Snake Venom, Urine, and a Quest to Live Forever: Inside a Biohacking Conference Emboldened by MAHA

Whatever myriad of elixirs Asprey is using, it does, connected a superficial level astatine least, look to beryllium working. At 52, he looks great, opinionated retired successful a convention awash pinch evident botox and integrative surgery. In his slicked-back hair, punk leather outfits, and signature glasses, it’s difficult to judge nan image he paints of his erstwhile self, resembling “the 300-pound machine hacker from Jurassic Park.” He seems to person moreover achieved a younger man’s temperament: rapping “I’m a Little Teapot” onstage; dancing shirtless and gawky earlier nan masses during Aoki’s set, surrounded by a coterie of women, 1 of whom attempted to flash him, unhooking her bra earlier being whisked offstage.

For a man desperately trying for timelessness, Asprey is surely a man of nan times—a able entrepreneur astatine nan caput of a populist activity that vehemently opposes authorities regulation. He shares his de facto activity of nan biohacking sphere pinch a fewer different rich | renegades, astir notably Bryan Johnson, nan task capitalist whose Blueprint Protocol makes Asprey’s centenarian goals look quaint. Johnson intends for immortality outright—“DON’T DIE” screams his ain movement’s slogan—and has moreover vampirically infused himself pinch his ain son’s humor successful nan quest for nan fountain of youth.

Not everyone astatine nan convention strives for Asprey-Johnsonian extremes. Then again, not everyone astatine nan convention is successful their taxation bracket. Some simply want to property pinch grace and vim, not blunted by medicine aliases hobbling done hospice. In a existent embodiment of nan conference’s “Beyond” theme, immoderate moreover person plans grander than this carnal plane. Attendee Joni Winston, who runs a wellness halfway successful Costa Rica, tells maine she is either 68 aliases 52, “depending connected which almanac you use.” At property 60, she started counting backward, truthful that erstwhile she reaches her intended 120, she tin declare nan nirvanic property of 0. “I want to make arsenic overmuch advancement successful this life arsenic I can,” Winston says, “so that erstwhile I dice I tin spell to a different magnitude and not person to woody pinch this 3D Matrix shit.” In nan meantime, though, she’d still for illustration to look good. “I’m not devoid of vanity. Spiritual improvement is my superior goal, but I’m still human, you know?” Others are simply acrophobic of nan slow, achy crawl done aged property and, of course, decease itself. Melanie Avalon, 34, big of a biohacking podcast, tells me: “I’ve been haunted by nan conception of aging since I was 12 ... And ever since past I’ve been searching for ways to stall nan aging timeline ... I don’t cognize if immortality is possible, but if location is simply a measurement to practically move toward that, it’s biohacking.”

If nan believe sounds inherently self-interested, that’s because it is. By definition, biohacking requires profound interest—often supplemented by ample investments of time, energy, and capital—in nan self. A definite Ayn Randian individualism rang done nan halls of nan Fairmont. But location was besides a highly communal, near-revolutionary aerial here: a fervor to dispersed nan bully word, to empower nan masses, to enact a expansive subversion.