Keith Richards as Longevity Guru

The Longevity Movement Needs Get Over Austerity and Make Peace with a Little Overindulgence

Bryan Johnson gave the world a challenge this holiday season: go sugar-free. “Have all the berries you want,” he wrote. But “no added sugar.”

I’m a big fan of Bryan Johnson. I like his Don’t Die project, I like how he ruthlessly attacks McDonald’s on Twitter, and I generally like his life advice. But I can’t fully accept his hardline position on vices like sugar and alcohol.

As I wrote in response to Bryan on Twitter:

If anyone on earth is going to live significantly longer than what’s common for the average healthy person, it’s going to be because of advances in medical science, not because you don’t eat pie on the holidays.

There are a million health gurus out there. Bryan Johnson is different because he’s part of the life-extension movement. When Bryan defaults to giving standard health guru advice, even when it’s good advice, it sells his larger movement short. Being healthy is great. Having a few extra active years at the end of your life is great. But the life-extension movement is about extending your life. Again: avoiding pie during the holidays is going to get you zero percent closer to that goal.

Nothing will. Not till a number of scientific breakthroughs result in accessible and affordable longevity treatments.

I think it’s a profound mistake for the longevity movement to be tied to standard health tips. Longevity should not be seen as a devil’s bargain between living longer and living life to the fullest. The point of scientific progress is to disentangle such bargains. For example, for much of human history, if you wanted a thriving civilization, you had to live directly next to a water source and arable land. If you wanted to live in the middle of a desert, you could, but only as a shepherd or a nomad of some kind. Technology fixed this so you can have both: a thriving civilization and a desert landscape. Hello, Phoenix and Las Vegas.

In a similar way, if you take the longevity movement seriously, you should expect to be eating pie and drinking wine at age 150. And you should be able to do so without ever feeling a sugar crash or a hangover. And perhaps even more importantly: without ever feeling guilt.

When I picture an ideal future, I don’t picture a health-obsessed populace. Quite the opposite. The future will be a time when we live more like Keith Richards and less like Bryan Johnson.

To be clear, true life-extension is still something to read about in scientific papers; it’s not a pill you can buy at a local pharmacy. So, for now, the best we have is health advice that protects our bodies from unnecessary damage and premature aging.

When will real scientific interventions be available to the public? According to physician and longevity entrepreneur Peter H. Diamandis, we have a decade till we reach longevity escape velocity (LEV). He writes, “Here’s one piece of advice: Surviving the next 10 years will be the most important thing you will do. LEV is right around the corner.”

Unless you think a few holiday desserts will kill you in the next 10 years, I say go ahead and indulge. You’re not killing yourself. You’re preparing for your future Keith Richards party lifestyle.

Someone should check in on Keith, by the way. He’s 81. Maybe he should actually skip the pie this year?