When I’m 125?
April 15, 2025 at 04:39AMIn this thoughtful essay for Coda, J. Paul Neeley writes about his participation in a study run by Bryan Johnson, an entrepreneur known for his anti-aging and longevity program called Blueprint. (Johnson is the focus of this TIME profile that I recommended a few years ago.) Throughout his life, Neeley, who grew up Mormon, has striven for perfection in all areas of his life. In his work as a designer and researcher, he has contemplated happiness. He asks: “What would it look like if I optimized the design of my life for happiness?” Interested in the Quantified Self movement, Neeley was initially enthusiastic about Johnson’s ideas. But participating in the study opened his eyes to the cons—and side effects—of the Blueprint regimen.
The study began very quickly, and there were red flags almost immediately around the administration of the study, with product delivery problems, defective product packaging, blood test problems, and confusion among participants about the protocols. There wasn’t even a way to see if participants died during the study, which felt weird for work focused on longevity. But we all kind of rolled with it. We wanted to make it work.
This experience has also had me reflecting on and asking bigger questions of the longevity movement and myself.
We’re ignoring climate breakdown. The latest indications suggest we’re headed toward three degrees of warming. These are societal collapse numbers, in the next 15 years. When there are no bees and no food, catastrophic fires and floods, your Heart Rate Variability doesn’t really matter. There’s a sort of “bunker mentality” prevalent in some of the longevity movement, and wider tech — we can just ignore it, and we’ll magically come out on the other side, sleep scores intact.
More picks on longevity
The Man Who Thinks He Can Live Forever
“The goal is to get his 46-year-old organs to look and act like 18-year-old organs.”
The Quest for Longevity Is Already Over
“For Robine, each supercentenarian is a crucial datapoint in the quest to answer a big question: Is there an upper limit to the human lifespan?”
The Death Cheaters
“The members of Longevity House are united by two things: a willingness to hand over $100,000 and a burning desire to live forever. Inside the weird world of cryotherapy, biocharging and fecal transplants.”
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2025/04/14/when-im-125/
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