Longevity, over-optimization, and fear of death

`4:54:13`

It certainly did to a lot of people. I think that tweet really popped off, and I don't know if you noticed, but Bryan Johnson chimed in on the thread, and I could see how Bryan would read that as a bit of a jab. And I do think that Jamie was probably thinking of him amongst other people in that conversation. And it's also an example of where even though I'm not subscribing to Bryan's mission of, I think it's the slogan's don't die. I actually I do wanna die. I don't wanna do this forever. Like, I think the human li- lifespan of about 90 to 100 sounds about right. I'm embracing the finitude of life. We don't have to agree on that. In fact, Bryan is a vastly more interesting human to me because we don't agree with that, and Bryan's willingness to literally put his own skin and all sorts of other body elements in the game for that mission is really interesting. Now, I can have that view, this is really interesting. I'm glad Bryan is pursuing this passion of his, and then also find my wife's analysis to ring true, that it does seem like there is some underlying, uh, I don't know, fear of... I was talking to Jamie yesterday about this, and she was saying, Or comparing it to this sense of people who didn't feel like they had lived enough. And one of the reasons perhaps that they hadn't lived enough was that modern society now is a surveillance state, not by the state actually, but by each other. There are camera phones everywhere.

Every indiscretion or even outburst of fun or cringe is highly likely to be recorded and then shared to the point of ridicule, and what is the rational reaction for humans under those conditions is to pull back, is to make sure you don't dance like nobody's watching because-... they're probably filming you to your great and eternal embarrassment on the internet, so maybe you just shouldn't dance at all. And therefore, if we've all retracted to the point that we're barely living, we're clinging on to wanting it to last forever. Now-... I mean, I'm sure that thesis does not apply in all circumstances. I don't even know if it applies to Bryan or, or anyone else here. But I think there's something to this, that if you feel like you've really lived, you're okay thinking I've lived enough. And that the, it having an end is not something to be fought. Now, is it also possible that this is all just existential post-rationalization, and if tomorrow there was a live forever pill, we'd all take it? Yeah, that's possible. Is it also possible that if we did that, society be, would be worse off? Yes. Is it possible that the human lifespan is the length it is for sociological reasons, not just biological reasons? Yes. So I think these are just all interesting questions, and I just thought her analysis really got to something here. And that discussion has come up afterwards. I mean, that, I think that tweet is like a year old.

But just recently, we've been talking about this over-optimizers. I saw, uh, Chris Williamson, Modern Wisdom had a bit where he was like, "Yeah, okay, maybe we did go a little overboard." And the triggering thing was the Diary of a CEO, where the host was saying something to the effect of, "I had a glass of wine and the next three days were ruined." And that to me, I mean, in his circumstance, I'm sure that's true. Like, if you have not drank any alcohol for a very long time and you have just a little, I could see how it can have effect. But also there's something in that that just triggered a visceral reaction, I think, for a lot of people, and myself included, where I was like, "Fuck, man, I should have a glass of wine just right now, even though I don't usually drink." And in fact I think the alcohol question is a good microcosm to zoom in on. So we've all stopped drinking apparently, like alcohol sales are way down-... certainly amongst young people. And then on the one hand, on the pure health metrics, whatever, we can go like, "Oh wow, isn't that great?" And then I go like, "Yeah, I'm not so sure it is." Like the social lubricant that alcohol can provide may be missed, is missed. I mean, we are in an absolute epidemic of loneliness and misery and depression and whatever, and a fair amount of it just probably comes because you're not interacting enough with other people. Now, that's before we even talk about coupling, right?

Like way down, people having a very hard time meeting a spouse. And-... a lot of that has moved over to apps that have all sorts of negative outcomes and consequences, right? Like maybe we will look back, or maybe we already are looking back and thinking like, "Eh, do you know what? Maybe getting wasted every once in a while was not the worst thing in the world." And whether wasted or not, maybe just having a couple of drinks every Friday or Saturday when you're out and about was part of what helped society get to where it is. Maybe the fact that humans have literally been drinking for whatever it is, like 13,000 years for mending things, had a social purpose, and we pull out Chesterton's fence of our own chagrin, right?

`5:01:02`

And this is the myopia of modernity, that we reduce things down to like, well, one glass on this long run study meant that you had a 0.1% greater risk of some heart defect. Yes, but if you didn't live at all, what's the point? And again, it's also easy to flip over the other side. Like the only way to live is to get drunk every weekend and eat a bunch of crap and smoke 40 cigarettes a day. No, it's not. Like it doesn't have to be the either/or. This is one of the reasons I stopped wearing my Oura Ring. So I wore the Oura sleep ring for many years, four years. And one day I was just like, "I don't need to know that I had-"... "a bad night of sleep." Like I know. This added, I don't wanna call it an anxiety, I don't have a lot of anxiety, but this added just like reminder-... that I had a bad night of sleep, what purpose is it actually playing here? Why do I need to have all these stats? Why do I need to optimize everything? To the point where, again, after that single anecdote, you know, from Diary of a CEO, I was like, "Fuck, I kind of want the opposite." Like- I barely drink at all. A glass of wine once a month maybe. Like, do you know what? I should start, uh, just on the weekends, get a glass. Maybe two. And also, I mean, I've never been the person to fret about my diet. Um, this is one of the great privileges of being married to, and I'll do a quick aside here. Don't ever call a woman in her 40s a wonderful woman. My wife was so pissed—...

that not only last year did I come on her birthday, that was bad enough, but that I called her a wonderful woman on the show, because that sounded like her name was Nancy and she was 65—... in the suburb of Rochester. So I'm like, I was trying to play the 50. Like, no, I don't know, I'm Danish. How would I know? But that didn't go over well. So I'm gonna say awesome woman instead. If you marry an awesome woman who also not only knows how to cook, but enjoys it, do you know what? There's a very traditional division of labor here that has been quite stable through several... tens of thousands of years in human societies, that perhaps also wasn't the worst idea in the world. And I also know there are plenty of men who like to cook, and there are women who don't. But as stereotypes go, eh, that certainly helped me. Like, I don't think I would've been able to just be as relaxed about food if I didn't eat relatively healthy on a, on a regular basis. But the overall point being, just getting out of that optimization game without turning into the opposite. You don't have to be a fat slob on the couch either. You can move around.

`5:04:06`

This was actually a feature, I built it into Omarchy. So memento mori. Remember death. If you pull down the calendar in Omarchy, you open it by clicking the clock. It opens up, and the first funny thing, I took it off the internet. There's this account called Year's Progress, and it, every day it updates, and it just shows 63% done with 2026. I don't know if you've seen that one. So it just fills up. So I built that into the calendar. So right now it says, "We're 63% done with 2026." But then if you double-click that, it'll ask you, "When were you born? How long do you expect to live?" And the default is 90. So I put in 1979. And then right below the line of, like, how long are we done with the year-

`5:04:47`

... is a new line that shows how long are you done with your life. I think I'm at 62%. I'm like, if you hover over it, it says, "Memento mori."

`5:04:57`

Fair number of people found it morbid, but this was why it is an Easter egg. It's not, like, exposed. You gotta click a few things to get there. I like the reminder. I like the reminder that time is finite, and I should make the most of it. And this is also one of the privileges of having children. You really realize that the cliches are all true. Oh my God, it goes so fast. And I remember my now 13-year-old being one, being two. I was like, "This was just yesterday." And the reason it's a cliche is because it's a shared experience. Cliches are good. They remind you that you are part of the human experience, and others have been here before you.