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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   15732 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024

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Johnson is notable insofar as he spent his 20s and 30s sacrificing his health to make a bunch of money. And now he's burning that money to regain health and youth and is, through absurd amounts of effort, at least partially successful.

Judging by the pictures in Time, he looks like the biggest fitness freak in the world, which he probably is. He looks about 10 years younger and will probably be one of these old guys that have a crystal-clear memory and can put on their socks standing up until they keel over in their nineties.

Which is not a bad thing at all, but it's a very long way from immortality.

He looks exactly his age to me. His skin just looks a little funny, like he exfoliated or something.

He looks 46 to you?

Absolutely. He has very wrinkly and loose skin that makes it impossible for him to be confused for someone in his 30s. I actually didn't know his age and guessed he was 45.

I think it presents an interesting calculation though.

It makes it more palatable to sacrifice your 20's and 30's in the pursuit of wealth (rather than social life, sex, etc. etc.) and then, once you achieve amazing wealth, spend some portion of that to get yourself back to the vitality of your 20's (or close to it) and make up for your lost time, with a LOT more money than you'd usually have.

If money can buy back some time and health, it makes it much more palatable to sacrifice those earlier on.

But this doesn't scale, does it? How many people can achieve amazing wealth?

Probably a lot, if they are pursuing actual promising ideas and not spending time on crypto scam #4192.

Real question is how many people, if they weren't trying to "live life while they're young" would actually be able to switch into hardcore productivity mode for that long.

I think part of the reason Johnson is able to do such absurd things to regain youth is because he's already the type of person with the ability to commit to very hard, very uncomfortable, almost psychotically meticulous projects.

THAT'S the part that will stump most people.

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