I’ll add more with time, this is a personal list. It’s also more extensive than the list of “quantified self” people b/c there are way more here. I think a certain someone who understands the essence of ALL of the people here, could become, like, become the MODEL HUMAN of transhumanism/biohacking (which no one has yet perfected) or “ideal integrator of the conscious human experience”. I do not think that someone has yet properly incorporated the best ideas out of ALL the people here, but it could come at some point not-too-far in the future if only because of GPT-4
(There is a theme to each of these people too - notice how few standard longevity researchers I include here - the people here are more likely to be super-independent/less “corporatized” and “willing to try new things” in a way many academics aren’t or don’t have the time for). I have a list of people on my own forum where I cover more traditional longevity people in more depth (and I should expand on that list later)
- Bill Falloon of life-extension forum AND RAADfest. He def knows A LOT more than most
- Johnny Adams of grg (Venice Beach, CA). Close in location to Michael Michalchik, who is also really into biohacking and the associated sphere
- Tim Ferris
- https://youtu.be/TpME8ShuDNg . He has so much more than others in a certain direction, but tragically, is not the nicest or most open-minded.
- Vince Giuliano
- Lance Hitchings
- https://twitter.com/johnhemming4mp (former MP, has his YouTube channel)
- THE rapamycin.news admin
- Bryan Johnson of kernel (and whoever he recruits in his studies)
- minicircle.io people (Mac Davis/Walter Patterson/Tristan)
- Josh Mitteldorf
- Karl Pfleger (has been in Foresight Community, knows many of the other longevity communities [has a breadth others don’t have])
- Steven Fowkes (also from the old Foresight community, has cool videos + zoom meetup groups + idiosyncratic but interesting theories on heavy metals). Is good friends with Christine Peterson who originally head Foresight. Similar for Allison Duettman who really booted up Foresight
- Alex Zhavoronkov and his orbiters
- Kamil (@Aging_Scientist)
- the Cincinatti person
- VitaDAO people, people around Morten, people around geochurch/Boyden
- https://www.libraryofmethuselah.com/
- gero.ai people
- Denis Odinokov, Doris Loh, Olafur Pall Olafsson, Dmitry Dzhagarov, Tomer Ze’ev, Redirecting...
- Robin Hanson and his “Age of Em” books (also the orbiters around his old Overcoming Bias blog)
- longevity.technology and lifespan.io people (they def notice a lot more than standard academics).
- mark hamalainen
- Matthew Scholz of Osirin (he’s unattached just like Aubrey de Grey)
- Ray Kurzweil’s physician (Terry Grossman). Also Peter Diamandis orbiters (I know many “hate on” Peter Diamandis [and the old Singularity University community], but despite his sensationalism+Panglossian lens+constant hyperbolic claims that make many cringe (and you unable to take everything he says at face value), he has still done way more [and is way more effective] than most of his critics - the same goes for Aubrey de Grey)
- Brad English
(also the biohacker sphere collective and the meetup groups that labeled with “biohacking”, along with the “biohacking houses” [note I don’t enjoy most “biohacking meetup events” - it seems that a lot of people in them lack an “openness” present in most of the other names I am presenting here])
- Michael Lustgarten
- Brian Delaney
- Chris Linnell (see his longevity newsletter too)
- Josiah Zayner - https://twitter.com/WFeanor/status/1607129045929701376
- Brian Hanley (even posted a research paper on his own self-experimentation)
- Liz Parrish (she finally published a paper). Idk about the depth of her biotech knowledge, but her self-experimentation is worth something even though I wish she did more advanced analytics on herself
- Ben Greenfield of bengreenfieldfitness
- Ryan Smith of TruDiagnostic (just look at ALL the videos) and some of the people he interviews
- Ira Pastor
- Yuri Deigin
CR people
- Michael Rae
- Dean Pomerleau
- LivingtheCRWay people (Paul McGlothin), who I last met in 2016 and ate at Andy’s with (but have not recently caught up with). They wrote a great CR book
- Saul
Biohackers
- biohacking village
- cassox
- Kingsley Morse (another biohacker with a website w/unconventional design)
- Ogi, some people who are in Zuzalu and vitalia.city telegrams
Quantified Self people:
- Dan Dascalescu
- Wolf
- Jason, Madeline Price Ball (the people who originally started the personal genome project). Original PGP’ers also include Preston Estep
- Larry Smarr
- Sandy Pentland (social physics!) This is in an orthogonal category but can be integrated nicely into all the “omics”. ALSO Rosaline Picard of affective computing AND Pattie Maes (a lot of the people who came from the MIT Media Lab, though some say that the Media Lab is better at producing ideas than it is at producing long-term products that move people)
- humanbenchmark.com, testmybrain.org, ALSO those who use quantified self algos in games (Jane McGonagall’s books are worth reading, as is Daphne Bavelier research). On the profit-making side there’s Lumosity and Cambridge Brain Sciences (but come on, Ryan Smith is in TruDiagnostic and runs a profit and is WAY cooler/more open). Also the huge intelligence/IQ testing community (look at the ISIR conference) => cognitive testing is important for measuring decline with age. AND https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1555412019845983 The Unnerving Rise of Video Games that Spy on You | WIRED
- https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1555412019845983 (quantified PLAY in video games)
Ppl who care and write about, but idk their S/N ratio or originality:
- Joe Garma, JP Medved, Brent Nally [borderline worth paying attention to]
Academics who are into the “omics”
- Michael P Snyder
- USDA people who measure caloriometrics
- Jessica Lasky-Su
ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH/toxicology/consumer labs/exposome/analytical chemistry people:
look at consumerlab.com, air pollution people (eg Thomas Talhelm, etc), connoisseurs of olive oil & wine [if only people who applied that level of detail to blueberries and other vegetables/fruits too]. Microplastics/nanoplastics conferences+communities (search microplastics on youtube) - there are entire research groups on this now! [I really wonder how they all got started given that nanoplastics was not really a research area 10-15 years ago]
Ancillary people [eg athletes/bodybuilders/gym managers/sports/keto/brainwaves/analytical chemistry people (they are orthogonal to longevity but just as motivated to “measure everything”)]:
(I do not know as much of them, but they often have motivation and resources to pursue analytics that most CR people don’t do. yes, even those who inject steroids into themselves count, b/c they are more willing than anyone to “try anything”). In general, longevity people are not the highest-openness people (it is in them where the most upside risk really is [esp given trends in AI])
- Dave Asprey (Upgrade Labs: the Longevity clinic of the future? - Longevity.Technology Lifestyle | Health, Fitness & Technology ) - there are zillions of articles on him
- Marty Kendall (his stuff on nutrition is THE BEST). Also fireinabottle.net (don’t agree with everything but thoughtful enough)
- Chris masterjohn
- jInfiniti
-maybe Kara Fitzgerald (yes I know a few academics are skeptical of her study but her book points in a direction that deserves more study)
-dayan goodenowe - bodybuilders forums
- How to explain a ketogenic diet to your doctor - Ketogenic Forums
- Andrew Hill (and other people who measure brainwaves/QEEG!) Like Tomas Roy. Also look at brain-trainer/brainmaster people (brainwaves are important for measuring the complexity of brainwaves and there is a HUGE community around this that could overlap way more with longevity!)
- don’t forget psychedelics people/psychonauts (I know a lot in that community but not many are doing quantified-self-analytics yet, BUT Kathryn Devaney and Stephen Zerfas are launching something!)
- Ben Greenfield (of bengreenfieldfitness)
- Casey Means of Levels (and the Levels team)
- look at “sports physiology”/“exercise medicine” (there’s a MOOC on it)
- Mormon Transhumanist Association (esp lincoln cannon)
- Andres Gomez Emilson (He has created an entire community around him - QRI - people in it are SUPER-high-openness like nowhere else). Also, those who orbit Karl Friston/Free Energy Principle (yes they are also way more open than others, one is even in Michael Levin’s lab)
- Stephen Price (he pays attention to “cool”)
- The guy behind Turing’s Church [Giulio Prisco] (it’s a really cool book!!) and has its own discord server
- the nootropics community (esp early LongeCity, /r/nootropics and the ceretropic founder /r/MisterYouAreSoDumb [god i still remember]) and their associated discords. People on these are more “willing to try anything” too but god I somehow don’t really know anyone in them
- Alex Pustov
- After Trauma: How Heather Rewired Her Brain with Neurofeedback - Healium (Neurofeedback Therapy and Psychedelics | Heather Hargraves ) - this person integrates neurofeedback + psychedelics which automatically is a signal of a kind of high openness.
- reddit communities (/r/Transhumanism, /r/Nootropics, /r/DrugNerds, /r/longevity, /r/peptides [esp those who try cerebrolysin/SS-31/etc]). Maybe if this thread is posted there, it will get traction sometime
- Progress Studies/Jelly Slack (what used to be experiment.com)
- HackClub, hackathons like neurohack, [all of these are a “different kind of person” but some of them may eventually create a proper transhumanism hacking community], https://twitter.com/Replit, George Hotz
- the Neuralink community
- biohacking village @ defcon (https://www.villageb.io/ )
- @SlimeTimeMold
- https://twitter.com/kaimicahmills (he makes lists of so many of the relevant organizations!) and he is freer than most. in Utah. Also totally a transhumanist + attends Mormon Transhumanist Association events
- There are some in the AI Safety community (AND… the /e/acc community too) who literally believe that becoming cyborgs [or creating a real simulation of themselves] is a path that must be explored b/c it is one of the less “risky” paths for intent alignment, so it must be explored (see @repligate on Twitter, also see some of those in the SERI MATS program like John Wentworth [note I don’t know if he endorses cyborg ideas]). Also look at IFS/“shard theory” people. @nearcyan is way higher-openness than most and cares SOME for biology. @MatthewBarnett is almost in ALL the right places but idk if he’s THE person to integrate it all.
[wow, what a creation for the new year of 2023]
