Celebrity biohacker Bryan Johnson recently sent a provocative email to his followers. “I am the healthiest person on the planet,” he claims. True or not, he probably has your attention. I don’t have concerns with the sensationalism, at least not in itself. Hopefully Bryan is every bit as healthy as he claims. His data is impressive, to say the least. And I admire his courage and tenacity. But I do have some concerns with the ideology that Bryan promotes throughout the remainder of his email. He calls it “Don’t Die.” It could be a good start – better than so many alternatives vying for our hearts and minds. But, at least so far as he has yet articulated, the ideology has practical limitations that must and will ultimately impede its potential for primacy, as I’ll explain. Bryan first introduced the “Don’t Die” ideology in a 2023 book by the same name. The book repeatedly, both explicitly and implicitly, touched on Bryan’s relationship with Mormonism. So, at the time, I wrote about that relationship in particular. Now, while enjoying the provocation of Bryan’s recent email, I feel to write some more general thoughts. Before I get to my concerns, however, I want to establish some personal context. I like Bryan. And I think his work is nothing short of momentous on a sociocultural level. So if you’re looking for a reason to hate him, make fun of him, or dismiss him, go away. Don’t Die Is Not the Universal Game After elaborating on his health claim, Bryan characterizes “Don’t Die” as the “oldest and most played game in human history.” He says religion, business, military, politics, and even procreation are forms of this game. “It’s the universal game,” he says. There’s an extent of truth to this. In the most general sense, survival is a necessary condition for the achievement of any goal. That which doesn’t exist doesn’t have any goals, let alone any capacity to achieve any goals. Thus, some extent of survival must be at least an instrumental goal. But survival in the most general sense doesn’t necessarily entail evasion of death. That may sound nonsensical at first. But hear me out. You’ll undoubtedly end up agreeing. In practically impactful ways, you can survive your death. And innumerable people already have. They’ve done this by teaching their children, loving their friends, creating artwork and machinery, and organizing communities that outlast their bodies. In each of these and countless other ways, people have been continuing to achieve their goals even after they die bodily. To my mind, this means that part of us can survive death. In the least, it’s our influence and creation. It’s our esthetic. We might call it our “spirit.” Now of course I’m not content with this kind of merely spiritual survival. After all, I’m a proponent of (nearly) universal resurrection, understood in the most literal sense as embodied resurrection, and pursued in the most practical sense as technological resurrection. But despite my discontent, I could not rightly claim that nothing survives bodily death. That’s simply a false idea, even if we were to concede to those who are skeptical of more elaborate notions of a spiritual afterlife. So, returning to Bryan’s characterization of “Don’t Die” as the universal game, we can see a problem. As it’s true to some extent when “Don’t Die” is understood broadly, it’s likewise false to some extent when “Don’t Die” is understood narrowly. And this problem has practical ramifications. Countless people, as recorded in history and envisioned in myth, have intentionally died in the narrow sense to facilitate achievement of their goals. A parent may sacrifice her life to save her child. A soldier may sacrifice his life to defend his country. Of particular note, the most influential ideology on Earth, Christianity, epitomizes the perpetuation and even magnification of goal achievement after bodily death. These observations reveal that narrowly construed “Don’t Die” is not the universal game, even if it’s a prevalent game. At least some of us have been playing a different game since the dawn of history, recognizing that narrow death doesn’t necessarily terminate and may even facilitate pursuit of our goals. Again, the other game might be a broadly construed “Don’t Die.” But, in that case, I think we can give it a less confusing name. Some Things Are Worse Than Death Bryan observes that, in this time of accelerating technological evolution, we’re “giving birth to superintelligence. And we “no longer know how long and how well we can live,” or “how expansive and rich existence could be.” Compared to our superhuman potential, we’re like our prehuman ancestors who couldn’t begin to conceive of contemporary science, let alone understand it. And yet we’re embroiled in “debauchery, greed and violence,” killing ourselves and each other. He’s exactly right. Maybe it...
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