Bryan Johnson

[Narz]

Maybe you are uniquely gifted, and I don’t mean it sarcastically, to not discriminate based on appearance—but I think most of us do, and we connect the choices people make with their appearance with the things they are saying to us. If he was dressed as a 16th century European knight, I’d listen to him spin a good yarn about a heroic warrior in the Black Forest, but I wouldn’t ask him about 10-year treasury bonds.

Everyone discriminates based on appearance but wearing cartoon characters on one's shirt (or avatar) as a grown up is pretty normal/mainstream/basic and I think judging someone based on clothes rather than values is a bit petty. If I see someone with pink hair or wearing a tuxedo or a mohawk I will have a momentary opinion about it like anyone but that opinion is secondary to how they speak and how they treat others.

 

[Plains-Cow]

You're avatar is a toddler book cow

What book is it from? It's just a cute arts and crafts cow pic from online that fits the name. Amadeus also has a "children's" character. The difference is Bryan always wears the oversize toddler design clothing like he's still "growing into" his clothes like a tween. His shirt has literal children's drawings with smudged lines and everything. It's just so weird, especially the "I have the penis of an 18 year old" thing. I feel like he'd say "I have the penis of a 14-16 year old" if he could and not sound weird. I don't think he's attracted to children, btw. I think he fetishizes the idea of youth because he didn't have a childhood (growing up strictly Mormon, then leaving to work full-time grinding on programming projects).

Again, if his doctors were honest and not just "yes" men, they'd diagnose him with generalized anxiety disorder and a few other issues. Bryan doesn't need gene therapy, he needs therapy-therapy.

I feel like that only becomes relevant when @Plains-Cow evangelizes on how to become immortal.

Maybe I already am, in a sense, in my consciousness. If you believe it is separate from the physical neurons or whatever bouncing around the brain.

Take it from me, my avatar is from a 30-year-old video game.

A CHILDREN'S game too, at that! Gasp!

 

[Narz]

I think he fetishizes the idea of youth because he didn't have a childhood (growing up strictly Mormon, then leaving to work full-time grinding on programming projects).

Again, if his doctors were honest and not just "yes" men, they'd diagnose him with generalized anxiety disorder and a few other issues. Bryan doesn't need gene therapy, he needs therapy-therapy.

Maybe you should look into becoming a shrink yourself, you seem to have a keen interest in psychoanalysis.

Following oscoms razor I think it's much simpler.

People want to stay young because it feels good to feel young and vital (be able to run fast, jump high, recover quickly, etc)

No one is lining up to get old and frail and 100% of people would prefer to avoid it.

Once you have a billion dollars, what's left? You could attention seek on Twitter like Elon but I'd imagine that would get old quickly.

What else is left? Pursuing the same thing we pursue with Civ, playing god, starting with your own body.

 

[Plains-Cow]

Maybe you should look into becoming a shrink yourself, you seem to have a keen interest in psychoanalysis.

Following oscoms razor I think it's much simpler.

People want to stay young because it feels good to feel young and vital (be able to run fast, jump high, recover quickly, etc)

No one is lining up to get old and frail and 100% of people would prefer to avoid it.

Once you have a billion dollars, what's left? You could attention seek on Twitter like Elon but I'd imagine that would get old quickly.

What else is left? Pursuing the same thing we pursue with Civ, playing god, starting with your own body.

Maybe I already am one? (OOOoooOOOoooo, spooky)

Living well as you age? Bryan isn't motivated primarily from that. He's afraid of death. He rarely speaks about the issues with aging unless it pulls his attention away from the fetishization of youth. Otherwise it's alllll about "don't die." Again, his motto isn't "live well."

That "What else is left?" question reminds me of that movie Groundhog Day where the guy indulges in every way possible, then tries to kill himself a gazillion times before even thinking to just be a "good" person. Elon also has his own weird self-caused problems.

 

[Narz]

Bryan isn't motivated primarily from that. He's afraid

At the end of the day you don't know, it's fun to guess I guess.

From the interview seems one of his motivations is to help his dad.

it's alllll about "don't die." Again, his motto isn't "live well."

1st is prerequisite for the 2nd

before even thinking to just be a "good" person.

Trying to cure age related disease about as good as it gets.

 

[Plains-Cow]

At the end of the day you don't know, it's fun to guess I guess


Trying to cure age related disease about as good as it gets

It is pretty fun to guess!

My next guess is that he's covering up his anxiety about death with layers of depersonalization, saying things like, "I am trying to save the WORLD from death." I watched that interview.

Bryan is also a sample size of "1," so that's pretty much useless. He explains what he does for himself to assuage his death anxiety and the basics everyone and their grandma knows to keep young biologically (don't smoke, no processed foods, stress management). Gee, what a scientist.

 

[Narz]

I like that there are people out there trying to do good for themselves beyond what is considered realistic.

Here's another guy with wild dreams for the future.

 

[Plains-Cow]

I like that there are people out there trying to do good for themselves beyond what is considered realistic.

Here's another guy with wild dreams for the future.

Best part of his talk was the point that evolution doesn't care if you are happy, only that you reproduce, that nature will select the neurotic and the perpetually unsatisfied over the happy and the tranquil if it means that the former can out-compete the later.

 

[Narz]

David Pearce is great, I could listen to him for hours.

 

[Broken_Erika]

I got kids so I can be friends w their friends.

 

[amadeus]

With the discussion of the genetic editing and so on, I wonder at which point it becomes self-defeating: if I decide to significantly alter my “programming,” am I still myself and does it make sense to continue?

Suppose there was a machine somewhat like The Matrix or the holodeck from Star Trek, in which you can be conscious in a world that is altogether only a product of your imagination, and the real physical self is just sitting inside the machine doing nothing.

Would you want to be in that machine? Suppose further you could control every aspect of it. Able to fly? Bing! Done. Play every instrument, speak every language? Manipulate everything and “everyone” around you? You could do all of that.

I would think it would be rather hollow.

 

[Narz]

Lol I didn't mean that's why I had kids but ideally kids expand your social circle and you can be friends w their friends and family.

With the discussion of the genetic editing and so on, I wonder at which point it becomes self-defeating: if I decide to significantly alter my “programming,” am I still myself and does it make sense to continue?

There is no continuous self day to day anyway.or even moment to moment.

It makes sense to be cautious but to be afraid that one will be a different person tomorrow is to be afraid of life.

 

[amadeus]

There is no continuous self day to day anyway.or even moment to moment.

I think there is a big difference between gradual and natural change vs. the rapid and artificial. I am not saying we are at the point now where it is technically possible, and for our sake I hope it does not come to pass.

 

[Plains-Cow]

I think there is a big difference between gradual and natural change vs. the rapid and artificial. I am not saying we are at the point now where it is technically possible, and for our sake I hope it does not come to pass.

The really weird thing is that there will be a non-zero number of people (at least as long as Bryan Johnson is around) who are 100% willing to outsource every process of their mind to a self-made techno-dad-god so that they can be a perpetual child under the care of their eternal digital surveyor. Imagine thinking that it will 100% always have your best interests at its digital heart; Bryan already talks about how he doesn't trust his mind for anything from health to pleasure (as though he thinks he'll be able to divorce himself from his unconscious at any point loooooooooooooool).