Life Extension Is the Ultimate Party Drug
In 1986, the Beastie Boys dropped a satirical party song that inadvertently became one of the most iconic anthems of all time:
You’ve gotta fight for your right to party!
It’s hilarious to think of partying as a “right,” but I’m here for it. Once we’ve achieved all other basic rights, what’s left if not the right to party?
But in any case, the main point of the anthem is that partying not something that comes easily. If you want to party, you have to fight for it.
You begin life too young to party. Your parents are likely overbearing and you’re in school all the time. Then, before you know it, you’ve aged out of partying. You have too many responsibilities, your friends become boring, and three drinks makes you feel like trash the next day.
At best, we’ve got maybe five years in our mid-twenties when partying is a natural way of life. Outside that tiny window, if you want to have any unhinged fun at all, you’ve got to fight for it.
But there’s a good chance this might be about to change. For one thing, AI and robots have taken up the fight for us. If they are able to free us from the 9-to-5 grind, we will have significantly more time and fewer responsibilities. So long as we get some sort of UBI to help us afford some semblance of a rock and roll lifestyle, opportunities to party will abound.
At the same time, and even more profoundly, longevity scientists have also taken up the fight. What good is free time and money if you’re old, feel like garbage, and have a normal fear of liver disease and lung cancer? Not much!
Consider the Beastie Boys today. Adam Yauch “MCA” died in 2012. And unfortunately, as far as I know, you can’t party when you’re dead. As for the other two, Mike D is 60 and Ad-Rock is 59. I’m sure they’re still cool dudes, but you don’t hear about them anymore. They’re too old to be relevant. Even if they do still party, it’s a little awkward to think about. Pass the brass monkey? Sorry, it’s time for your nap, grandpa.
But imagine if Mike D and Ad-Rock woke up feeling (and looking!) 25 again? Undoubtedly, the world would hear about it. You’d see them headlining Coachella—and not as a gimmick, but as a relevant music act. You’d see pictures of who they were dating and wouldn’t cringe at the age gap. You’d see them with their shirts off at a club and think, rock on!
This exact scenario is still science-fiction, but maybe not for long. The FDA just greenlit a human trial to test a gene therapy for “a near-total rejuvenation reset of cells.”
There are a million societal implications for this, and not all of them are great. For example, I’ve written about how authoritarian leaders may become forever dictators. But on the plus side, we will be able to suck more life out of this ride in the meatsuit. And that means more license for partying.
To be clear, David Sinclair, the researcher behind the human longevity trial, is not in favor of abusing the human body with drugs and alcohol. In a recent X post, he proudly declared that he wouldn’t start drinking alcohol even for a million dollars.
But that’s fine. When the German scientist Jacob Schäffer invented the washing machine, he wasn’t intending to kickstart the women’s liberation movement, and yet that’s just what he did.
So, in the future, when you’re 150 years old and still partying like you’re 25, raise a glass for David Sinclair.
Alternatively, if you’re 150 years old in the future and not partying, what are you even doing hanging around for so long? Get your priorities straight!
Was it satire though? I do not miss an opportunity to shit on Rick Rubin, but I do really think this is his fault. It was not satire, by my definition, it was a "Record Producer"'s attempt at marketability of his new sign, after he hi-jacked the band, ran off the drummer, and convinced them to co-opt hip-hop instead of being a punk band. Later, they may well have said it was satire, I totally expect that to be true, but I do not believe that, if true; it could be more accurately stated as "we got rode hard and put up wet by a meathead capitalist and we are ashamed and coping now. Look, I married a Riot Grrrl! I'm not that guy! Satire!" but Im kinda just imagining things now. I'm right about Rubin though
Yeah no, the whole “satirical” bedtime story they started telling people in the 90s was post-hoc horseshit manufactured out of embarrassment. They completely bought into the frat boy party ethos at the time and the majority of the songs on Licensed to Ill reflect that. Once the 90s came around and that kind of thing fell out of fashion, they “evolved,” but pretended as though they’d always been that way.