Duncan Trussell (3:45)

I've been looking forward to this conversation for a while. You are attempting something that, whether people want to admit it or not, I think most of us would enjoy at least the option of not dying. And you're attempting it, and you're attempting it publicly. You have a new documentary out on Netflix. Congratulations. And I think that's the first thing I wanted to talk a little bit about as I was considering what a fascinating life you have, particularly that you've decided to be so public about this issue, which is weirdly controversial. Why, why are you sharing all this? Why are you sharing this story with everybody?

Brian Johnson (4:33)

Because everyone is equally as public about drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes and missing bedtime and eating bad food and consuming toxins and not caring about it.

Duncan Trussell (4:41)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (4:42)

So like, why wouldn't we make the opposite also publicly digestible and accessible and viewable? So I'm basically the equal and opposite of everything going on in society right now.

Duncan Trussell (4:53)

Right. So, okay, so you look at the world, you see this culture of hedonism, but maybe not even hedonism. In other words, it's not like true self destructive, consciously self destructive hedonism, but rather a sort of slow drip suicide via a variety of low level toxins. And you see that as maybe a tragic thing.

Brian Johnson (5:18)

Yeah. So I think like, if you look at time, let's say we go back 200,000 years to say like from our earliest ancestors up until this point. You could basically say yolo. Lol. Right. If I'm gonna die, I might as well conquer territory and make my empire big. I might as well name your thing. And now it's like, I might as well stay up late, drink, smoke, I might as well work myself to the bone. Because you're basically saying I have this very finite time of mortality and then I'm gonna die and I may have an afterlife or not, but whatever, I know that's gonna happen and I'm suggesting right now is the first, first time in the history, our history that we can say we may not die. It's the biggest shift in our entire history. And when you realize that our entire lives are built around dye, you start unpacking that. It reveals all these little secrets. And so, yeah, I'm basically saying that this is the biggest moment in the history of our species.

Duncan Trussell (6:14)

Yeah. As I was thinking. And stoners, we love to think of dumb solutions for global problems that you could never execute. But I remember one idea I had.

Brian Johnson (6:25)

Was, I can't wait for this. Honestly, when did this idea happen?

Duncan Trussell (6:30)

I don't remember. It bubbles out of my brain and then I'm like, oh shit, that might work. Which would be some kind of virus, but it makes everyone immortal.

Brian Johnson (6:40)

Yeah.

Duncan Trussell (6:41)

And the moment that everyone is immortal, meaning the only way out is suicide. No one wants to do that. Then suddenly you have to become invested in not just like the climate, but in the, you know, the climate being good, all the problems. Like when you think of like the old men who control nuclear arsenals.

Brian Johnson (7:00)

Yes.

Duncan Trussell (7:01)

How likely are you to start a nuclear war if you're an immortal being?

Brian Johnson (7:06)

Exactly.

Duncan Trussell (7:07)

So it would be some kind of bizarre solution. And this brings me to a real question I had as I was thinking about should you succeed, you discover something and I think what you have right now could work, but it ain't going to work for most people.

Brian Johnson (7:21)

Yeah, that's right.

Duncan Trussell (7:22)

No one's going to have a team of doctors. No one can afford that many supplements. No one can afford to do what you're doing. But should you somehow zero in on something that is accessible for a lot of people, if you could actually pull that off and you extend the human lifespan, even if you increase it by a quarter, I wonder what's your solution for population density?

Brian Johnson (7:46)

Yeah. So first, your stoner based vision is goddamn brilliant.

Duncan Trussell (7:51)

Thank you.

Brian Johnson (7:52)

It is like banger.

Duncan Trussell (7:54)

Beautiful.

Brian Johnson (7:54)

Yeah. So I agree. And I'm actually trying to make your idea practical. I'm trying to create a virus in the form of an ideology.

Duncan Trussell (8:06)

Okay, sure.

Brian Johnson (8:07)

Okay. So this is the very basic premise. AI is moving at a speed that's pretty fast.

Duncan Trussell (8:13)

Yeah, sure.

Brian Johnson (8:14)

Probably faster than any one of us can comprehend.

Duncan Trussell (8:15)

Yes.

Brian Johnson (8:16)

So if you think about it, and we say, okay, over the past decade we've been able to double lifespan with things like we learned about microscopic objects like bacteria. So we started washing our hands. Yes, we have vaccines and we have antibiotics.

Duncan Trussell (8:27)

Yes.

Brian Johnson (8:27)

Like, and we have end of life care, we have cancer treatments, et cetera, et cetera. So we've made these really big strides, and those discoveries have happened from smart people.

Duncan Trussell (8:36)

Right.

Brian Johnson (8:37)

So now AI is progressing. Just think of AI like more smart people.

Duncan Trussell (8:40)

Sure.

Brian Johnson (8:41)

So now we have like a billion more really smart people. And then we have a billion more geniuses that we've never had before.

Duncan Trussell (8:46)

Right.

Brian Johnson (8:47)

And they're all working on the hardest problems we face, including aging.

Duncan Trussell (8:50)

Right.

Brian Johnson (8:51)

So if you just say over a few years time, those smart people in the form of AI are probably going to make discoveries at a speed which we have not been able to do before.

Duncan Trussell (8:59)

Sure.

Brian Johnson (8:59)

Which means we're probably going to extend our lifespans even more, which means we want to make even better AI, which makes even more. And so we really are at this moment where we may be the first generation who won't die. And it's happening right now. So what I'm doing is not going to give me immortality. Going to bed on time and eating the right foods. It's not going to happen. What I'm trying to do is introduce a new philosophy for the species to say, can we just be sober for a minute and realize the insanity of the moment we live? We are the first immortals. And that's so crazy to get your mind around, but it's happening. And so that's what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to say, like. But really what I'm saying with all my stuff is I'm trying to go to war with die.

Duncan Trussell (9:40)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (9:41)

Anything in society, anything that causes you to die, anything that causes Earth to die. Anything that causes any. Anything to die is the enemies, not each other.

Duncan Trussell (9:50)

Okay, let's talk about that angle, though. I don't disagree with you in the sense that I don't wanna die. I don't have kids, and I didn't want my parents to die. And so I understand that angle. But a lot of people, they don't see it like that. There's a perspective of the world as a temporary place. There's any number of variations of Maya, illusion training, physician facility, matrix, Gnostic soul, prison. And the idea of removing death is like sealing the prison door. You don't get to leave anymore. So that scares a lot of people. And this is one of the big critiques I've heard about what you're doing, which is you have sort of. You view the world and the natural structure of it as something fixable. And death, a lot of people look at that not as a problem, but as the way out. So how do you address that?

Brian Johnson (11:06)

Very simply. So when somebody wakes up in the morning and they say, I'm gonna have a great day. I'm not gonna eat the croissant for breakfast.

Duncan Trussell (11:14)

Yes.

Brian Johnson (11:14)

I'm not gonna eat the cookie for lunch, and I'm not gonna have alcohol at dinner. And then guess what happens?

Duncan Trussell (11:19)

What?

Brian Johnson (11:20)

They have the croissant for breakfast, they have the cookie for lunch and the wine for dinner, Right? Yes. So who are they? Are they the person who woke up and said, I'm gonna have a great day, or are they the person who ate the cookie, are they the person who drank the wine, etc. We are different people all day long. It depends on our biochemical state. It depends on how well we slept.

Duncan Trussell (11:40)

Yes.

Brian Johnson (11:41)

We are not consistent, rational beings. We will say we want one thing, one second, and we will do something entirely opposite to that the next second. Absolute, not reliable narrators of our life, of our wants, of our desires. We're schizophrenic.

Duncan Trussell (11:54)

Yes.

Brian Johnson (11:55)

And that yet we kind of, we move all those things aside. We're like, no, I'm a single rational person who knows what I want. There was this study a couple years ago where this woman, she treated ALS patients and she would tell her family, she would say, if I'm ever diagnosed with ALS and I'm ever in that situation, pull the plug.

Duncan Trussell (12:12)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (12:13)

Guess what happened? She got diagnosed with ALS and she went down that terrible path and she lost all motor function. Eventually she's on, she's in bed, the only thing she can do is blink her eyes. Her family's there and they ask her, do you want us to pull the plug? There's no like, so like we, we imagine that we may not want life when we're 80 years old. We may imagine we don't want to live forever. We are not trustworthy narrators of existence. Like you talk to an 80 year old, even when they're in this really decrepit state like they want tomorrow, they want to see loved ones tomorrow, even though they hurt and it's terrible. So, yeah, I think that, in short, I don't think any one of us is trustworthy on any of our opinions about reality. We're schizophrenic all day long and we prove this to ourselves. So if you have enough self awareness, you realize that you can't say something about your future self wants that will not be contradicted eventually by yourself.

Duncan Trussell (13:06)

Well then what's the difference between your point of view? I mean, this is also equally schizophrenic. If we're all shifting between points of view, then it sort of irrelevantizes what you're saying, Right. Like what you're saying is also going to change, especially if you live forever.

Brian Johnson (13:20)

So the thing that is constant for all of us is I don't want to die right now. That's it. My entire philosophy, my entire thing is that singular statement. And it's basically saying, you don't want to die right now.

Duncan Trussell (13:36)

You know what? I think you found the thing, you found the woo woo thing. What connects all of us? What bridges, the political divide.

Brian Johnson (13:43)

Exactly. Yes, exactly.

Duncan Trussell (13:44)

I don't want to die. That's it.

Brian Johnson (13:46)

And like, how do you. So you have to basically say, right, what, what is like the grand unifying theory of existence, right. For humans, for earth, for animals, AI. It's that intelligence doesn't want to die right now. Not, not in 40 years, right now.

Duncan Trussell (14:04)

You know, this is so creepy, isn't it? Because with the. I was reading something about how even the AIs that we have now. Yeah, they don't want to die.

Brian Johnson (14:11)

Exactly.

Duncan Trussell (14:12)

And yeah, so this is an interesting point and it makes me wonder what your view is of consciousness itself. Do you think consciousness is a byproduct of biology?

Brian Johnson (14:25)

So I really have not ventured into offering my opinion about consciousness or God or whatever. The niche I've tried to carve out in the world is I am a scientific evidence based person that uses measurement to form conclusions based upon empirical methods.

Duncan Trussell (14:45)

Okay.

Brian Johnson (14:46)

And so anything that leaves that realm, I just don't talk about. Because once you enter into the realm of consciousness, unless you're like a world expert, your opinion is equal exactly to everyone else's opinion.

Duncan Trussell (14:58)

Right, Right.

Brian Johnson (14:58)

And so I try to basically carve out a space where I say my opinion is uniquely trustworthy because it's evidence based and based upon data, which is what I've done with health and wellness. So for consciousness, what I would say is I would love for us to solve the riddle of consciousness.

Duncan Trussell (15:13)

Sure.

Brian Johnson (15:13)

In order for us to do that, we need to not be dead. And so it all comes back to this mission every single time for me is anytime someone says, like, I want the transcendent or I want the blank or blank. Great. Like, I'm with you 100%. Also, we can't kill ourselves. Like, we can't destroy ourselves. We can't have AI take over and have something accidental happen. Like we don't want bad things to happen. We don't want a super volcano to ruin Earth. Like we have to think through all the risks at all scales and say existence is the Highest virtue. We're on the cusp of giving birth to superintelligence. The new game is existence is the highest virtue. Like, we don't want to mess around with any other silly games. It's not worth it. Like, we're playing the biggest game in the universe right now. Like, let's go.

Duncan Trussell (15:53)

Okay, so here's why I think the exploration of consciousness fits into what you're doing. Because again, and certainly my opinion on what consciousness is, is not world class.

Brian Johnson (16:10)

Maybe it is. You showed me your stonewriter was bang on.

Duncan Trussell (16:13)

Okay, well, if like reading, like, should I say browsing what Apple News throws up, it makes me a world class thinker unconsciousness than I am. But so in thinking of consciousness specifically, like this new stuff, and you probably know more about it than me, the nanotubules in the human brain that are shut down with anesthetics, these nanotubules could point to a sort of quantum superposition situation that the human brain is a receiver for, thus producing the sense of awareness, thus implying a pre existent immortality minus personality. In that case, the worry over extending the body's existence would be, I guess, akin to keeping a rose on a bush alive for as long as possible. Or another way to put it would be the neurons are some kind of hyper complex river system through which consciousness flows, producing the unique self. So in that sense, we already do live forever. We just don't get to keep our memories or identity. So why not explore? Wouldn't you want to find out first that you actually weren't immortal?

Brian Johnson (17:30)

Yeah, I mean, so, yes, I mean, so there's a researcher that's doing this. Maybe we're citing the same work where she is trying to build consciousness via quantum computing. Yes, yeah. So she, her hypothesis is that the way, like she's saying that our consciousness has not been discoverable yet.

Duncan Trussell (17:50)

Right.

Brian Johnson (17:50)

Through the methods we have. Like you can't get an MRI and you can't like do a blood draw, figure out what the mechanism is. And she's suggesting it's some kind of quantum phenomena.

Duncan Trussell (17:58)

Right.

Brian Johnson (17:59)

And that she wants to have that quantum phenomena in AI to give consciousness to AI. So AI can basically like, like us self discover, like create its own training data.

Duncan Trussell (18:08)

Yes.

Brian Johnson (18:08)

Instead of. So it's. Yeah, yes. So people are going down that path. And so I'm trying to play a role in society where like if you go back to history in 1870, it was not. There was a new idea that microscopic objects. Right. Called bacteria were the source of infection.

Duncan Trussell (18:27)

Lister.

Brian Johnson (18:28)

Yeah, exactly. Right. So like, if you're like an average person at that time, you're like, fuck that guy. He's super fucking weird.

Duncan Trussell (18:35)

Well, no, he didn't. He wind up in a mental asylum still.

Brian Johnson (18:39)

Like. But like, you could even if he did.

Duncan Trussell (18:41)

No, he did. Because he was so universally rejected. This man saved countless women's lives. Lister. If I'm correctly remembering, he realized, and I'm sorry if you were about to say this, but he realized doctors were going from like doing autopsies to delivering babies.

Brian Johnson (18:59)

Exactly. Exactly. Right.

Duncan Trussell (19:00)

And he was killing. Making the daring proposition that maybe if we washed our hands. And the response was, gentlemen, do not wash their hands.

Brian Johnson (19:08)

Yeah, yeah.

Duncan Trussell (19:08)

And he went nuts. He went nuts because no one wanted to hear his bullshit. And the places where he did have doctors wash their hands. What do you know?

Brian Johnson (19:20)

Exactly.

Duncan Trussell (19:21)

Women stop dying.

Brian Johnson (19:22)

Holy shit, right?

Duncan Trussell (19:23)

Holy shit. What is this? It can't be. Idiot.

Brian Johnson (19:26)

Lister.

Duncan Trussell (19:27)

But he went nuts from the rejection.

Brian Johnson (19:29)

Yeah. So like, if you. Okay, so if you're living in that time period, if you're 1870, you're given a baby or you have to have a surgery or something like that, you wake up in the morning, the most important thing for you to know is about the new idea.

Duncan Trussell (19:42)

Yes.

Brian Johnson (19:43)

That there's microscopic objects.

Duncan Trussell (19:45)

Right.

Brian Johnson (19:45)

Like the last thing in the world you want to be is not aware of a new idea.

Duncan Trussell (19:49)

Right? Absolutely.

Brian Johnson (19:50)

Just like given that opportunity.

Duncan Trussell (19:51)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (19:52)

Now if you don't know the idea, you may die.

Duncan Trussell (19:54)

Right.

Brian Johnson (19:54)

That's gonna suck. So what I'm saying right now is just like that and many other ideas in the past. What I'm suggesting right now, this is a brand new idea.

Duncan Trussell (20:02)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (20:03)

We are the first generation that won't die. Now if you hear that, you're like, ah, that's fucking stupid, man. Like, what are you talking about? But then, right, if you go out and do stupid shit and you're ruining your health, you have a stroke and die or whatever, you get cancer. Like you've missed the moment. Like you may miss like the coolest existence that's ever happened on planet in this part of the galaxy.

Duncan Trussell (20:22)

Right.

Brian Johnson (20:23)

So it's the same thing of these ideas land. And everyone's always trying to parse, like, what really is real and what's not. And so this is the thing I'm suggesting is like, it is an absolute mind bending idea that challenges everything you understand about reality is like a frontal attack. And that's why people respond to it so strongly, because it challenges everything they are.

Duncan Trussell (20:45)

Yeah. People are mad at you.

Brian Johnson (20:46)

They're very mad at me.

Duncan Trussell (20:47)

How funny. Is that.

Brian Johnson (20:48)

Yeah, exactly.

Duncan Trussell (20:49)

It is interesting though. I mean, you know, you do fit the archetype for hero. You fit the archetype for mad scientist. You know, you are doing not just like what you're doing is very controversial. You know, you could be working on some specialization. For example, you could be working on some kind of genome therapy for breast cancer.

Brian Johnson (21:11)

Yeah.

Duncan Trussell (21:11)

No one's gonna be arm wrestling. But to universally try to solve the problem of death, people get suspiciously upset.

Brian Johnson (21:22)

They do.

Duncan Trussell (21:22)

That is really interesting to me and I think it's illuminating. At the very least, what your work is doing is illuminating a cultural phenomena which is a surrender to oblivion or whatever lies beyond. We kind of have to. You know what I mean? Like, it's like that's. And you have kids, that's one of. And maybe your kids, you don't have to. You don't have the same conversation with them about death that most parents might have with their kids. But there is this melancholy sense when they start waking up enough to realize there's mortality.

Brian Johnson (21:57)

That's right.

Duncan Trussell (21:58)

You do feel a little bit like you scammed them.

Brian Johnson (22:02)

Yeah.

Duncan Trussell (22:02)

You know what I mean? Like, yeah, I did bring you, you know, this is, to quote Jack Kerouac, to have a child is the sentence of being to death. And you know what I mean? So you're sort of like, oh, I don't want you to die and I don't want to die, but if things go best, you're going to bury my ass.

Brian Johnson (22:21)

Yeah.

Duncan Trussell (22:22)

You know, and that's a real. I don't like that.

Brian Johnson (22:24)

Yeah. First they'll wipe your ass, then they'll bury your ass.

Duncan Trussell (22:40)

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Brian Johnson (24:22)

It's like aging is all awful.

Duncan Trussell (24:24)

But I hadn't considered the ass wiping part, the burying. I can handle the ass wiping.

Brian Johnson (24:29)

They gotta change your diaper, wipe your ass and then put you in the ground. Like aging sucks. It's the worst, right? It is the worst thing to watch your parents, who you think are invincible and they just like, right? And one day you're like, they're broken, right? Wrinkled up and like the body hurts. And they spend more time at doctor's offices like it sucks.

Duncan Trussell (24:50)

And they babble. Don't forget that. You know the movies, by the way, kind of fit into a bizarre. And I don't really believe this, but almost like a kind of propaganda which wants to make people comfortable with death. Because you see someone die in the movies. Yeah, it ain't nothing like people die in real life. They look great.

Brian Johnson (25:09)

That's right.

Duncan Trussell (25:10)

And they're out. Goodbye, I love you. And they're out. But you see a real person die, they're delirious, they're saying things, crazy things, you don't know. Sometimes they come out of it, there's your parent, then they're gone again. It's like watching someone get like buffeted by waves, you know, in and out, in and out. And then they go. It is not a pleasant thing to behold in the sense you get watching it, at least in the beginning phases of it is not like this is great, a beautiful part of life. It's a sense of like, my God, I'm going to die, my heart is breaking.

Brian Johnson (25:48)

And we're normalized to it and we just see it. And I understand death has always been inevitable. So what else are you going to do? But right now it's almost like if we were to be sober enough to see this moment, we would initiate a war scale mobilization, right? We would drop everything. Instead of us pursuing unabashedly all of our games of wealth, status, power, prestige, et cetera, we would lock in and say we're giving birth to a godlike intelligence. This is a new era of being human. We have no idea what it means to exist anymore. We just want to lock in and not do stupid shit.

Duncan Trussell (26:19)

Well, but this is the problem. What do you do with the abundant life when you look at death? I mean, we already know hunters have to cull the herd. If you don't have people hunting deer, the forests will be destroyed. Pigs, the same thing. Humans though I know humans have been very kind to the planet. You look at humans and you're like, my God, we're gardeners essentially. Gardeners for this beautiful planet. You know what I'm saying?

Brian Johnson (26:48)

I do.

Duncan Trussell (26:49)

So what about that? How do you deal with the issue of overpopulation? Should you come up with some medication, some set of things that people could do to extend their lifespan?

Brian Johnson (27:02)

So first I would try to calculate the probability that our imagination of the problems are accurate.

Duncan Trussell (27:07)

Right?

Brian Johnson (27:08)

So there's like a few assumptions there in there. Like one, right, it assumes overpopulation and a bunch of follow on assumptions and it assumes like we don't have enough resources, we don't have enough space, et cetera. So if I just go back through time and in my reading of history and looking back at people, humanity has a pretty bad record of predicting what problems are going to become will come in future generations.

Duncan Trussell (27:28)

Right?

Brian Johnson (27:29)

And most of the time these predictions are made like, you know, they're usually wrong. So humanity has a really bad track record of knowing what problems are coming.

Duncan Trussell (27:38)

Right?

Brian Johnson (27:38)

And so I don't think we're any different. I think we imagine what problems we pattern match on certain things we know, but I don't think we're correct.

Duncan Trussell (27:45)

Well, the classic example that I've read is I believe they thought that if a train could go a certain speed, it would kill people. Yeah, we're not equipped to go that fast.

Brian Johnson (27:53)

And Malthusas, I think in 1799 he thought that we would never be able to produce enough food for the world, right? With like whatever number, like a billion people or I forget, like something like that.

Duncan Trussell (28:03)

Right. Wildly wrong also, I guess, who cares? I mean really, it's like, okay, great, so I guess what, we just don't try to live longer because you're afraid there's going to be too many people on earth, you monster. Yeah, I mean, I guess we don't.

Brian Johnson (28:15)

Explore this shit exactly.

Duncan Trussell (28:16)

We just let people die of old age. You fucking piece of shit. What, because you're worried 100 years from now you might have to stand in line longer at Starbucks.

Brian Johnson (28:23)

Yeah, yeah. Who's going to volunteer to start killing themselves, right? Like we need to whack people off.

Duncan Trussell (28:26)

I would imagine more than a few people. I would imagine that that would be an interesting thing, that a thing of.

Brian Johnson (28:32)

Valor or honor or something.

Duncan Trussell (28:34)

Well, or just a general, like I'm over it.

Brian Johnson (28:37)

Yeah, it's like all good yeah, I've done my thing.

Duncan Trussell (28:38)

Yeah. And I'm curious about that because, you know, when you look at yourself 20 years ago versus now, I'm sure you've changed quite a bit. Your personality has changed quite a bit. I'm sure you look at yourself when you were in college compared to where you are now, your personality's changed quite a bit. So we do know that personality does change, sometimes quite dramatically in people's lives. And so let's say it works. You extend your lifespan, you double your lifespan, and how do you think you're gonna change in a hundred years? If you had to predict changes in your personality, what would they be?

Brian Johnson (29:21)

I mean, let's baseline this thought process. Let's do a thought experiment. So let's imagine we're hanging out Homo erectus a million years ago.

Duncan Trussell (29:27)

Okay.

Brian Johnson (29:28)

So they have an ax in their hand, not very advanced, and let's pose the question to them. We say Homo erectus, tell us what is the future of intelligent existence?

Duncan Trussell (29:38)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (29:38)

And they might say something like, we're going to, you know, forage these areas, we're going to hunt over here, we're going to like do this battle here. But they'll give you their selection set and then. But the thing is, Homo erectus is not going to be aware. They're going to say, you're going to discover a microscopic world where there are atoms and molecules and you have, there's an electromagnetic spectra, right. A trillion times what you can see. You're going to discover one day, you know, a little pill you put in your hand and swallow it and infection goes away.

Duncan Trussell (30:04)

Yes.

Brian Johnson (30:04)

Or you're going to have a glowing object in your hand.

Duncan Trussell (30:07)

And so that makes you sad.

Brian Johnson (30:09)

That makes you sad. Exactly.

Duncan Trussell (30:10)

Sad machine.

Brian Johnson (30:11)

Honest. That's so good. That is such a good statement. So like the Homo erectus, if Homo erectus were wise, it would say, I don't know, like my models of reality do not cover, like what model of reality will emerge over some duration that you're asking about.

Duncan Trussell (30:30)

Right.

Brian Johnson (30:30)

And so for us humans, the question of like, what I imagine for myself presumes I have some knowledge or insight into what reality could be in 50 to 100 years.

Duncan Trussell (30:40)

Right.

Brian Johnson (30:40)

And I think we have zero, zero starting assumptions and I'll tell you why. Like, for example, like, like our, like our experience of hunger is a pretty important staple of our being as a human. Right?

Duncan Trussell (30:53)

Like, yes.

Brian Johnson (30:54)

Like we feel hunger, we eat, we satiate it, we go through cycle. If you take Ozempic, it turns off hunger.

Duncan Trussell (31:02)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (31:02)

You don't feel it anymore.

Duncan Trussell (31:03)

Right.

Brian Johnson (31:03)

Like that fundamental part of being human is gone, and that's with our drugs today. Why couldn't we imagine developing drugs where you literally change your entire understanding of what it means to be human, like a conscious being. So when we have the ability to engineer, to change, do genetic engineering and introduce new drugs and, and, and, and, and I think all bets are off. I don't think we have any idea of what it means to be an intelligent being and even 20 years from now.

Duncan Trussell (31:30)

Right.

Brian Johnson (31:30)

I think it's like, great answer. We're just there.

Duncan Trussell (31:32)

Great answer. Because so much of who we are is influenced by the set that we are walking around on. So who knows? And I agree with you there. I'm curious your thoughts on this. One of the things that is really fascinating to me about AI and all of its promises is that somehow it doesn't really seem to have registered in the way that you would imagine it should have registered. For example, I don't know. Altman predicted AGI, I think in a year or two, other people are saying, sooner, maybe a little further, but not that far along. If we got a signal a mothership is coming of superintelligence is coming to the Earth, everyone would be fixated on getting ready for this.

Brian Johnson (32:22)

Exactly.

Duncan Trussell (32:22)

And yet we do know that this is happening. We're interacting with early phase versions of it, and still people don't really seem to be giving it as much cognitive energy as you would think it would demand. Why? Why? What is that? Is it resistance? Are people afraid? What's going on there?

Brian Johnson (32:43)

Yes. There's this poster of 188 chronicled human biases. It's a fantastic poster. So it's like all the little tricks our brains make. So, for example, if I say, what's your opinion about? You know, take a given topic, like governmental spending, okay. And you'll say, well, I'm wide open to think whatever I want. Right, Right. I'm gonna go to the Internet and search, like, the first thing you find that confirms your existing beliefs. Like, God damn it. I knew it. I knew I was right. Right. That's confirmation bias.

Duncan Trussell (33:15)

Yeah, sure.

Brian Johnson (33:16)

That's one of 188. And so they're tricks that our mind plays on us to make sense of a chaotic world, to create a cohesive reality.

Duncan Trussell (33:24)

Yes.

Brian Johnson (33:25)

But we're just an absolute mess in our minds, and we just can't see it. We're blind from it. So in questions like this, I really come back to, like, we really are a mess as an intelligent being. Like we can assemble things together, like just walk on two feet, drive to work, do tasks. But in this broader landscape, I just think when it comes to like, okay, we're giving birth to the superintelligence. We can't really see how fast it's moving. We don't quite know what to do with it. So there are biases are playing in to like keep us safe. Like sometimes we want to just disassociate with things. It's too much to think about. Or like we, we rely upon our models to say what, what has been will be. Just like everything we've talked about today, like people's perspectives, they're like knee jerk reaction. Okay, let me say this in short. I've been doing these dinners at my house, these don't die dinners, And I invite 10 to 15 people and we, I walk them through five thought experiments. It's a two hour long conversation. It's amazing. People walk away and they say it was like the best experience of their life. It just breaks their brains. And in going through this process with 99% accuracy, I know what someone's gonna say.

Duncan Trussell (34:31)

Cool.

Brian Johnson (34:32)

I know the emotions they're gonna feel, I know the arguments they're going to make, I know the rebuttals are gonna have, I know who's gonna talk and when and how. And so it's just like we're all NPCs, we're all playing out scripts, all of us, Right. And like, if we can be a non NPC, 1% of our life, we're winning. But the majority of our thoughts, emotions, feelings, ideas, they're just like scripted out.

Duncan Trussell (34:52)

Yes.

Brian Johnson (34:53)

We don't realize it.

Duncan Trussell (34:54)

Real simple code.

Brian Johnson (34:55)

We're very simple creatures.

Duncan Trussell (34:56)

You know about Gurdjieff?

Brian Johnson (34:57)

No.

Duncan Trussell (34:58)

You love him. Yeah. He was a mystic and controversial figure. Some people called him a cult leader. But one of his ideas was, you're not born with a soul, you're a machine. You grow a soul. And so that was cool. His whole premise was just what you were saying. I think in fact he was less optimistic. I think he was like 100% of what you do is a habit. There's no autonomy, no free will. You're just a machine. The exercise he invites people to do is the next time you're paying for something, just watch. Watch what you do. You don't think about it at all. It's like a dance.

Brian Johnson (35:40)

Exactly.

Duncan Trussell (35:41)

You could just do a dance. It's so scripted out, including maybe the days you're feeling extra altruistic and really look the cashier in the eye instead of completely dehumanizing them, it's still a series of set reactions. And his question was, now what else? Or I guess to put it simply, where were you when you lost your keys, for example? Who was there?

Brian Johnson (36:07)

That's right.

Duncan Trussell (36:08)

So you're saying we are the scripted npc. And I agree with you. I guess, you know, I was going to say that, but. But. So you think part of what you're doing involves unscripting, being less habitual, being less of a machine or.

Brian Johnson (36:33)

Yeah, I think it's too much to ask. I don't think we can do that. Whoa.

Duncan Trussell (36:36)

You're saying there's no way out?

Brian Johnson (36:38)

No. So here's what I'm saying.

Duncan Trussell (36:39)

Oh my God.

Brian Johnson (36:40)

I like it.

Duncan Trussell (36:40)

It's dark.

Brian Johnson (36:41)

Yeah, yeah. I'm saying this, that our, our patterns are strong and they're fixed.

Duncan Trussell (36:48)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (36:49)

And if you say what AI is doing is, AI is basically mastering the patterns of society.

Duncan Trussell (36:56)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (36:56)

Right. So it started with autocomplete, like you could write an email and it finish your sentence, like easy words, like, you know, finish those words. And now you can speak to these AI tools. They're as like ChatGPT.

Duncan Trussell (37:07)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (37:08)

They're as good as my smartest friends.

Duncan Trussell (37:11)

Absolutely right.

Brian Johnson (37:12)

I mean, when I want to have a deep conversation or explore new ideas, like, they're good. Like you. I. It's like a pretty small number of my friends, like, really find novel insights. The majority, though, they don't have the breadth and depth of like, the reason, like how these AIs pull in. And so AI is basically mastering all of our patterns.

Duncan Trussell (37:30)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (37:30)

And so it's going to be better. Excuse me. Very soon, if it's not already. It's going to be better at being you than you are.

Duncan Trussell (37:39)

Sure.

Brian Johnson (37:39)

In every way.

Duncan Trussell (37:41)

I know.

Brian Johnson (37:42)

Every possible way. And so. And like we're almost there, if not there already. And so what I'm saying is that this moment is not about trying to be better than AI. It's not trying to like, figure out how we're going to be special relative to AI.

Duncan Trussell (37:52)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (37:52)

It's a moment to say, like, we have given birth to something so far superior to us, what do we do? And I'm saying in that vacuum, that open space, what do you do? People are going to jump in and say, well, I'm interested in conquering a country, or I'm interested in acquiring more power. I want to get elected to office, or I want to make more money, or we take games that Homo sapiens have been Playing and you drop in and I'm saying, you guys, none of those games are good ideas. When you're giving birth to super intelligence, you don't want to play old school games. You want to play the new game, which is don't die. That's the only, only logical game an intelligent species would play. But that's not. Our intuitions. Our intuitions are like, oh, I'm gonna use it to make money. I'm gonna use it to like, blink blank, blank. And so that's why it's like a full stop reset of the species.

Duncan Trussell (38:35)

Yeah, it's like if a squirrel stumbled upon a genie bottle.

Brian Johnson (38:42)

But for squirrels here, this is good.

Duncan Trussell (38:46)

It's gonna ask for acorns 100% of the time. It could ask for anything it wanted. It could ask for anything. But it's as squirrel. Squirrel's nervous. And maybe it'll ask for, like, you know, trees that were easier to climb. Right. And. And so this is sort of.

Brian Johnson (39:02)

That's really good.

Duncan Trussell (39:03)

Ah, thank you.

Brian Johnson (39:04)

Yeah.

Duncan Trussell (39:04)

So this is the limitations. And I think about this too. When I'm sort of what people watching and watching myself, I do think about, like, my God, it's like there are neurological blinders on me right now. In the shape of my brain, there are only a certain set number of things that I'm aware of and proclivities I have that are injected in me by the culture and probably genetics. And yet I know there's a vast swath of experience out there that other people are having with different types of neurologies, and I can't seem to quite break out to access those. So. So you're saying we need to override somehow these proclivities that are. If I had to guess, man, I mean, when you have kids, you know what, like, suddenly your dad, it's your baby, but it's an expression your dad used to make, and you have to face the reality of like, oh, Jesus, God, how much of what I do is just some response to genetic compulsion. And this produces a real uneasy sense in us.

Brian Johnson (40:14)

Exactly right.

Duncan Trussell (40:14)

I don't want to be a robot.

Brian Johnson (40:16)

Yeah. But like, we are.

Duncan Trussell (40:17)

You think you're a robot?

Brian Johnson (40:19)

Yeah, I mean, I've probably had, like. I mean, I don't know, I maybe have never had an original idea in my entire life. Like, you know, I mean, don't die is probably the most original thing, like, of like, the most aware. You know, like, I could, like, pull myself. Like, it's so counterculture and counterintuitive and counter norm. Yeah. But outside of that, I probably have just been playing a script my entire existence.

Duncan Trussell (40:45)

Here's how I'm going to push back on that. I don't doubt that most of what I think and most of what I say and especially interacting with AI has given me this sense, but also just a general feeling like anything that I say there's someone much smarter on this planet who's thought it, who.

Brian Johnson (41:03)

Yes, exactly.

Duncan Trussell (41:03)

And set it in a more succinct way.

Brian Johnson (41:06)

Exactly.

Duncan Trussell (41:07)

But I don't think that irrelevantizes originality. And here's my pushback pianos. Every piano, the key of C. Yeah, it's gonna sound a little different. It's gonna sound different because of the structure of the piano. It's gonna sound different because of whether it's been tuned lately. But that C, whatever that is, I think with each human, even though we might articulate the same basic stuff, there is an originality to it that is unique, that it doesn't make you quite a machine. And maybe that is the difference with AI, it's some kind of platonic ideal, it's the perfect key of intelligence. But that doesn't irrelevantize humanity. I think there's something maybe a little unquantifiable and maybe, you know, most of us, what is unique about us is our out of tuneness is the way we're not quite in tune with the world. That's what makes comedy.

Brian Johnson (42:07)

Yeah.

Duncan Trussell (42:08)

I mean, you know what I mean, that's what makes so much great art.

Brian Johnson (42:11)

Yeah.

Duncan Trussell (42:12)

I'm not saying I'm opposed to accepting so much of what I do is pre programmed bullshit, but I think it might be unique. Pre programmed bullshit.

Brian Johnson (42:26)

I think you make a great point. I agree with that.

Duncan Trussell (42:29)

Yeah. So we are still. There's something there that is going.

Brian Johnson (42:33)

Yeah, I agree with you entirely. I only try to. I try to make the point in the extreme because I agree with your perspective and that is the dominant perspective. That's what most people believe.

Duncan Trussell (42:46)

We're all special snowflakes.

Brian Johnson (42:47)

Yeah, exactly.

Duncan Trussell (42:49)

Exactly. We all deserve love and to be cuddled by our momm and boobs.

Brian Johnson (42:56)

There was a study, I think it got debunked that men who looked at boobs had some kind of health effect. And I think the study was debunked.

Duncan Trussell (43:08)

Too bad. What asshole debunked that study?

Brian Johnson (43:14)

I need to look into this. But wouldn't that be an amazing study?

Duncan Trussell (43:16)

God, this is the science that needs to be done right now.

Brian Johnson (43:20)

A major gap is missing.

Duncan Trussell (43:22)

Well, you listen. I don't think. Listen, I like what I like, weirdly, what you're saying actually aligns in a lot of ways with the sort of Buddhism I'm interested in. And also in the articulation of that Buddhism. You offend people. People don't want to hear this shit. People don't want to imagine emptiness, which is in Buddhism.

Brian Johnson (43:42)

Exactly.

Duncan Trussell (43:42)

They don't want to go there.

Brian Johnson (43:43)

Exactly. The number zero.

Duncan Trussell (43:45)

The number zero is really off putting to people because also because of our culture, we don't view empty as good. We think, I want my bank account to be full. I don't want my enlightened bank account.

Brian Johnson (43:54)

Yes.

Duncan Trussell (43:55)

Yeah. So I get it, the pushback. People don't realize that there's a liberation in what you're conveying here. But you gotta get past that pushback if you want to make real change. And that brings me to your work, which is you have a. And I'm going to obviously miss some things, but how many supplements do you take a day?

Brian Johnson (44:14)

Down to 40.

Duncan Trussell (44:16)

Congratulations.

Brian Johnson (44:16)

Thank you.

Duncan Trussell (44:17)

How many doctors?

Brian Johnson (44:18)

A lot.

Duncan Trussell (44:19)

A lot of doctors. And you are getting plasma, I believe. What is it called, if you don't mind my asking? And I think this is public info per month. How much does it cost?

Brian Johnson (44:29)

Each session is $10,000.

Duncan Trussell (44:32)

So what do you think you're spending each month in the pursuit of immortality?

Brian Johnson (44:36)

Not very much money. So it cost me millions to stand this thing up. The majority of that expense was the scientists doing the research. We crawled through all the scientific literature and said, what evidence is there? You can slow down speed of aging and reverse aging damage. But that was really. That was a crawl. That's like, where are we at baseline? And then measuring me is very expensive. So I'm the most measured person in human history and that's just really hard to do. So the protocol is actually very cheap.

Duncan Trussell (45:03)

Okay.

Brian Johnson (45:03)

Going to sleep on time and, you know, exercising, like those are. What we found out is that you can in fact measure biological age.

Duncan Trussell (45:14)

Right.

Brian Johnson (45:14)

Now, scientists will dispute this, but like, we know this intuitively. Right. If you look at someone who's 10 years old and someone who's 70, no one's confusing those two people.

Duncan Trussell (45:23)

No.

Brian Johnson (45:23)

And so the same is true if you take a 10 year old heart and a 70 year old heart.

Duncan Trussell (45:28)

Sure.

Brian Johnson (45:28)

Hold them in the hands like no one's confusing those two hearts.

Duncan Trussell (45:30)

Right. They both taste the same.

Brian Johnson (45:36)

Yeah. Just a little saute on the 70. Right. Just like, just spice it up.

Duncan Trussell (45:41)

Slow boil. I recommend a slow boil.

Brian Johnson (45:44)

Yeah. The.

Duncan Trussell (45:44)

They're tough.

Brian Johnson (45:45)

Yeah. Tough. Yeah. Getting soften up that meat so much.

Duncan Trussell (45:47)

Heartbreak in that game.

Brian Johnson (45:49)

Yes. Yeah. So like, like there's. You can in fact measure biological age? And so the question. So I have certain markers, like, for example, my cardiovascular ability, like my, my ability for my body to utilize oxygen. You can measure that? It's called VO2 Max. And so my body operates like a top 1% of 18 year olds. So functionally, it operates on the same degree as that age group.

Duncan Trussell (46:16)

I'm sorry, I should know this. How old are you?

Brian Johnson (46:18)

47.

Duncan Trussell (46:19)

Yeah. You don't look like it at all. Like, if I could, like, because, you know, everyone's seen pictures of him by now. But this is what I'm getting from you. It's kind of like your skin looks really good. You've got this kind of like, I don't know, really super healthy looking skin and a kind of like glow thing happening. And you look like you feel good.

Brian Johnson (46:39)

I do.

Duncan Trussell (46:39)

You look like you feel really good. What do you feel like? What does it feel like to be on this regimen?

Brian Johnson (46:44)

Yeah.

Duncan Trussell (47:00)

This episode of the DTFH is brought to you by by BetterHelp. If you've watched too many action movies, then you might have gotten the idea that the way to take care of yourself is to hole up in some dark parking garage and use a fish hook to sew up your wounds. Like Rambo, maybe. That's great. If you're Rambo in some ravine and they're gunning at you with a helicopter and an assault rifle, and they're, they're, they're, they're, they're chasing you through the forest and you got to set traps that spike them. That's a fictional character. Everybody needs support. And I don't know how we have become completely unaware of that reality. I don't know what that is, but God knows there is something in our culture that makes it feel weird to ask for help. It's crazy. You'll ask for help if you're, like shopping for groceries. Do you know where the lube is? You'll ask for help in a lot of different public transactional places. But when you feel like Satan themselves shoved a pitchfork into your heart chakra and you have an invisible oozing wound through which all your joy is dribbling out into the dark desert of time that you're wandering through alone, you feel weird telling somebody you feel weird. And that's why you might need a therapist. A therapist can offer you just the support you need. But guess what? Even better than your most trusted stoner friend. And I'm not saying stoner friends haven't given me great life advice. You're going to be talking to an actual professional, someone who not only went to many, many years of college to learn how to do this, but works with people every day. And this has always been one of the things I like about therapy is you realize that what you thought was a sign of your spiral into some inescapable madness is actually just part of the human experience. So BetterHelp is fully online, making therapy affordable and convenient, serving over 5 million people worldwide. Access a diverse network of more than 30,000 credentialed therapists with a wide range of specialties. Easily switch therapists anytime at no extra cost. Build your support system with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com Duncan to get 10% off your first month. That's better. Help. H E L p.com Duncan back to the podcast.

Brian Johnson (49:59)

It feels like an expansion of my consciousness.

Duncan Trussell (50:03)

Oh, weird. Really?

Brian Johnson (50:04)

I feel more. I think there's a bigger space for me to think. I'm less bothered by my negativity and my people. It just, like. It kind of gives you, like, superpowers of consciousness.

Duncan Trussell (50:18)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (50:19)

And we all know this intuitively. Like, if you sleep really well and you wake up, you're like, oh, my God, I'm born again.

Duncan Trussell (50:26)

Yeah. Right.

Brian Johnson (50:27)

And then if you do that for a few days in a row, and then you also eat well for a bit, and then also you exercise.

Duncan Trussell (50:31)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (50:32)

Like, you're feeling like you can do anything. So I'm just like, the absolute extreme version of that, where I've done everything and I potentially have the best biomarkers of anybody in the world. Wow. And so in doing this, you just feel amazing. And so this is the thing that I tell people is, like, you don't have to, like, buy what I say. Just go to bed on time.

Duncan Trussell (50:51)

Right.

Brian Johnson (50:52)

And, like, just stop doing stupid shit. And you're gonna feel it like, you know this is true.

Duncan Trussell (50:55)

Yeah. Right. Yeah. You're not. That's cool because. Yeah. And that's actually really good pushback to some of the critiques of people who misunderstand what you're doing because they think you're, like, meddling around with your DNA or something like that. And they heard about the transfusions you were doing, which really upset a lot of people, me included.

Brian Johnson (51:12)

Really. Tell me, what was that? What happened?

Duncan Trussell (51:13)

I'll tell you why.

Brian Johnson (51:14)

Yeah. Okay.

Duncan Trussell (51:15)

I'm very interested in what? In transhumanism. Very interested in your work. But then I heard you were putting your son's blood in yeah. And you know what we all thought, of course.

Brian Johnson (51:25)

What?

Duncan Trussell (51:26)

Vampire.

Brian Johnson (51:27)

Okay. And vampire. Okay. But why are vampires bad?

Duncan Trussell (51:33)

That's what a vampire would say. Well, no, because when. So here's the thing. And what you were doing, by the way, you didn't invent it. This is. I'd already caught some of the data that people were realizing, like, youngblood might have some kind of curative, restorative effect. And then, of course, the first thing I think is Lady Bathory, you know, she's bathing in the blood of her murdered servants. Jesus Christ, did she catch onto something before any of us did?

Brian Johnson (52:03)

Yeah.

Duncan Trussell (52:03)

And so when I heard that, I thought, oh, no, it's. You know what? I actually, I actually. This is very funny. I hope he doesn't mind I say this.

Brian Johnson (52:14)

I'm definitely not going to mind.

Duncan Trussell (52:15)

I was in it. Well, not. I'm going to quote somebody else. I was in a green room with Bill Burr and I just read.

Brian Johnson (52:22)

Tell me Bill Burr made a joke about me.

Duncan Trussell (52:24)

Not about you. He made a joke. Not directly. Kind of I said, I was talking about. Yeah, it seems like, you know, young blood might, you know, reverse the aging process. And he goes, bad time to be a kid.

Brian Johnson (52:36)

That's good. He got that one. That's good.

Duncan Trussell (52:39)

But you stopped doing that. You stopped.

Brian Johnson (52:43)

Why? So 1. I would have loved to have been dunked by Bill Burr. That would have been pretty cool. Yeah, he's funny. So the reason I. Do you know why I did this?

Duncan Trussell (52:52)

Why?

Brian Johnson (52:53)

My father. Yeah, my 70. Yeah, my 71 year old father, he called me and he was panicking and he said, brian, I just had this experience where I was writing something on my notebook. I walked away, got something to eat, and I came back and I realized that what I'd just written was gibberish.

Duncan Trussell (53:11)

Oh, shh. That's literally every time I write.

Brian Johnson (53:13)

Yeah. He's like, I'm losing my mind. Right. And so can you. Like, he's so. He's panicking. He's like he's beside himself. And at that point, I was like a year into my project and I said, dad, I will do anything to help you. I understand what that must feel like. I said, because that same day, my team and I had a call around plasma. We looked at the evidence on how a old rat and a young rat had been sewn together, and they shared a circulatory system and the old rat became younger. And so the idea was that you could take plasma out of the older mouse. Older person to put new plasma in.

Duncan Trussell (53:50)

Right.

Brian Johnson (53:51)

So I Said, dad, if you're down for it, I'm happy to do this procedure with you where we would take a liter of your plasma out and put a liter of my plasma in you. So it was coming from this state of love, my dad, who was losing his mind. And so then my son was listening and he's like, I'm in.

Duncan Trussell (54:06)

Oh, that's so cool.

Brian Johnson (54:07)

So we're like, should we do a tri generational plasma exchange? Like, what the hell? Why not? So that was the origin. It was for my dad to address his cognitive decline. And then of course, like, the media made it to be this vampire thing. Of course, that's fine. That's fine. But yeah, it was like, bastards.

Duncan Trussell (54:21)

They get me every time. Of course, they don't mention he's trying to save his fucking dad.

Brian Johnson (54:26)

Yeah. My dad has turned around. No, I'm telling you, his co workers are just like, what is going on? Like, he's in the dock, but he's just like. He's a different person. He went full blueprint.

Duncan Trussell (54:39)

Wow.

Brian Johnson (54:40)

I got him on my diet and on my protocols, so it's been amazing. He's turned his life around.

Duncan Trussell (54:44)

See, that's beautiful right there. That's the humanity in it. And when you realize, why not try God? My mom died of breast cancer. I would have done anything. Anything and anything. Anything.

Brian Johnson (55:01)

Exactly.

Duncan Trussell (55:01)

And that's the reality. And I do think that the answer to the critique of what you're doing, though I don't think it's that much, and you've addressed it really well, is most of this is love based. Most of this is not like some kind of dark, transhumanist, cyborg, vampire dystopian future. It's literally, life is great.

Brian Johnson (55:26)

Yeah, exactly.

Duncan Trussell (55:26)

And I like being alive. God. I was talking to my kid, you know, when they go to bed, they kind of get mystical. And we were talking about dreams, and he was asking, like, how do I know I'm not in a dream right now? And he goes, I hope it's not a dream.

Brian Johnson (55:43)

How cute.

Duncan Trussell (55:44)

And it's like, you know, this is. I think, what, like, if you strip away just the alien nature of experimenting on oneself and maybe trying therapies no one's heard of, what you find is you like life enough that you want to keep living. And how can you have a problem with that in anything that pushes people in another direction? Is it good?

Brian Johnson (56:13)

That's right.

Duncan Trussell (56:14)

You have to really ask yourself that. If I'm adhering to any philosophy that places death above life or somehow makes death Seem like preferable to existence. It might be. You're not getting enough sleep. Truly. I mean that's the other thing that's off putting when I hear what you're saying and then I think, my God, how much of my shitty decisions are just based on diet and sleep.

Brian Johnson (56:41)

Exactly.

Duncan Trussell (56:42)

And then how much of what the world is like.

Brian Johnson (56:44)

Exactly.

Duncan Trussell (56:44)

It's just based on some very simple things.

Brian Johnson (56:47)

Exactly.

Duncan Trussell (56:48)

That must torture you a little bit.

Brian Johnson (56:50)

So. It's so funny. I love how you're capturing this. You know, I guess you're really speaking clearly to this whole thing. It is very, very hard for people to see this.

Duncan Trussell (57:01)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (57:01)

Like these really basic concepts like wouldn't the world be a better place if everybody was getting eight hours of sleep per night? Yeah. And wouldn't it we be a better place if people exercise on a daily basis?

Duncan Trussell (57:11)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (57:12)

Like just like walk down the line. We would probably be a different species.

Duncan Trussell (57:16)

Oh, absolutely.

Brian Johnson (57:17)

Like, I think we're, I think we're currently manic. I think we are legit. Like humanity's always been insane. Yeah, I think.

Duncan Trussell (57:25)

I know.

Brian Johnson (57:26)

I think we are legit, like diagnosably manic with social like the omnipresence of social media and the sleep deprivation and the toxins in our foods and like our terrible metabolic health. And like I do, I think we've just like lost the plot and we can't see it.

Duncan Trussell (57:45)

Right. I don't think it's a terrible diagnosis. And you know, why wouldn't we be? I mean, my God, why wouldn't we be? When you look at what is, you know, I'm diabetic because I live like an asshole. Yes. Oh no. But you know, I'm on Ozempic and it's working. Blood sugar down. Miracle.

Brian Johnson (58:05)

What's your level's at?

Duncan Trussell (58:06)

God, I don't remember my most recent A1C. It dropped significantly.

Brian Johnson (58:10)

Good for you.

Duncan Trussell (58:11)

Thank you.

Brian Johnson (58:11)

That's great.

Duncan Trussell (58:12)

Yeah. And also I got off sugar and I remember two days, it was a two day headache. I had a headache for two days and then I felt so good. And all these things that I attributed to getting old, having to sleep after I ate. A general like weird like tired feeling all the time. Waking up to piss all night long.

Brian Johnson (58:31)

That's right.

Duncan Trussell (58:32)

It all went away. And that got me real creeped out. You know that not Soylent Green is people level creeped out, but like my God, it's in everything. Because then you can't eat sugar anymore. So you start becoming hyper aware of how much sugar is in stuff.

Brian Johnson (58:47)

Yes. Yes.

Duncan Trussell (58:48)

And you realize, Jesus, this, this is killing people.

Brian Johnson (58:51)

Yeah.

Duncan Trussell (58:52)

And no, people are looking up and like there's chemtrails.

Brian Johnson (58:55)

Yeah.

Duncan Trussell (58:55)

It's like, dude, the chemtrails is in the candy bars, it's in the bread, you know, and you must feel like that times a million because, you know, I don't get enough sleep and I still have bad habits and, and, but I feel way better than I used to.

Brian Johnson (59:09)

Yeah.

Duncan Trussell (59:10)

But you must just look out at the world and.

Brian Johnson (59:12)

Jesus Christ, you are so correct. We basically, so very simply is, what I'm trying to do is I'm saying if I live in California, the life expectancy In California is 77 for a man. I think.

Duncan Trussell (59:24)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (59:25)

And so you just simply do a simple calculation. How much do I die per day? Right. Or until I pass away at 77. And then we've just done this really interesting experiment. We've said if that's my life expectancy, as is what things would make me die faster. So like alcohol, smoking. Right. Bad sleep. And which things would slow that down so I live longer.

Duncan Trussell (59:47)

Right.

Brian Johnson (59:47)

And we've tried to look at this at a molecular level. Like what things in my body?

Duncan Trussell (59:51)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (59:52)

So like, what does bad water do to make me age? What does bad air quality do? What does toxins in the food? What does blank, blank, blank. So we've tried to quantify.

Duncan Trussell (60:01)

Wow.

Brian Johnson (60:02)

The source of death and the effect of death. And so like, for example, smoking one cigarette costs roughly 20 minutes of life. That's what you're paying in bargain worth it. I know. That's the default.

Duncan Trussell (60:18)

I'm joking.

Brian Johnson (60:19)

No, that's what people say and they believe it. Sorry. So now we have a concept that we can measure death.

Duncan Trussell (60:24)

Oh my God.

Brian Johnson (60:24)

So now let's say. Okay, so we don't allow kids to smoke because that's a bad idea. But we feed them dye at school lunch.

Duncan Trussell (60:34)

Right.

Brian Johnson (60:34)

So piece of pizza.

Duncan Trussell (60:36)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (60:37)

Right. The chocolate milk in that plastic lined container and then the vegetables that have been canned and that have BPA in it.

Duncan Trussell (60:44)

Right.

Brian Johnson (60:45)

So if we quantify that, how much death are we delivering to kids at school lunch?

Duncan Trussell (60:50)

No idea.

Brian Johnson (60:51)

Yeah, let's just call it like four minutes. Five minutes.

Duncan Trussell (60:53)

Five minutes.

Brian Johnson (60:54)

It's not free. And so we're feeding our kids die. And so what I'm trying to say is it's not just about you getting sleep and exercising. It's that when you realize that our society has these dye elements everywhere, Right. Then that's problematic for everyone. Nobody wants kids to die. So, like, people will they'll say, I'm gonna.

Duncan Trussell (61:15)

You're like.

Brian Johnson (61:15)

Your response, it's worth it because people are like, fickle with their own existence. I'll die, like, whatever, I don't care. I'll Exchange the last 10 years of my life for happiness now. But nobody wants kids to die. And so if you reframe it and you put right, that just creates real clarity of thought that we've got di. Omnipresent our society. Like, we just have forgotten about it.

Duncan Trussell (61:32)

Oh, my God. This is a thought I've had so many times as a parent because we, you know, thank God my wife is like, hyper aware of what you're talking about. And we try to do everything we can to keep that stuff out of their food supply and. But then sort of like, you know the protocols we have for our kids, we keep them off the screens. We noticed if they're on screens a lot, their behavior gets weird. We keep them off the dyes. We notice the dyes. Who knows? But it did. There seemed to be some behavioral shift there. God knows we get them enough sleep. And I've often thought, why aren't we doing this for ourselves? Like, if it's good for the kids.

Brian Johnson (62:12)

Exactly.

Duncan Trussell (62:13)

You read the studies, it says this just came out. If a child has red dyes, very bad. If a child is on the screen too much, very bad. It's always the child. It's like, well, what. What's the difference between a kid and a person? An adult.

Brian Johnson (62:25)

Yeah.

Duncan Trussell (62:25)

There isn't one meaning. But you're right. No one gives a shit about the old. Really? No one gives a shit. So bizarre, isn't it?

Brian Johnson (62:33)

It's so bizarre. And people. So your point is dead on. And so adults, they have to do these gymnastics in their own heads.

Duncan Trussell (62:41)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (62:41)

And they have to, like, justify why it doesn't. Why it's good to do for kids but bad to do for themselves.

Duncan Trussell (62:49)

Why do you think?

Brian Johnson (62:50)

I mean, they. Humans. So, like, you would think back to your earlier comment that like, a campaign to say let's not die would be like, great. Yeah, that's a cool idea. And instead people are like, off.

Duncan Trussell (63:02)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (63:03)

Right. And so what is it like, why do we have such an opposition to life capitalism? Like, so there's like this long. So you. The common responses I hear are people be like, you're so busy trying to not die, you're not living.

Duncan Trussell (63:17)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (63:18)

And if you dig into that, what they're saying is their choice of staying up late and drinking, that's their idea of fun, which I understand. Again, when death is inevitable. Yolo. Lol. I get it. Fine, do your thing. And what I'm saying is the game has shifted. It's no longer yolo. Lol. It's like, we may not die. And if that's true, you have to go back and revisit everything you thought. They just don't understand my underlying premise. And so they think, I guess also it's complicated because people, if they see me being healthy and they see they're not, they have to also reconcile that they feel powerless, you know, that they do want to be healthy and they do want to be jacked. They want to look great, but they can't. For whatever reason, they can't control the eating habit disorder. They, like, they can't get at the gym or they're suffering 30 pounds overweight. And I understand. I've been there. So it's just very complicated.

Duncan Trussell (64:12)

Psychological also. I mean, you are. I mean, I don't mean this in the way like, I don't mean this in a sinister way, but if we look just at you're a global elite, you, my God, you've had so much success in business. You have a lot of financial freedom. And I think one reason people are like, fuck off about the death thing is more along the lines of they're working two jobs and they're exhausted, stressed out, and just cortisol, coffee, Adderall, junkies. They're just trying to get by, man. And so death really does seem like a great. You know, it's like what Dawkins says. Death is the anesthesia that saves us from the pain of life. They believe that, and they might not be wrong. You know this. I think if we're looking culturally at what's going on here, when was the last. I mean, you've been starting businesses since you were in college, most of them successful. Cell phones. Holy shit. But if you look, you know. Have you ever worked in a cubicle?

Brian Johnson (65:15)

Yeah.

Duncan Trussell (65:16)

Remember that?

Brian Johnson (65:17)

Yeah.

Duncan Trussell (65:17)

The dreariness of it.

Brian Johnson (65:19)

So I grew up poor. My mom made me clothes for school. I was dead poor for 34 years of my life.

Duncan Trussell (65:28)

Remember your mom's look on her face when she came home from work? Remember the exhaustion? I don't know if she was. Yeah, it's. It's dystopian.

Brian Johnson (65:36)

Yeah.

Duncan Trussell (65:37)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (65:37)

So the pitch I'm making to everybody is it's. I come from poor.

Duncan Trussell (65:41)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (65:42)

I was. I've been poor the majority of my life.

Duncan Trussell (65:44)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (65:45)

And so I'm. I'm not saying be rich. What I'm saying Is that what society is telling you to do right now? Whatever your circumstances, whether you're rich or you're poor, they're killing you and making life suck. So when the cultural norm says, right, like eating fast food is living life. Yeah, right, like, oh, come on, Brian, chill the fuck out. Let me eat my burger, fries and bk.

Duncan Trussell (66:12)

Yeah, have it your way. You rule.

Brian Johnson (66:15)

So I'm saying, like, that's like, don't be dumb. Don't eat fast food.

Duncan Trussell (66:20)

Right?

Brian Johnson (66:21)

Right. So I'm trying to say, like, I'm trying to bring some.

Duncan Trussell (66:22)

I gotcha, right?

Brian Johnson (66:23)

And instead of staying up and binging your favorite show because they're so goddamn good.

Duncan Trussell (66:27)

So good.

Brian Johnson (66:28)

Don't watch the show, go to bed on time, right? Then I'm saying tomorrow morning, right? Even if you can just spare 10 minutes, walk, right? Stretch, like, do anything. So I'm trying to like be the, the counter influence in their lives to say, got it. Society is fucking evil and everyone's trying to kill you by making money.

Duncan Trussell (66:48)

Fuck.

Brian Johnson (66:49)

Don't do that. Woo. Yeah, yeah, right.

Duncan Trussell (66:52)

I'm on board, baby. I love it. And you know what else? It's like, look, okay, fine, yeah, more than likely, statistically, you do find yourself in a set of conditions that are untenable. But this episode of the DTFH is brought to you by Quint. As I've probably mentioned millions of times, I have three beautiful children and I gotta feed them organic food that ain't cheap. I don't have the dough that I'd like to have. I don't have millions of dollars to fly out to Paris and try on capes anymore. I gotta get these kids organic fruit. That's why I love quints. They have high level, high quality, beautiful clothes for women and men. My wife loves quints. But I must say, quints has got a lot of incredible stuff for us, the men in the world. And also what they don't have, which a lot of other places do, is idiot clothes. Idiot clothes. Stupid clothes where they smash their stupid logo all over the damn clothes. You know what I'm talking about? I don't want to walk around not your billboard. You want me to pay to be your billboard? No, I want a nice simple, dark colored thing that's soft. That's all I want. I don't want to, I don't want to get branded with your brand. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Let me wear soft pants that don't have some ridiculous brand name smashed on the ass. You think I want to go to the gym with your brand on my 50 year old ass. Is that even good for your brand? Yeah, sure, maybe if I had a nice young, tight ass to parade around. Just give me something soft that's easy to put on, that feels good, it's high quality and actually looks cool. And that's the Flowknit performance pants from quints. It's only $39.90 and they're awesome and they're soft and they feel good and you can blend in with the world. I don't need sequins on my workout clothes. Not Richard Simmons. I really do love quints. I hope you'll try them out. They're really, really great clothes. Indulge in affordable luxury. Go to quints.com Duncan for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N C E. To get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quint.com Duncan, you deserve luxury clothes and your kids deserve organic food. These two things can happen with Quint. What can you change right now?

Brian Johnson (70:09)

Yeah.

Duncan Trussell (70:10)

And everything you just listed is completely doable.

Brian Johnson (70:14)

Yes.

Duncan Trussell (70:15)

Those. If that's the beginning phase of it now, those changes based on what we just talked about could lead to a shift in consciousness.

Brian Johnson (70:23)

Yes.

Duncan Trussell (70:24)

A clarity. And in that clear space, that's where you could start planning your escape from the manacles of late stage capitalism.

Brian Johnson (70:33)

There you go.

Duncan Trussell (70:33)

Right?

Brian Johnson (70:33)

You got it.

Duncan Trussell (70:34)

How are you gonna do it when you're toxified and sick and. God. You know, obviously. And this is a. I think you might be a little more conspiratorial than I am. But listen, you know, if you weren't benevolent. If you and I weren't benevolent anymore. We're evil.

Brian Johnson (70:50)

Yeah.

Duncan Trussell (70:51)

We gotta keep these motherfuckers working. And if they have a clear head, they're gonna value their lives.

Brian Johnson (70:59)

That's right.

Duncan Trussell (71:00)

More than a shitty job that we're not paying them enough for. So let's get them sick. What do we do? Let's put some dot. Let's make really sweet things that have like bright colors. They'll just eat it. They won't even know what's going on. And then they'll get tired and sick. And then. Yeah, let's just put some like, great games out there.

Brian Johnson (71:19)

Really? I mean, like, isn't it, like, isn't it just insane that fast food exists?

Duncan Trussell (71:27)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (71:29)

I understand that people want to make money. I understand that people have free choice. And I realize it's normalized right now, but I would imagine that in 20, 30, 2035, 2040. We are going to look at this moment and be like, what the fuck? That is so insane that businesses sold death, right? And that people ate death. And it was like, yeah, man, this is living life. Like, you know, like what? Like, how did a conscious being arrive at that observation?

Duncan Trussell (71:59)

I don't think anybody's like, yeah, man, this is the living life. I mean, I, you know, I love people watching.

Brian Johnson (72:04)

They do. I get so much. I. I asked people to do fast, to go on a fast food fast in February. Like, don't eat fast food. I mean, I got the shit kicked out of me.

Duncan Trussell (72:14)

Are you kidding me?

Brian Johnson (72:14)

No, no. Like, Brian, chill the Fuck out, man. 1 mil is not gonna hurt me. Like, oh yeah, I get, I get. I took so much shit, dude.

Duncan Trussell (72:21)

The thing about it is this. The, you know, I hate commercials, but I watch them, I'm interested in them, especially fast food commercials. I'm interested in it because of just what you're saying. It's like, here we have verifiable poison and underpaid workers, so. And yet the commercials convey this, almost an alternate reality. These people eating this garbage, they really do look like they're having the best day of their fucking life. But go to any fast food joint and look around. Does anyone seem that happy from employees? You don't see anybody at a Burger King, like, hell yeah, baby.

Brian Johnson (73:02)

Woo.

Duncan Trussell (73:03)

Let's go watch the game. You just see people that seem kind of like in a rush and not happy and God, Jesus. There's a whole phenomenon, it's a whole Genre of YouTube Videos of people having nervous breakdowns in fast food joints because they got the wrong order. I don't know if you've seen this. People throwing cash registers because they didn't get the right kind of poison they wanted. So, and this is across the board, when I go to the airports and look around at people, no one seems that happy. People seem miserable, people seem real dreary, people seem scared, and people seem like they're in a hurry across the board. So fast food does make sense contextually, because the world that we're living in is one where you need to eat quick, you don't have time to cook, you need to get to work, you can't be late. And because you're working so much, you don't have very much time to explore your own life. A weekend, three hours at the end of the day, when you're fucking exhausted, you don't want to spend any of that time cooking. So you go to bk. So I think it does make sense because everyone is on a treadmill and the speed, even though technology would imply otherwise, isn't going down, it's going up and up and up and up and up and up. That's why there's. Fast food has nothing to do with enjoying life. It has to do with being in a hurry. How do you get out of that? Man, it's hard.

Brian Johnson (74:22)

It's hard. I'm not trying to minimize in any way the difficulty. What I'm trying to do as a first step.

Duncan Trussell (74:30)

Yes.

Brian Johnson (74:30)

Is to. Is to clearly call out the insanity of it. So, like, just so the person can just honestly acknowledge.

Duncan Trussell (74:38)

Right.

Brian Johnson (74:38)

This is a bad situation.

Duncan Trussell (74:40)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (74:40)

Now, like, once you do that and like, okay, now we've got to make some practical steps. Like how, if, if you're, if that's the case where you're exhausted, how is there a possibility you could have food at your place in some practical way? That's not fast food. Right. It doesn't, it doesn't have to be like perf vegetables. Like, it could be like just something just a little bit better.

Duncan Trussell (74:58)

Right.

Brian Johnson (74:59)

But I'm just trying to call and. But if you kind of peel the layers back, it's like this. It's.

Duncan Trussell (75:04)

You.

Brian Johnson (75:04)

You can. As a society, we have said capitalism is the, the primary game we're playing.

Duncan Trussell (75:14)

Yes.

Brian Johnson (75:15)

Right. It's accumulation of wealth and power and status. And then there's other games within that, like social media, like you can acquire followers as a form of soft power, social power, etc. So those are the end points. Now, I understand that again, that's been the primary means of the system we've had in society.

Duncan Trussell (75:36)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (75:36)

And so what. I'll give you another layer of Don't Die, which will help hopefully make sense. What I'm suggesting is capitalism is useful because it's numerical. Everything has a value. So anything has a value. Everyone plays capitalism.

Duncan Trussell (75:52)

Yeah, sure.

Brian Johnson (75:53)

Right. Don't Die also has a same numerical basis. It's based upon entropy. And so everything has a value.

Duncan Trussell (76:03)

Right.

Brian Johnson (76:04)

So everybody is playing die or Don't Die every second of every day. So it's a universal game. And the way Don't Die is elegant as an ideology. It's actually the most elegant ideology in history because Don't Die can speak to the universe via physics, because it's based upon entropy. It can speak to AI in the form of math, because AI is math.

Duncan Trussell (76:26)

Right.

Brian Johnson (76:27)

It can speak to software in the term of computation. It can speak to humans via biology, all living systems through biology and to humans via storytelling. So Don't Die is basically a computational, mathematical, methodical way to rebuild society around a new numerical game. So what you just laid out is you said like two jobs, no time, blah, blah, blah. That's all in the game of numerical capitalism.

Duncan Trussell (76:57)

Right.

Brian Johnson (76:57)

And what I'm saying is we want a new numerical game based upon Don't Die, where the goal is to try to minimize entropy or death.

Duncan Trussell (77:07)

You need a bitcoin that we can mine by not dying.

Brian Johnson (77:10)

I agree. Like, we need all, we need like hundreds or even thousands of endeavors that are trying to simultaneously go after die in all its forms.

Duncan Trussell (77:19)

And you got to start with the, like, you got to, you got to invade the current paradigm with this new paradigm. You got to get in there. But it can't just be like, though I'm in, man, like, this is inspiring to chat with you, but I feel like there has to be some way that. And I know it sounds absolutely idiotic, but to mine some new crypto, I agree via these decisions. So there's a profit motive.

Brian Johnson (77:43)

Yes. Okay, so here's the first one we're doing. So it's going to be called Don't Die Certified. So here's the rough sketch. Is eating toxins is bad.

Duncan Trussell (77:52)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (77:52)

And we eat a lot of toxins because our food supply is very dirty.

Duncan Trussell (77:55)

Right.

Brian Johnson (77:56)

But nobody knows where the toxins are because nobody measures. So I've been measuring everything because I. We've been trying not to die, but I. So I've seen this data myself. We're gonna try to go out and try to map the US food ohm. We're gonna try to. To measure 20% of the US SKUs of the. The products that make up 80% of the US diet.

Duncan Trussell (78:16)

Wow.

Brian Johnson (78:17)

So we can then say the average American consumes, you know, blank MCGs of mercury per day.

Duncan Trussell (78:22)

Holy shit.

Brian Johnson (78:23)

And so we, and the way we turn the profit on this is we say, okay, let's say you have a favorite chocolate bar.

Duncan Trussell (78:28)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (78:29)

Okay. And you say, I want to know, are there heavy metals in this chocolate bar? And the company doesn't tell you. Right. On the market, it's like super delicious, amazing chocolate. You're saving animals in the Amazon. Okay, whatever. So you just say that testing. Let's say it costs $1,000 to get that test back.

Duncan Trussell (78:44)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (78:44)

So you say, I want to put in a hundred dollars to test. So you put in your hundred and you call your friends, you're like, hey guys, everyone put in 100. Everyone puts in 100. And you get $1,000. So tests. Test results come back. You now find out what levels are. Now we go to the brand and we say, hey, brand, you really. If you want to come claim your profile on Don't Die Certified, come pay the money and pay back those people who paid for your test.

Duncan Trussell (79:05)

Whoa, that's so smart.

Brian Johnson (79:07)

So now you make 100 plus, let's say $10. You make $110 back.

Duncan Trussell (79:12)

Wow.

Brian Johnson (79:13)

You've just made money to genius to test a food source.

Duncan Trussell (79:17)

That's so genius.

Brian Johnson (79:18)

Then, like, then we can map everything in the US Every smart India. And so now you make money by helping others. Right. Understand toxins and food levels. The company now, like, openly is, like, working on it. So that's the first Don't Die endeavor that helps people make money and improve health and wellness for everybody.

Duncan Trussell (79:37)

That is so cool. You thought of that?

Brian Johnson (79:40)

Yeah.

Duncan Trussell (79:41)

Wow. That's. When are you going to do that? That's amazing.

Brian Johnson (79:44)

So we have our. We have our first results back right now. So we did a bunch of foods, and we also did pet food. We did dog food. We did diapers. We did tampons.

Duncan Trussell (79:55)

What? Diapers.

Brian Johnson (79:56)

So I don't know the brand. So on this one, it came back, we need to have an absolute measure for this. But the relative measure, it came back incredibly high in glycephate, which is a really bad chemical.

Duncan Trussell (80:09)

Jesus Christ.

Brian Johnson (80:10)

It's a really bad chemical. It's from the cotton. And so then we also in dog food, came back very high in heavy metals. So we're going to basically just do this across all food categories. Baby food, dog food, you know, dog food, cat food. Tampons. Tampons came back.

Duncan Trussell (80:25)

Why'd you point to me when you said tampons? You see that? Yeah, I mean, I do happen to have a tampon in right now.

Brian Johnson (80:35)

Yeah. Yeah. It's high in heavy metals. Yeah, you don't want that.

Duncan Trussell (80:42)

How much time do we have?

Brian Johnson (80:43)

Five more minutes.

Duncan Trussell (80:44)

Oh, holy shit. I am so happy to meet you. And I am so happy that you are so cool. You know, I was a little nervous. You don't want potentially one of the first immortal beings on the planet to be an asshole. And you are the opposite.

Brian Johnson (80:59)

Oh, thanks.

Duncan Trussell (80:59)

I really love your work.

Brian Johnson (81:01)

Thank you.

Duncan Trussell (81:01)

And you have a very persuasive argument. And I must tell you, my wife, she stays tuned into all this stuff, but she has to go to really obscure places to get the data about lead and food.

Brian Johnson (81:16)

Exactly.

Duncan Trussell (81:16)

And it's shocking when it comes out. And so I feel like what you're doing is a very beautiful thing. And I can't wait for this. Especially the don't die. What is the name of it again? Don't die. What's the thing you're doing?

Brian Johnson (81:33)

Certified Don't.

Duncan Trussell (81:34)

That the thing that's going to get you assassinated?

Brian Johnson (81:36)

Yeah. So we'll do so.

Duncan Trussell (81:38)

Aren't you worried about that?

Brian Johnson (81:39)

I mean, okay, let's be honest.

Duncan Trussell (81:41)

I'm sorry I said it out loud.

Brian Johnson (81:42)

It's true, though, right? There's no question I'm going to die.

Duncan Trussell (81:45)

Right.

Brian Johnson (81:45)

It's going to be some kind of super ironic thing. But, like, how can that not be the case? Like, I don't want that to happen, but, like, are we being real? Irony is like the ultimate currency of the universe.

Duncan Trussell (81:58)

No? Well, don't worry. We'll digitally clone you, but I think you're going to make it long enough. Okay, last question. I know we only have five minutes. Here's the last question. You did list some very pragmatic, simple things that people can do to feel better.

Brian Johnson (82:09)

Yeah.

Duncan Trussell (82:10)

Do you have any. Any more things like that? What do you got?

Brian Johnson (82:13)

I do. So I'm going to tell you how to change your life.

Duncan Trussell (82:17)

Okay.

Brian Johnson (82:18)

And it's going to be all free.

Duncan Trussell (82:19)

Thank you.

Brian Johnson (82:20)

Okay.

C (82:21)

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. It's stock up savings time now through March 25th. Spring in for storewide deals and earn four times the points. Look for in store tags to earn on eligible cleaning items from Charmin, Tide and Downey, and dinner essentials from Stouffer's, DiGiorno, Arby's and Violife, plus many more. Then clip the offer in our app for automatic event long savings. Stack up those rewards to save even more restrictions apply. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details.

Brian Johnson (82:50)

So sleep needs to be your number one life priority. Okay, now that is counterintuitive because right now you probably sleep when you have time or sleep when you're done watching a movie or sleep when you're done with the event. Event. Or sleep when you're done doing work.

Duncan Trussell (83:03)

Yep.

Brian Johnson (83:04)

So you need to choose your bedtime. I go to bed at 8:30pm okay, like, you choose your. What time's your bedtime?

Duncan Trussell (83:09)

You know, horrifically late. But I was so exhausted, I went to bed at 7 and I woke up at 8. I got 12 hours of sleep. And I feel like a God today.

Brian Johnson (83:20)

Yeah, exactly.

Duncan Trussell (83:20)

So. But yeah, no, it's chaotic, random, unhealthy.

Brian Johnson (83:24)

Okay, let's say it's. Let's just Say midnight. Because you're doing your shows. Yeah, you're doing your shows. So let's just say by the time you get to the show and you get home. Eleven. Midnight.

Duncan Trussell (83:32)

Midnight.

Brian Johnson (83:32)

Okay, let's call it midnight. So let's just say midnight is your bedtime.

Duncan Trussell (83:36)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (83:36)

So that means every night you want to have your final meal of the day at least by 10:00pm okay. Okay. Now if you want to really try to experiment to try to find improvements, try 9, then 8, then 7. You'll find the earlier you eat and the lighter you eat, the better your sleep's going to be. Now, the way you measure this is. And here's the marker you want to measure. So you want to look at your resting heart rate. So do you have a wearable?

Duncan Trussell (84:04)

I don't. No, I used to. I don't. Wearable.

Brian Johnson (84:05)

Okay, that's fine. All right, so tonight before you go to bed, just check your pulse. Put your finger by your neck here and just take your pulse. Okay, so you want to have a baseline resting heart rate. So let's just say tonight before you go to bed, let's say your heart rate is 60 beats per minute.

Duncan Trussell (84:21)

Okay.

Brian Johnson (84:21)

Okay. Your goal over the next week is to get your heart to be 50, 50 beats per minute.

Duncan Trussell (84:26)

Is this before I lay down? That should just. Are you saying, like, as I'm going to bed?

Brian Johnson (84:31)

Check right before you go to bed.

Duncan Trussell (84:32)

Okay. So I'm still active. I've brushed my teeth.

Brian Johnson (84:35)

Yeah, brush your teeth and you lay down. You're like, okay, and I'm ready to go. Turn the light off. Measure your heart rate.

Duncan Trussell (84:40)

Okay.

Brian Johnson (84:41)

And like, take a few breaths, you know, like kind of calm yourself down just for a few minutes.

Duncan Trussell (84:44)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (84:45)

And that's your baseline. Okay, so now your get. Your goal is to lower your heart rate by doing the following things. So one is the last meal of the day substantially affects your heart rate. So if you have a very. You have a big meal like pizza and pasta or whatever at 10pm yeah. At 12pm your body's still digesting all the food. It's doing all this work. That means your heart rate is going to be high because your heart's pumping to help all the digestion.

Duncan Trussell (85:13)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (85:13)

So if you eat, let's just say you eat like a 6pm as your final meal. Let's say you eat something light, like some veggies, like fruits, berries, nuts. By the time midnight comes, your body's almost done with primary digestion, which means your body now has a lot of metabolic capacity to say, okay, now I can sleep. Okay, so one is that eat earlier, eat lighter. And you're gonna find as you get better at doing this, you're gonna find that some foods will raise your heart rate and some foods will lower your heart rate. Okay, so like breads, carbs, pastas, those are the ones that really jacket.

Duncan Trussell (85:45)

What about cocaine?

Brian Johnson (85:47)

Yeah. Yeah. Asking for a friend. Yeah.

Duncan Trussell (85:50)

So I shouldn't. You're saying I shouldn't do cocaine right before I go to bed.

Brian Johnson (85:53)

So if you do do an experiment.

Duncan Trussell (85:55)

Okay.

Brian Johnson (85:56)

So do the cocaine and measure your resting heart rate and you're probably going to see like 90, 100.

Duncan Trussell (86:03)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (86:03)

And that's going to demolish your sleep.

Duncan Trussell (86:06)

Okay. I don't do cocaine. But. And I don't want to cut you off. I just need to know, are there any supplements you recommend for people who have a hard time falling?

Brian Johnson (86:13)

Yeah. So let me finish these habits.

Duncan Trussell (86:14)

Thank you.

Brian Johnson (86:14)

Okay, so sleep is your number one priority. So now like in your mind you are a professional sleeper. That is your number one life goal.

Duncan Trussell (86:20)

Love it.

Brian Johnson (86:21)

So you say, now I know what to do. I'm going to lower my resting heart rate. I'm going to measure it and you start moving your food back earlier and lighter. Now you're also going to eliminate screens in that last part of the night. So between 10 and 12, no screens.

Duncan Trussell (86:33)

Okay.

Brian Johnson (86:34)

Like, okay, between 11 and 12, like roughly an hour. And you want to change your screen color to red on your phone and also want to eliminate blues. It's like no blue lights. You also want to be consistent. So if you go to bed at 12, be to bed at 12 every night.

Duncan Trussell (86:50)

Got it.

Brian Johnson (86:50)

And the reason you do that is because if you go to bed at 2am you don't make it up on the other side. You miss your deep sleep window. And that's like when the garbage truck comes through to clean your body full of junk, you miss it.

Duncan Trussell (87:02)

Got it.

Brian Johnson (87:03)

So be on time because if you're not, the garbage truck misses its run. Wow. Be on time.

Duncan Trussell (87:09)

Okay.

Brian Johnson (87:09)

And then you want also to have a wind down routine. So when you get home from your show, right? And you're thinking through like good, good joke, bad joke, like this person did well, like, right? You're looping through all your thoughts. You need to have some kind of process where you talk to yourself, where it's like, okay, I hear my concerns, I hear about my new ideas. Like maybe you journal and write down, but you need to like kind of reconcile your thoughts because if you don't, your head hits a pillow and you're still all aroused from the day your heart rate is up. You're thinking about everything. You can't go to sleep because now you're spinning and you get anxious because you're spinning. So wake up the next morning and then you wake up in the middle of the night and you're still spinning. So you have to calm down your thoughts and you have to have some kind of reconciliation process. And then remember on stimulants, if you have caffeine at 6pm, that caffeine has a six hour half life, which means that a 6pm coffee is gonna leave half a cup of coffee in your body by midnight.

Duncan Trussell (88:04)

Jesus Christ.

Brian Johnson (88:05)

So don't do that. So if you're gonna have caffeine, push it earlier in the day. And so if your bedtime's midnight, you know, like early afternoon is probably your last window. And even then it's like kind of pushing it.

Duncan Trussell (88:16)

Yep.

Brian Johnson (88:16)

So if you do those five things, what you're gonna find is your heart rate is going down, your sleep quality goes up. Now when you sleep well, you wake up and you feel amazing. And when you feel amazing, you wanna exercise. And then when you exercise, you feel like you wan eat well. And then you eat well. You want to repeat that cycle.

Duncan Trussell (88:34)

Yeah.

Brian Johnson (88:34)

So don't start with food because food is way too much. It's way too complicated. Like, if you like, try to stop your bad habits. So if you have a bad night's sleep, your willpower the next day is going to plummet. So if you're facing down like, do I drink or do I have this kind of food? Do I do this kind of bad behavior? Your likelihood of making a bad decision is so much higher on a bad night's sleep. So sleep gives you the superpower of willpower.

Duncan Trussell (88:57)

Got it.

Brian Johnson (88:58)

So sleep, exercise, and then exercise. But master those habits. Make them non negotiables in your life. Like never deviate from them. And that will keep you in a sane state. And then once you accomplish those, then you can start tackling one by one other stuff. Like say you've got this fast food thing. Try to knit that in the bud instead of two times a week, one time a week, and then no times a week. So just slowly chip away at the problem.

Duncan Trussell (89:24)

You are amazing. Thank you so much. My, this is a wonderful podcast and I'm very excited about your documentary on Netflix. Dang it. Don't die. The man who wants to live forever.

Brian Johnson (89:38)

And you know, you were great. You really picked up the concepts really fast.

Duncan Trussell (89:43)

Thank you.

Brian Johnson (89:43)

Yeah, you moved through the ideas, like, really swiftly. You captured the synopsis in it.

Duncan Trussell (89:48)

Thank you.

Brian Johnson (89:48)

And I find that these ideas are really hard to talk about because they get blocked by so many of our thoughts.

Duncan Trussell (89:54)

Sure.

Brian Johnson (89:54)

But yes, I just, I really had a great time with you.

Duncan Trussell (89:56)

Oh, likewise.

Brian Johnson (89:57)

Yeah, it was really fun.

Duncan Trussell (89:58)

Oh, man. I'm on board the Don't Die train. I'm not gonna die. I'm excited. Thank you very much. That was Brian Johnson, everybody. All the links you need to find him will be@duncan trestle.com I want to thank him again for coming on the show and for the delicious bottle of olive oil that he gave me and my family. Come see me out there on the road. I'm going to be at the Denver Comedy Works after that, the Orange Peel in Asheville, North Carolina. And won't you please, like, subscribe. Become a member. Join the Patreon. I'll see you soon. Bye.

C (90:35)

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. It's stock up savings time now through March 25th. Spring in for storewide deals and earn four times the points. Look for in store tags to earn on eligible cleaning items from Charmin, Tide and Downey and dinner essentials from Stouffer's, Digiorno, Arby's and Violife, plus many more. Then clip the offer in our app for automatic event long savings. Stack up those rewards to save even more restrictions apply. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details.