The Atlantic

I Went to a Rave With the 46-Year-Old Millionaire Who Claims to Have the Body of a Teenager

Bryan Johnson wants to build a nation of immortals. Would you join?
Source: Agaton Strom / Redux

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The first few steps on the path toward living forever alongside the longevity enthusiast Bryan Johnson are straightforward: “Go to bed on time, eat healthy food, and exercise,” he told a crowd in Brooklyn on Saturday morning. “But to start, you guys are now going to do a breathing exercise.” He directed the 100-plus people gathered around him to put their hands on the shoulders of their neighbors, forming a series of concentric circles; he then counted as we inhaled and exhaled in unison.

I had arrived at a bouldering gym for the first in a series of events held that day by Johnson, a 46-year-old centimillionaire who made his fortune in Silicon Valley but is best known for waging a war on death that he claims to be winning. His ambitions are somehow greater, and more science-fictional, than those of other biohackers and life-extension fanatics—a group that includes , , and . Johnson preaches perhaps the around the technology. He believes he has figured out how algorithms, instead of ruining civilization, can lead him to the land of immortals. He wants you, after you exhale on the count of six, to follow.

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