Although the singularity isn’t here, the shitularity certainly is, and it’s moving to infect every corner of our humanity. In the shitularity, shit’s upside down. Where you have people welcoming the extinction of humanity and worshiping marketing material as prophecy, it’s this environment that spawns people like Bryan Johnson and elevates them to hero status. That’s right, a dude who obsesses over his son’s nightly boners while occasionally also using him as a blood boy has been hoisted up and put on a pedestal. Although you’ll be happy to know that as of January 2025, he’s no longer using his son as a blood boy, no update on the boners.

You might wonder what kind of world would promote someone like Bryan Johnson to the level of a deity. Although dying is certainly an uncomfortable prospect, it’s not purely about him trying to cheat death, at least, not completely. It’s true that the not dying aspect is part of Kurzweilian transhumanism, but Bryan’s popularity is about something far simpler. Numbers.

You see, if you can turn health and happiness into a set of numbers, then you can measure them. If you can measure them, you can optimize the shit out of them. It’s this optimization ethos that drives everything in modern tech movements, and if it works for tech, it must work for humanity. Of course, to believe this, one has to set aside Goodheart’s Law.

If you can turn health and happiness into a set of numbers, then you can measure them. If you can measure them, you can optimize the shit out of them.

Another thing to realize is that his spiritual commentary on superintelligence isn’t an outlier in the community. Here’s a clip of him from the Honestly podcast where he says we are creating god in the form of superintelligence, and we had it backward all along.

For the tech community, Bryan has come to symbolize the physical embodiment of hustling. After all, he’s performing every movement of his hustle publicly. He’s suffering for our sins of human mortality on our social media timelines.

The Cult That Requires Supplements

Bryan Johnson is creating a cult, but instead of the traditional cult leader approach of claiming to be a prophet or an incarnation of a god, Bryan has made himself the god, that is, until we create superintelligence. He’s a god of a new and everlasting covenant, one that requires supplements. For $412 a month, you too can remake yourself in Bryan’s image. After all, Christ died, but you don’t have to.

This package is topped off with a bottle of Snake Oil, because nothing screams modern fashion like saying the quiet part out loud.

Bryan has joined a cadre of crackpots, including people like Ray Kurzweil and Alex Jones, who latched on to an age-old money-making scheme. When all else fails, sell supplements. Unlike the old snake oil salesmen hawking bottles out of a wagon moving town to town, he’s got a website and a social media following. Supplements aren’t drugs and require no proof of effectiveness, which means faith is part of the bargain. Perfect. He’s selling highly nutritious communion wafers that will barely sustain your existence. Body of Bryan. One thing I’ll say about the old school snake oil is that at least it would get you drunk; Bryan’s gives you prediabetes.

The living forever bit is telling people what they want to hear. It’s part of the performance to get people to buy supplements and swag. By buying the swag and sharing his parables, sorry, social media posts, people can signal their affiliation. Many people now prominently feature “longevity” in their profiles along with e/acc, magic internet money, and whatever other crazy horseshit they believe that is anti-human.

The concept of “A Bryan Johnson” was inevitable in our current environment. Someone who tells us we can transcend death if we only believe hard enough and shell out some cash.

Which Johnson?

When I learned of Bryan Johnson and his whacked out antics, I considered the contrast with Brian Johnson. My mind immediately went to considering which of these two, on their deathbed, will have the fondest reflection of their lives? Yes, sorry to break this to everyone, but Bryan is absolutely going to die.

Let’s look at the two Brian/Bryan Johnsons. One is the 77-year-old singer of the band AC/DC. The other is the 47-year-old entrepreneur thinking he won’t die. One is out there living his best life, racing around in cars and having a good time. The other is not living life at all, choosing instead to torture himself in an elaborate performance. One sells music and good times, the other sells supplements and pain. One wants to salute those about to rock, the other salutes stunts camouflaged as experiments. I could go on, but you get the picture.

When it comes to living life and loving life, here’s Brian Johnson in 2009 running around the stage, hanging off a rope, ringing a gigantic bell. Now tell me, who’s having more fun as they age? Bryan Johnson wishes he had a following like this.

We don’t need to be rock stars to live a fulfilling life. Sure, the money and fame don’t hurt, but there are many areas of satisfaction that we can share. However, we are allowing people obsessed with technology to define what a good life is supposed to be, which is dangerous because these perspectives often miss the point entirely.

For example, consider the audience response in that video. Surely, there are more optimized ways to deliver music to your ears. If you are looking for a deeper experience, a VR headset and more cameras on stage would deliver a far more optimized experience tailored purely to your preferences. Hell, you could even choose which camera to watch at any given time! Surely, this must be better than buying tickets, getting in a car, finding a place to park, waiting in line, and then waiting for the band to start playing.

As optimization often does, it sheds value as it optimizes.

As optimization often does, it sheds value as it optimizes. Viewing the audience, it’s obvious to any actual human being that the experience those people are having isn’t the same experience an optimized VR experience provides. What people attending a live performance realize is that they are part of the performance along with the artist. Viewing the world this way opens the door for us to have all kinds of experiences despite not being rock stars and having money flying out of our pockets. These same doors shut through optimization.

Another point is that living life trying not to die is not living life at all, like the person so scared of dying in a plane crash that they never travel and see the world. But we’ve allowed a strange reframing of this experience in that we aren’t missing out on experiences; we are prolonging our existence, which opens the door to vastly more experiences. This is yet another argument that’s technically true, but practically false. Sure, we could live at the hospital, and we’d always have a medical team at our disposal, which could extend our life, but that’s not living life or gaining meaningful and fulfilling experiences.

The same sort of missing out happens if we live life with the belief that we won’t die. We always put off potential experiences because we’ll just do them later. We’ve all known people whose lives were cut short and who missed out on things they’d like to do. It’s the temporary nature of life, along with its stunning finality, that pushes us to live a good life, to seek out experiences instead of putting them off, to be fulfilled.

As an aging adult, I don’t want to die. I’ve also had many people around me pass away, which puts things in perspective. The prospect of spending years of my life focused on trying not to die instead of living life doesn’t appeal to me either. This doesn’t entail nightly binge drinking or a mainline of ice cream into my veins. I go to the gym five days a week, so health is certainly on my mind. However, when health and longevity become a hustle, something that must be performed and optimized to realize the true benefits, we need to acknowledge that we are doing something else.

Of course, all of this longevity garbage only takes into account physical health. But mental health is equally, if not far more important than physical health when it comes to longevity. All of this grinding away on tests on the body and measuring boners doesn’t leave much time for fulfillment and happiness. Spending time with your family and friends without drawing their blood, asking about erections, or shaming them because they aren’t fasting hard enough.

The thought of dying is scary, but the thought of dying without living life to the fullest is absolutely terrifying. Thankfully, we still live in a world where Brian Johnson is far more well-known (and loved) than Bryan Johnson, but it’s a mistake to be complacent about these things. Cults have an odd way of attracting followers.

How Did We Get Here?

Bryan Johnson is an example of how tech bro culture infiltrates broader cultural movements. Bryan didn’t invent this himself. He drew inspiration from earlier techno-utopians like Ray Kurzweil. Although thankfully, society at large still rejects the complete tech bro vision of culture, it’s leaky. Take a look at these new Olympic-style games.

It’s a mistake to assume that because this example involves something physical, it has nothing to do with tech bro culture. After all, human evolution is slow, but you can get a new iPhone every year, so why not roid it up and speed things along? This disturbing logic makes sense to many people.

We are dazzled by spectacles and monstrosities, so when someone pitches human excellence through augmentation by any means necessary, our interest is piqued. This exhibit is evidence of the direct impact of the current tech bro mindset on our culture. Although it would be easy to write this event off as stupid people doing stupid shit, this is tech bro culture at work. The gnashing of teeth from information overload wears us down into acceptance. And then, more people die.

This mindset warps people’s sense of reality. To the extent that when people share their preferences and they don’t align with Johnsonian expectations, others assume they are lying.

What’s happening in this image is simple. Men chose the “after” image because they thought that’s what they were supposed to prefer. Women just selected their preference. This isn’t rocket science or some epic conundrum that we need to investigate. Bryan Johnson’s “before” photos look better, too. That is, unless you prefer the aesthetics of an unwrapped mummy.

Against Life Extension

The argument for not living a longer life seems rather silly and self-sabotaging until you realize that the implications of living longer aren’t pretty. Anyone with aging parents or grandparents can attest to this. The body may live on, but the mind doesn’t cooperate.

Technology has already granted us a longer lifespan. However, this longer life span has set us on a collision course with cognitive decline and a lack of independence. Not exactly the definition of living your best life. Until cognitive ailments are cured and the ability to regenerate functionality is achieved, there isn’t much sense in living longer.

This reminds me of the point made by Aldous Huxley in his novel After Many a Summer Dies the Swan, or that of Tithonus from Greek Mythology, who was granted eternal life, but not eternal youth. I can already hear the tech bro response, but we’ll have fixed that. But unless we can regenerate functionality, then the prospect of living to 150 years old is downright terrifying.

In the past, people have speculated about cryonics, being stored frozen and then thawed out when the technology is advanced enough to revive them and cure their illnesses. This conjures a scarier and more realistic picture.

Since it’s easier to prolong the life of the body than to address cognitive decline and functional regeneration, what if the way aging bodies are stored ends up not being cryonics, but in a memory care facility? Imagine all of the tech bros milling around playing bingo, not knowing where they are or what year it is, and where Elon Musk thinks he’s still friends with Sam Altman.

What if the way aging bodies are stored ends up not being cryonics but in a memory care facility?

To the bros who think brain implants and augmentation will save us, not so fast. We should consider that augmentation with technology may actually make neurodegenerative conditions worse. The long-term effects of advanced brain implants aren’t known, but it seems they potentially optimize away the very activities that stave off conditions like dementia. These include activities such as reading, solving puzzles, and writing letters. Even worse, no matter how many brain implants and connections you create, it’s a confused mind with access to even more data and stimulation. This seems to create an even worse situation than what happens biologically.

In a new article, Francis Fukuyama argues against life extension, calling out, “Nearly half of all seniors in their mid- to late-80s suffer from some form of degenerative neurological disease like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, in the later stages of which they are completely unable to care for themselves.” This isn’t a pretty prospect. Fukuyama also explores other aspects, such as the economic impacts.

These tech bros don’t just feel they are extending their lives. They think they will live forever. If that’s the case, then the memory care units will be packed.

Living A Good Life

What Bryan Johnson and his cohort fail to realize is that overall health cannot be reduced to a set of numbers that can be measured and optimized. Leave it to tech bros to reduce life down to a set of OKRs. So much of life is lived and enjoyed outside of metrics. Mental states have a significant impact on our longevity, and supplements won’t improve that. It’s the other joys in life that keep us young.

The definition of a good life is certainly subjective and sometimes situational, but most people can recognize it when they see it. Or at least, they can today. In the near future, that may not be the case. We are approaching a world where people prefer all experiences to be mediated through technology, but is this a good life?

This is reminiscent of E.M. Forrester’s 1906 short story The Machine Stops, in which people are horrified by direct experiences. In the story, when the character Vashti sees the vast flank of the ship stained from exposure and encounters smells that were neither strong nor unpleasant, she is horrified. We, too, are beginning to prefer mediated experiences over direct experiences. I think we’ll find that in the long run, mediated experiences don’t provide true fulfillment. Four hours on TikTok doesn’t compare to four hours of hiking in a new location, for example.

We are allowing options for a good life to dwindle, enabled by a performative culture and technology. In the immortal words of the American philosopher Tom Keifer, you don’t know what you got till it’s gone. If you’ve never had something, you don’t notice it being gone. Some of us can decide to regress to a previous mean, but this mean may not exist for future generations. The thought of picking up a guitar and doing it ourselves won’t occur as an option because there are far easier ways to make guitar sounds. The point of learning and playing any instrument isn’t to make noise. The noise is a byproduct of the satisfaction derived from learning and playing. This perspective can be applied to many aspects of life that bring meaning and fulfillment.

I find this incredibly sad for future generations, as many avenues to find fulfillment and satisfaction are collapsing. These are avenues that numbers cannot measure. However, we are told these activities are unoptimized, and by applying technology, they can be made “better.” As we’ve seen time and again, adding optimization can render the point of an activity pointless.

Future Prediction

I predict that Brian Johnson will live to an older age than Bryan Johnson. In fact, I predict a future headline. Bryan Johnson, a man focused on longevity, claiming he’d live forever, died at the age of 67. See you in 20 years.