At first I thought, this is the same attitude that creates billionaires—a single-minded obsession with getting more and more and more beyond all practical use.
After reading the article, though, I feel some sympathy for him. He seems to be clear-eyed about offering himself up as an experiment for our sins. If that’s how he wants to spend his money, good luck to him.
I think, though, that in his healthy old age he may realize that he has traded having a life for more time. Does he have a partner to help him enjoy that teenage body?
I hope he leaves his body to science. Should be interesting. Might be useful for space medicine and other fields looking at bodies subjected to extreme conditions.
I think it’s easy to criticize or mock this guy but I see it kinda differently.
To me - this is akin to how F1 racing filters down engineering advances to regular cars.
In the course of one very rich person’s journey (however impractical and ridiculous for most people) perhaps we can see a ton of bogus health aids (like the supplements) debunked while really significant treatments get discovered.
I’d also hope that along the way - if enough of these ultra-rich self-experimenters fund research - it will translate to vastly more practical applications like dealing with dementia, cancer, etc.
And this is coming from a beer-guzzling wanna-be athlete in his early 50s.
In my experience though what happens is that the bogus stuff gets amplified, packaged and marketed to people despite being ineffective. I doubt very much that anything this guy is doing is improving anything other than his advisory team’s bank accounts
Even if none of the things he’s doing is baseless woo, simultaneously testing as many variables as possible (with no control) is the opposite of science.
Would the results be twice as good without the broccoli extract? Which specific things make the most difference? What medical metrics best correspond to actual outcomes like wrinkles and age at death? These are just a few of the questions this work can’t answer!
Every year spent on a program like this is a year wasted in coming to terms with aging. If it could tell me five achievable steps to live 10 years longer, that’s useful, but I don’t see much point in stretching my final hospital stay to last 60 years.
One of the problems with the idea of his acting as a guinea pig is that he’s a single data point with a lot of genetic and lifestyle conditions unique to him. People are not cars, and any “trickle-down” outcomes will only be applicable to a small subset of other humans.
His choices are his. Ultimately, though, he seems like a pathetically short-sighted thinker, which is ironic given his desire to extend his lifespan.
A telling phrase from the article:
(Johnson also dyes his hair.)
Nothing wrong with that in and of itself, but that has nothing to do with life extension and a lot to do with presenting the superficial appearance of youthfulness.
