of course fine. That's fine But yeah, it was like bastards. They give me every time of Of course. They don't mention He's trying to save his fucking dad. Yeah My dad has turned around no way his co-workers are just like what is going on like he's in the dock He's just like he's a different person. He went full blueprint. Wow. I got him on my diet and all my protocols So it's been amazing. He's turned his life around see that's beautiful right there That's the humanity in it and when you know when you realize

Why not try yeah, god my mom died of breast cancer I would have done anything anything and no anything. Yeah anything and the That's the reality. And I do think that like the answer to the critique of what you're doing, though I don't think it's that much, and you've addressed it really well, is most of this is love-based. Most of this is not like some kind of dark transhumanist cyborg vampire dystopian future. It's literally life is great. Yeah, exactly and I like being a lot, you know, I was like, um guys talking to my kid You know when they go to bed, they kind of get mystical and we were we were talking about dreams and he was asking

How do I know I'm not in a dream right now? And he goes I hope it's not a dream. Ah and it's like, you know, this is, I think, if you strip away just the alien nature of experimenting on oneself and maybe trying therapies no one's heard of, what you find is you like life enough that you wanna keep living.

And how can you have a problem with that? And anything that pushes people in another direction, is it good? That's right. You have to really ask yourself that. If I'm adhering to any philosophy that places death above life or somehow makes death seem like preferable to existence.

It might be you're not getting enough sleep. Truly, I mean that's the other thing that's off-putting. When I hear what you're saying and then I think, my God, how much of my shitty decisions are just based on diet and sleep? Exactly. And then how much of what the world is like? Exactly. It's just based on some very simple things. Exactly. And then how much of what the world is like. Exactly. It's just based on some very simple things.

Exactly. That must torture you a little bit. So it's so funny. I love how you're capturing this. I guess you're really speaking clearly to this whole thing. It is very, very hard for people to see this. Yeah. Like these really basic concepts like, wouldn't the world be a better place

if everybody was getting eight hours of sleep per night? Yeah. And wouldn't it be a better place if people exercise on a daily basis? Yeah. And wouldn't just like walk down the line? We would probably be a different species. Oh, absolutely. Like I think we're currently manic.

I think we are legit. Like humanity has always been insane. Yeah. I think, not just. Humanity has always been insane. I think we are legit, like, diagnosably manic. Like, with the omnipresence of social media and the sleep deprivation and the toxins in our foods, and our terrible metabolic health. I think we've just lost the plot and we can't see it. Right. I don't think it's a terrible diagnosis. And you know, why wouldn't we be?

I mean, my God, why wouldn't we be? When you look at what is, you know, I'm diabetic because I live like an asshole. Yes. Oh, no. And, but you know, I'm on ozimic and it's working. Blood sugar down. Yeah. Miracle, actually. What's your levels at?

God, I don't remember my most recent a1c a drop significantly. Good for you. Thank you. That's great Yeah, and also I got off sugar and I remember Two days it was a two-day headache. I had a headache for two days and then I felt so good Yeah, and all these things that I attributed to getting old Yeah, having to sleep after I ate, a general like weird, tired feeling all the time, waking up to piss all night long. That's right.

It all went away. Yeah. And that got me real creeped out. You know, that not Soylent Green is people level creeped out, but like, my God, it's in everything. Cause then you can't eat sugar anymore. So you start becoming hyper aware

of how much sugar is in stuff. And you realize, Jesus, this is killing people. And people are looking up and there's chemtrails. It's like, dude, the chemtrails is in the candy bars, it's in the bread. You know, and you must feel like that times a million, because I don't get enough sleep sleep and I still have bad habits and and but I feel way better than I used to. Yeah, but you must just look out of the world and think, Jesus Christ.

You are so correct. We basically, so very simply, is what I'm trying to do is I'm saying if you, I live in California, the life expectancy in California is 77 for a man, I think. And so you just simply do a simple calculation. How much do I die per day? Right? Or until I pass away 77. And then we've just done this really interesting experiment. We've said, if that's my life expectancy as is, what things would make me die faster? So like alcohol, smoking, bad sleep. And which things would slow that

down so I live longer? And we've tried to look at this at a molecular level, like what things in my body? So like what does bad water do to make me age? What does bad air quality do? What does toxins in the food? What does blank blank blank? So we've tried to quantify the source of death and the effect of death. And so, for example, smoking one cigarette costs roughly 20 minutes of life. That's what you're paying in bargain. Worth it. I know that's the default.

I'm joking. That's what people say, they believe it. So now we have a concept that we can measure death. Oh my God. So now let's say, okay, so we don't allow kids to smoke because that's a bad idea, but we feed them dye at school lunch. Right. So a piece of pizza. Yeah.

Right. The chocolate milk in that plastic lined container. Yeah. And then the vegetables that have been canned and that have BPA in it. Right. Yeah. And then the vegetables that have been canned and that have BPA in it. Right. So if we quantify that, how much death are we delivering to kids at school lunch? No idea. You know, it's just called like four minutes, five minutes.

Five minutes. It's not free. And so we're feeding our kids die. And so what I'm trying to say is it's not just about you getting sleep and exercising. It's that when you realize that our society has these die elements everywhere, then that's problematic for everyone. Nobody wants kids to die. So like people will, they'll say, I'm going to, you're like your response, it's worth it? Because people are like fickle with their own existence. I'll die, whatever, I don't care.

I'll exchange the last 10 years of my life for happiness now. But nobody wants kids to die. And so if you reframe it, that just creates a real clarity of thought that we've got die on the present in our society. Like we just have forgotten about it. Oh my god. This is a thought I've had so many times as a parent. Because we, you know, thank God my wife is like hyper aware of what you're talking about. And we try to do everything we can to keep that stuff out of their food supply. But then sort of like, you know, the protocols we have for our kids,

we keep them off the screens. We notice that they're on screens a lot, their behavior gets weird. We keep them off the dyes. We notice the dyes, who knows, but it did. There seemed to be some behavioral shift there. God knows we get them enough sleep. And I've often thought, why aren't we doing this for ourselves? Like, if it's good for the kids. Exactly. You read the studies, it says this just came out. If a child has red dyes, very bad. If a child is on the screen too much, very bad. It's always the child. It's like, well, what? What's the difference between a kid and a person? An adult? Yeah, there isn't one Meaning but you're right. No one gives a shit about the old

Really? No one gives a shit. So bizarre isn't it so bizarre and people so your point is dead on and so adults They have to do these gymnastics in their own heads Yeah, and they have to like justify why it doesn justify why it's good to do for kids, but bad to do for themselves. Why do you think? I mean, humans... So, you would think, back to your earlier comment, that a campaign to say, let's not die, would be like, great! That's a cool idea! And instead, people are like, fuck off. Yeah.

Right? And so, what is it? why do we have such an opposition to life capitalism? Like so there's like this long so you the common responses I hear or people be like you're so busy Trying to not die. You're not living. Yeah, and if you dig into that what they're saying is their choice of you know Staying up late and you're drinking drinking and that's their idea of fun, which I understand, again, when death is inevitable, yolo lol. I get it. Fine. Do your thing. And what I'm saying is the game has shifted. It's no longer yolo lol.

It's like we may not die and if that's true, you have to go back and revisit everything you thought. They just don't understand my underlying premise. And so they think, I guess like also it's complicated because people, if they see me being healthy and they see they're not, they have to also reconcile that they feel powerless, you know, that they do want to be healthy and they do want to be jacked. They want to look great. But they can't for whatever reason

They can't control the eating habit disorder They like they can't get the gym or they're suffering to like 30 pounds overweight and I understand I've been there So it's just very complicated also. I mean you are you I mean, I don't mean this in the way like I Don't mean this in a sinister way, but if we look just at you're a global elite you my god You've had so much success in business. You are, you have a lot of financial freedom. And I think one reason people are like, fuck off about the death thing is more along the lines

of they're working two jobs and they're exhausted, stressed out and just cortisol, coffee, Adderall, junkies. They're just trying to get by, man. And so death really does seem like a great, you know, it's like what Dawkins says, death is the anesthesia that saves us from the pain of life. They believe that and they might not be wrong. You know, this, I think if we're looking culturally

at what's going on here, when was the last, I mean, you've been starting businesses since you were in college, most of them successful. Cell phones, holy shit. But if you look, have you ever worked in a cubicle? Yeah. Remember that? Yeah.

The dreariness of it? So I grew up poor. My mom made me close for school. I was dead poor for 34 years of my life. Remember your mom's look on her face when she came home from work? Remember the exhaustion? I don't know if she was. It's it's dystopian. Yeah. Yeah. So the pitch I'm making to everybody is it's um, I come from poor. Yeah, I was poor. I've been poor the majority of my life Yeah, and so I'm I'm not saying be rich what I'm saying is That what society is telling you to do right now

Whatever your circumstances whether you're rich or you're poor. Yeah, they're killing you and making life suck Okay, so when the cultural norm says right like eating fast food is living life Yeah, like come on Brian chill the fuck out. Let me eat my burger fries and be Yeah, have it your way You rule so I've stayed like that's like don't be dumb Don't eat fast food right right so I'm trying to say like I'm trying to bring some Gotcha right and instead of staying up and binging your favorite show because they're so goddamn good so good Don't watch the show go to bed on time

And then I'm saying tomorrow morning right even if you can just spare 10 minutes walk Right stretch like do anything so I'm trying to like be the the counter influence in their lives to say Society is fucking evil and everyone's trying to kill you by making money. Fuck! Don't do that. Woo! Yeah! Yeah, right? I'm on board, baby! I love it! And you know what else? It's like, look, okay fine. Yeah, more than likely, statistically, you do find yourself in a set of conditions that are untenable. But... you do find yourself in a set of conditions that are untenable. But.

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These two things can happen with quince. What can you change right now? And everything you just listed is completely doable. If that's the beginning phase of it. Now those changes, based on what we just talked about, could lead to a shift in consciousness. Yes. A clarity. And in that clear space, that's where you could start planning your escape from the manacles of late-stage capitalism. There you go. You got it. How are you gonna do it when you're toxified and sick? And God, you know, obviously, you know, this is a guy, I think you might be a little more conspiratorial than I am, but listen, you

know, if you weren't, if you weren, you know, if you if you weren't a good if you weren't Benevolent if you and I weren't benevolent anymore Yeah, we got to keep these motherfuckers working. Yeah, and If they have a clear ahead they're gonna value their lives That's right more than a shitty job that we're not paying them enough for. Yeah, so let's get him sick More than their shitty job that we're not paying them enough for. Yeah, so let's get them sick What do we do? Let's put some dot. Let's make really sweet things that have like bright colors Those eat it they won't even know what's going on and then they'll get tired and sick and then yeah Let's just put some like great games out there. Yeah, I mean like isn't it like isn't it just

insane That fast food exists I mean like isn't it like isn't it just insane That fast food exists Yeah, like it's I understand that people want to make money. I understand that people have free choice But and I realize it's normalized right now, but I would imagine that in 2030 2035 2040 we are going to look at this moment and be like what the fuck like that is so Insane that businesses sold death right and that people ate death and it was like yeah, man It's a living life like you know like what like how did a conscious being? Arrive at that observation. I don't think anybody's like yeah, man. This is a living life

I mean I you know what I love people watching Anybody's like yeah, man. This is the living life. I mean I you know what I love people watching They do I get so much shit. I I asked people to do fast They're going to fast food fast in February like don't eat fast food. I mean I got the shit kicked out of me Are you kidding me? No no like Brian chill the fuck out man one mills not gonna hurt me like oh yeah I get I get that took so much shit dude the thing about it is this the You are you know I hate commercials and but I watch him. I'm interested in I took so much shit. Dude, the thing about it is this. I hate commercials, but I watch them. I'm interested in them, especially fast food commercials.

I'm interested in it because of just what you're saying. It's like here we have verifiable poison and underpaid workers. So, and yet the commercials this almost an alternate reality. These people eating this garbage, they really do look like they're having the best day of their fucking life. But go to any fast food joint and look around. Does anyone seem that happy from employees to people? You don't see anybody at a Burger King like, hell yeah baby, woo, let's go watch the game.

You just see people that seem kind of like in a rush and not happy and God Jesus, there's a whole phenomenon, it's a whole genre of YouTube videos of people having nervous breakdowns and fast food joints because they got the wrong order. I don't know if you've seen this, people throwing cash registers because they didn't get the right kind of poison they wanted.

So, and this is across the board, when I go to the airports and look around at people, no one seems that happy. People seem miserable. People seem real dreary. People seem scared, and people seem like they're in a hurry. Across the board. So, fast food does make sense contextually.

Because the world that we're living in is one where you need to eat quick. You don't have time to cook. You need to get to work. You can't be late. And because you're working so much, you don't have very much time to explore your own life. A weekend. Three hours at the end of the day when you're fucking exhausted. You don't want to spend any of that time cooking, so you go to BK.

So I think it does make sense because everyone is on a treadmill and the speed even though technology would imply otherwise Isn't going down. It's going up and up and up and up and up and up That's why there's fast food has nothing to do with enjoying life. It has to do with Being in a hurry. How do you get out of that man? It's hard. It's hard. It's a... I'm not trying to minimize in any way the difficulty. What I'm trying to do is the first step. Yes. Is to clearly call out the insanity. So like, just so the person can just honestly acknowledge.

Right. This is a bad situation. Yeah. Now like, once you do that, like, okay, now we've got to make some practical steps. Like how... If that's the case where you're exhausted How is there a possibility you could have food at your place in some practical way? That's not fast food, right? It doesn't have to be like per vegetables So I could be like just something just a little bit better, right?

But I'm just trying to call and but if you kind of peel the layers back, it's like this it's you you can As a society we have said capitalism is The the primary game we're playing. Yes, right. It's accumulation of wealth and power yes, and then there's other games within that likes social media Like you can acquire followers as a form of soft power, social power. So those are the end points.

I understand that again, like that's been the primary means of the system we've had in society. And so what I'll give you like another layer of don't die, which will hopefully make sense. What I'm suggesting is capitalism is useful because it's numerical. Everything has a value. So, anything has a value. Everyone plays capitalism because, right? Don't Die also has the same numerical basis.

It's based upon entropy. And so, everything has a value. So, everybody is playing die or don't die every second of every day. So it's a universal game. And the way Don't Die is elegant as an ideology, it's actually the most elegant ideology in history because Don't Die can speak to the universe via physics, because it's based upon entropy.

It can speak to AI in the form of math, because AI is math. It can speak to software in the term of computation. It can speak to humans via biology, all living systems through biology, and to humans via storytelling. So, Don't Die is basically a computational, mathematical, methodical way to rebuild society around a new numerical game. So what you just laid out, you said like two jobs, no time, blah, blah, blah. That's all in the game of numerical capitalism.

Right. And what I'm saying is we want a new numerical game based upon don't die, where the goal is to try to minimize entropy or death. You need a Bitcoin that we can mine by not dying. I agree. We need hundreds or even thousands of endeavors that are trying to simultaneously go after die in all its forms.

And you got to start with the... You got to invade the current paradigm with this new paradigm. You've got to get in there, but it can't just be like, though I'm in, man. Like this is inspiring to chat with you, but I feel like there has to be some way that, and I know it sounds absolutely idiotic, but to mine some new crypto via these decisions. So there's a profit motive. Yes. Okay, so here's the first one we're doing. So it's gonna be called Don't Die Certified.

So here's the rough sketch is eating toxins is bad. Yeah. And we eat a lot of toxins because our food supply is very dirty. Right. But nobody knows where the toxins are because nobody measures. So I've been measuring everything, because I've been trying not to die. But I so I've seen this data myself. We're going gonna try to go out and try to map the US food. Ohm. We're gonna try to measure 20% of the US skews of the products that make up 80% of the US diet Wow, so we can then say the average American consumes, you know blank mcgs of mercury per day Holy shit, and so we and the way we turn the profit on this is we say okay Let's say you're you have a favorite chocolate bar. Yeah, okay

Yeah, you and you say I want to know are there heavy metals in this chocolate bar and the company doesn't tell you right on the on The market it's like super delicious amazing. Yeah, you're saving animals the Amazon. Okay, whatever So you just say that that testing let's say it's cost $1,000 to get that test back Yeah, so you say I want wanna put in $100 to test. So you put in your 100 and you call your friends, you're like, hey guys, everyone put in 100. Everyone puts in 100 and you get $1,000. So test results come back.

You now find out what levels are. Now we go to the brand and we say, hey brand, you really, if you wanna come claim your profile on Don't Die Certified, come pay the money and pay back those people who paid for your tests. Whoa, that's so smart! So now you make a hundred plus, let's say ten dollars, you make a hundred and ten dollars back. Wow.

You've just made money to test the food source. That's so genius. Then we can map everything in the US, everything in India. And so now you make money by helping others, right, understand toxins and food levels. The company now like openly is like working on it. So that's a first don't die endeavor that helps people make money and improve health and wellness for everybody.

That is so cool. You saw that? Yeah. Wow. That's when are you going to do that? That's amazing. So we have our we have our first results back right now. So we did a bunch of foods. We also did pet food, we did dog food, we did diapers, we did tampons. What diapers?

So I don't know the brand. So on this one, it came back. We need to have an absolute measure for this, but the relative measure, it came back incredibly high in glyphosate, which is a really bad chemical. Jesus Christ! It's a really bad chemical. It's from the cotton. And so then we also in dog food, it came back very high in heavy metals. So we're gonna basically just do this across all food categories. Baby food, dog food, cat food, tampons. Tampons came back with a hit. Why'd you point to me when you said tampons? You see that? I do happen to have a tampon in right now.

Yeah, yeah, it's high and heavy metals. Yeah, you don't want that. How much time do we have? Five more minutes. How much time do we have? Five more minutes. Holy shit. I am so happy to meet you and I'm so happy that you are so cool. You know, I was a little nervous. You don't want potentially one of the first immortal beings on the planet to be an asshole. And you are the opposite.

I really love your work. And you have a very persuasive argument. And I must tell you, like my wife, she stays tuned into all this stuff, but she has to go to really obscure places to get the data about lead and food. Exactly. And it's shocking. Yeah, it is.

When it comes out. And so I feel like what you're doing is a very beautiful thing. And I can't wait for this stat, for especially the Don't Die, what is the name of it again? Don't Die, what's the thing you're doing? Certified. Don't Die, the thing that's going to get you assassinated. Yeah, so we'll do, so...

Aren't you worried about that? I mean, okay, let's be honest. I'm sorry I said it out loud. It's true though, right? There's no question. I'm gonna die Right. It's gonna be some kind of super ironic thing. But like how can that not be the case? Like I don't want that to happen. But like are we being real like irony is like the ultimate, you know currency of the universe So no, don't worry. We'll digitally clone you by you're gonna make it long enough. Okay last question I know we only have five minutes. Here's the last question. You did list some very pragmatic, simple things

that people can do to feel better. Do you have any more things like that? What do you got? I do. So I'm gonna tell you how to change your life. Okay. And it's gonna be all free. Thank you.

Okay. Being active, playing with your kids, exploring the best trails. All these activities can lead to pain. Introducing Kalea, Thank you. Get back to doing what you love. Kalea, order online at kalea.ca. This product may not be right for you. Always read and follow the label. So sleep, it needs to be your number one life priority.

Okay. Now that is counterintuitive, because right now you probably sleep when you have time or sleep when you're done watching a movie or sleep when you're done with the event or sleep when you're done doing work. Yep. So you need to choose your bedtime. I or sleep when you're done doing work. Yep. So you need to choose your bedtime.

I go to bed at 8 30 p.m. Okay. Like you choose your, what time's your bedtime? You know, horrifically late, but I was so exhausted. I went to bed at 7 and I woke up at 8. I got 12 hours of sleep and I feel like a god today. Yeah, exactly. So, but yeah, no, it's chaotic, random, unhealthy.

Okay, let's say, random, unhealthy. Okay, let's just say midnight because you're doing your shows. Yeah, you're doing your shows. So let's just say by the time you get to show at home, 11 midnight? Midnight. Okay, let's call it midnight. So let's just say midnight is your bedtime. Yeah.

So that means every night you want to have your final meal of the day at least by 10 p.m. Okay. Now, if you want to really try to experiment to try to find improvements, try nine, then eight, then seven. You'll find the earlier you eat and the lighter you eat, the better your sleep is going to be. Now, the way you measure this is, and here's the mark you want to measure.

So, you want to look at your resting heart rate. So, do you have a wearable? I don't. No, I used to. I don't. Okay, that's fine. All right. So tonight before you go to bed, just check your pulse. Put your finger by your neck here and just take your pulse. Okay. So you want to have a baseline resting heart rate.

So let's just say tonight before you go to bed, let's say your heart rate is 60 beats per minute. Okay. Your goal over the next week is to get your heart to be 50 beats per minute. Okay. Okay. Your goal over the next week is to get your heart to be 50 beats per minute. Is this before I lay down? That should just are you saying like as I'm going to bed check? Right before you go to bed. Okay, so I'm still active. I brush my teeth. Yeah brush your teeth and you like you lay down You're like, okay, and I'm ready to go turn the light off Measure your heart rate. Okay, and like take a few breaths, you know, like kind of calm yourself down just for a few minutes. And that's your baseline.

So now your goal is to lower your heart rate by doing the following things. So one is the last meal of the day substantially affects your heart rate. So if you have a very, you have a big meal, like pizza and pasta or whatever at 10 p.m. At 12 p.m. your body's still digesting all the food. Got it.

It's doing all this work. That means your heart rate is going to be high. Of course. Your heart is pumping to help all the digestion. Yeah. So if you eat, let's just say you eat like a 6 p.m. as your final meal. Let's say you eat something light like some veggies, like fruits, berries, nuts. By the time midnight comes, your body's almost done with primary digestion,

which means your body now has a lot of metabolic capacity, just like, now I can sleep, okay? So one is that eat earlier, eat lighter. And you're going to find, as you get better at doing this, you're going to find that some foods will raise your heart rate, and some foods will lower your heart rate. Okay. Okay, so like breads, carbs, pastas, you know, like those are the ones that I can really jack it.

What about cocaine? Yeah, asking for a friend. So I shouldn't, you're saying I shouldn't do cocaine right before I go to bed. So if you do, do an experiment. Okay. So do the cocaine and measure your resting heart rate. And you're probably going to see like 90s, 100. Yeah, and that's going to demolish your sleep, okay I don't do cocaine, but I and I don't want to cut you off I just need to know are there any supplements you recommend for people have a hard time falling asleep Yes, let me finish these habits. Thank you. Okay, so sleep is your number one priority

So now like in your mind you are a professional sleeper. That is your number one life goal. Love it So you say now I know what to do. I'm gonna lower my resting heart rate I'm gonna measure it and you would start moving your food back earlier lighter now. You're also going to Eliminate screens in that last part of the night. So between 10 and 12 no screens Okay, like okay like between 11 and 12 like what roughly an hour Yeah, and you want to change your screen color to red on your phone and also want to eliminate blues It's like no blue lights. Okay.

Orange sleep. You also want to be consistent. So if you go to bed at 12, be to bed at 12 every night. Got it. Okay. And the reason you do that is because if you go to bed at 2am, you don't like make it up on the other side, you miss your deep sleep window. And that's like when the garbage truck comes through to clean your body,

fill it with junk, you miss it. Got it. So be on time. Yeah. Because if're not, the garbage truck misses its run. Wow. Be on time. Okay. And then you want also to have a wind down routine. So when you get home from your show, right?

And like you're thinking through like good joke, bad joke, like this person did well, like, right? You're looping through all your thoughts. You need to have some kind of process where you talk to yourself, where it's like, okay, I hear my concerns, I hear about my new ideas, like maybe you journal and write down, but you need to like kind of reconcile your thoughts because if you don't, your head hits a pillow and you're still all aroused from the day, your heart rate is up, you're thinking about everything, you can't go to sleep because now you're spinning, and you get anxious because you're spinning until the next morning. And then you wake up in the middle of the night and you're still spinning.

So you have to calm down your thoughts. You have to have some kind of reconciliation process. And then remember on stimulants, if you have caffeine at 6 p.m., that caffeine has a six-hour half-life, which means that a 6 p.m. coffee is going to leave half a cup of coffee in your body by midnight. Jesus Christ. So don't do that. Got it.

So if you're gonna have caffeine, push it earlier in the day. And so if your bedtime is midnight, you know, like early afternoon is probably your last window and even then it's like kind of pushing it. Yep. So if you do those five things, what you're gonna find is your heart rate is going down, your sleep quality goes up. Now when you sleep well, you wake up and you feel amazing. And when you feel amazing, you wanna exercise.

And then when you exercise, you feel like you wanna eat well and then you eat well, you wanna repeat that cycle. So don't start with food, because food is way too much. It's way too complicated. Like if you like try to stop your bad habits. So if you have a bad night's sleep, your willpower the next day is going to plummet. So if you're facing down like, do I drink? Do I have this kind of food? Do I do this kind of bad behavior?

Your likelihood of making a bad decision is so much higher on a bad night's sleep. So sleep gives you the superpower of willpower. Got it. So sleep, then exercise, and then exercise, but master those habits. Make them non-negotiables in your life. Like, never deviate from them. And that will keep you like in a sane state. And then once you accomplish those,

then you can start tackling one by one other stuff. Like say like you've got this fast food thing, right? Like try to knit that in the bud. Like instead of two times a week, one time a week. And then like no times a week. And then so just like slowly chip away at the problem. Yeah. You are amazing.

Thank you so much. This is a wonderful podcast. And I'm very excited about your documentary on Netflix. Dang it. Don't die. The man who wants to live forever. And you know, you were great. You really picked up the concepts really fast.

Thank you. Yeah, you move through the ideas really swiftly. You captured the synopsis in it. Thank you. And I find that these ideas are really hard to talk about because they get blocked by so many of our thoughts. Sure. But yes, I just I really had a great time with you. Oh, likewise.

It's really fun. Oh, man, I'm on board the don't die train. I'm not going to die. I'm excited. Yeah. Thank you very much. That was Brian Johnson, everybody. All the links you need to find him

will be at dunkittressel.com. I wanna thank him again for coming on the show and for the delicious bottle of olive oil that he gave me and my family. Come see me out there on the road. I'm gonna be at the Denver Comedy Works. After that, the Orange Peel in Asheville, NC. And won't you please like, subscribe, become a member.

Join the Patreon. I'll see you soon. Bye.