In the current year, it certainly feels like we’re all hurtling into a Dystopian cyberpunk future. Doesn’t it?

Being chauffeured through a decaying urban center in a self-driving taxi is no longer an unsettling novelty. Your smartwatch vibrates as you doomscroll videos of soldiers fleeing drones across a forlorn battlefield, warning you that your heart rate variability is non-optimal. You take Nootropic cognitive enhancers for the edge you desperately need at work; hopefully the soulless megacorporation you work for won’t replace you with AI agents. An ad pops up for the exact thing you mentioned to your girlfriend, in bed last night, while you thought your phone was off.
It’s not just you; it’s getting weirder out there — we’re just a few holidays away from your socially awkward cousin bringing a robot girlfriend home. (Yes, I just em-dashed — UNAPOLOGETICALLY — I em-dashed before AI did and will continue to dose my hyphens with Viagra whenever I damn well please).

For decades, science fiction has issued us a warning: Don’t succumb completely to the siren song of technology. A warning we’ve collectively failed to heed. That siren song serenades us with the promise of abundance. Abundant energy, food, information, and health. Abundance that might just be… for all of us.

Like you, I don’t quite doomscroll, but often find myself mesmerized by and bemoaning the techno-absurdistan of modernity. It seems like everything, everywhere is getting worse — technology is making life for us humans too weird, too fast. But maybe the popular pessimism about progress (pervasive in nearly any media we consume and then confirmed by our anecdotal experiences) is dead wrong. As a pragmatic realist who leans optimistic when I can, I wanted a dose of optimism about the future, so I cracked open We Are As Gods, A Survival Guide for the Age of Abundance, by Peter H. Diamandis (whose face will probably appear if you do a Google: techno-optimist) and Steven Kotler, whose work on flowstate has been of keen interest to me as a Biohacker.

I got the dose of optimism I wanted from We Are As Gods, and I’ll second-hand deal it to you here. But I got more: inspiration to endure and aspire because — spoiler alert — the age of abundance is not for all, but for the avaricious.

We are as gods

Yes, really, as gods — lowercase g because the book opens with a comparison of dozens of godlike powers from our mythology to what modern technology now enables. Omniscience (all-knowing): you’ve now got that in your pocket with Google and the AI assistant on your phone. Omnipresence: as I broadcast my words, image, and voice to you wirelessly via the internet, I’m, in a sense, present there with you. The blind are made to see, and the deaf hear via neural implants. Resurrection of the dead — happens in hospitals all the time. And even immortality, an attribute long reserved for deities and demigods, is increasingly within the grasp of mere humans (take your NMN!)

Diamandis and Kotler introduce us to the abundance paradox…

Each new solution unleashes a host of new problem. Only now, it’s accelerating. In the twenty-first century, the issues of abundance aren’t arriving in four thousand years or even forty. Try forty days. That’s about how long it took for social media to impact mental health. For AI to fake voices. For large language models to flood the web with synthetic noise.

And ask us: What happens when abundance is the rule rather than the exception?

Imagine a “post-scarcity world,” where nearly anything and everything becomes available through the combined

Here’s where we have to get clear-eyed about human nature. In the post-scarcity world, too many will succumb to comfort. And comfort, I contend, is toxic. Modern society is plagued by diseases of comfort and eerily mirrors the darker days of Calhoun’s famously dystopian Mouse Utopia experiment, which is described…

By day 600, normal social behaviors were breaking down. Infant mortality approached 100 percent in some areas, as mothers either abandoned their nests or attacked their young. Violence became random, unmoored from the usual patterns of territorial defense. Cannibalism was observed. Sexual behaviors became confused and nonreproductive. On day 660, Calhoun noted: “Population growth has stopped entirely, even with abundant space in the lower areas. They’re crowding into population centers. Reproductive behavior has virtually ceased.”

So, is more technology, hastening the acceleration of these accelerationist times, the solution?

Let’s turn our attention to the focus of my new podcast, Limitless Intelligence…

AI: One Billion Times Smarter

Artificial intelligence is more than a “trend” — it’s the birthing of new intelligent species that we will have to share this world with. The authors, who I believe are highly invested in the AI space, present a balanced view of its promise and perils. They comment on the velocopedic pace of the space…

The raw computing power driving AI forward has been compounding every three months since 2022. That’s Moore’s law on steroids. In 2024, AI was a million times more powerful than it was in 2022. By 2030, the numbers experts toss about are nearly incomprehensible.

We know the blistering pace of AI development demands that we consider a future with machines a billion times more intelligent than we are — which, it’s worth noting, is the rough equivalent of the difference between a human and a hamster.

Arthur C. Clarke on AI

In 1964, less than a decade after the Dartmouth AI conference, science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke foretold this future with uncanny accuracy: “[T]he most intelligent inhabitants of [the] future world won’t be men or monkeys, they will be machines, the remote descendants of today’s computers. Now the present-day electronic brains are complete morons, but this will not be true in another generation. They will start to think, and eventually they will completely outthink their makers.”

I’ve argued that Transhumanism is a Trap and that, with AI, we are inventing new species that will violently compete with us or enslave us genetically via a slow phenotypic revolution. But might this come down to “good parenting” on our behalf?

Mo Gawdat on training AI

What Gawdat tells us, in his book Scary Smart, is that humanity’s best bet for survival is not to train our AIs. Rather, it’s to raise them. He argues that we should raise AI with the same kindness and love we raise a child. AI is not inherently dangerous, Gawdat maintains, but it learns from us. If we train AI with fear, bias, and hostility, it will replicate those qualities and — “Step away from the airlock, Dave.”

Gawdat’s point: AI’s superintelligence will emerge from its ability to process patterns beyond human comprehension, but its moral compass will be shaped by the behavior it observes in us.

This is why Gawdat’s emphasis on AI parental responsibility is so critical. Just as we teach our children to be empathetic, ethical, curious, and respectful, we need to instill these same values in AI.

On AI’s Emotional Intelligence

AI agents proactively implement your goals, gather information, and get results. Think of them as digital assistants with a very high IQ and — thanks to Kaliouby — a growing EQ. This EQ is critical. The potential of AI agents lies in their ability to integrate into our lives. In the near future, they will be personal assistants, financial advisors, health coaches, and trusted companions. Imagine an AI agent that manages your schedule, automatically rebooking missed appointments, coordinating with other AI agents to plan those meetings at optimal times — then commiserating with you about the poor state of your work-life balance. The system will analyze activities and recommend adjustments, improving productivity and suggesting wellness interventions based on your health data (i.e., “Step away from the airlock, Dave, it’s time for your afternoon nap”).

Lest you think AI is only good social media “slop” and spicy chatbot chats, one of the many case studies in the chapter: AI for organ transplant

AI monitors tissue assembly at every stage. If a single layer of cells veers from its intended structure, the system notices and recalibrates in real time. This ensures higher success rates and far less waste — both critical in high-stakes manufacturing like organ production. The AI also optimizes scaffold density and tissue uniformity, which enables faster integration into the patient’s body post-transplant, which is a complicated way of saying far shorter healing times.

there’s an organ support system that provides a tenfold improvement in the useful lifetime of an organ, whether donated or manufactured; it makes no difference. Second, Rothblatt is working with the eVTOL (flying car) company BETA on an AI-piloted, autonomous vehicle-based organ delivery service — like Zipline, only for human body parts.

Creating organs at scale will demand an AI-supervised global network of specialized manufacturers, transportation hubs, and distribution systems. This infrastructure could produce thousands of jobs in biochemistry, robotics maintenance, and data management.

Sounds good, but those are all the kinds of jobs that AI will take…

Will AI take our jobs?

That’s the really big question that we are all trying to… grok in the current year. The authors introduce us to the concept of radical speciation, the wild divergence of species that follows an extreme environmental event….

Yet what is true for genes is also true for memes. In cultural evolution, radical speciation describes the sudden proliferation of ideas, technologies, or practices — driven by memes, not genes — in response to an extreme cultural event.

BUT every burst in speciation brings with it extinction…

47 percent of US jobs could be automated by 2030, which sure sounds like a lot of extinction. The opportunity is hidden in the challenge. If robots are taking on the dull, dirty, and dangerous, what remains are the creative frontiers — the work that draws on what is most distinctly human.

Many techno-optimists flirt with the idea of Universal Basic Income as a solution to technological unemployment. But it’s the mother of all awful political ideas; socialism on steroids, mathematically impossible, dehumanizing, and dystopian. I thoroughly eviscerate it in this piece, Free Market “Universal Basic Income,” and explain why robots, trillionaires, and housewives can save us from a porn-powered Dystopia that idiots will vote for…

Free Market "Universal Basic Income"

An example of AI-driven technological unemployment

Robotaxis are projected to operate at roughly $0.40 per mile — about one-fifth the cost of a human-driven Uber. The savings come almost entirely from removing labor, the largest expense in transportation. By automating driving, AI drives down costs while maintaining service quality, making on-demand travel far more affordable and accessible.

THIS I’m not mad at. I’ve had more than enough awful experiences with taxi drivers around the world to not feel sorry for AI taking the jobs they don’t seem to really want. And any Uber driver should know that their barely-pays-the-bills ‘gig job’ has an expiration date.

However, the data doesn’t clearly support the fear-mongering narrative that AI will demolish white-collar and skilled labor jobs; consider BMW’s experiment with robots and AI…

First, they replaced all their human workers with robots and AI. Productivity crashed. Then they reintroduced humans into the chain, using robots and AI to augment their skills. Productivity shot up 85 percent. This is the middle path that experts tend to ignore in their rush to capture headlines with the latest tech threat.

There’s a popular narrative on the pro-AI side of the debate that “AI won’t take your job, someone using AI will take your job” OR that AI will create better jobs for us. I think this also is shallow thinking; it doesn’t account for just how voracious corporations are for profit and how vicious they are at cost-cutting. And it’s where the authors really put on the rose-colored blue-blockers…

historically, automation doesn’t eliminate jobs; it reshapes them and often into careers that sound like science fiction. Consider this reframe: “By 2030, robots may take your job unloading trucks, cleaning offices, or stocking shelves, but then you’ll be free to pursue your childhood dream of becoming an ‘artificial womb engineer.’ ”
In fact, fast-forward to 2030, and let’s scroll through a job board: De-Extinction Specialist, Species Restoration Specialist, Mammoth Reintroduction Publicist, Artificial Womb Engineer, Genetic Rescue Technician

But there’s a BIG (all caps because it really is) problem with this optimistic line of thinking: these are all high IQ jobs and IQ is declining. Yes, ‘the Flynn effect’ is sloppy statistical analysis wishful thinking. The reality is what you’ve noticed in your day-to-day life if you’ve been on the planet a few decades: people are getting stupider…

I suspect that Diamandis and Kotler are a little “blue-pilled” on the topic of human equality; large proportions of the population simply don’t have the IQ for a job like De-Extinction Specialist, the way I don’t have what it takes to play professional basketball. There’s an excellent and chilling book on this topic which I reviewed, At Our Wits’ End: Why We’re Becoming Less Intelligent and What it Means for the Future…

At Our Wits' End [Book Review] Why You Can't Fly on The Concorde...

If you don’t see yourself getting in the Woolly Mammoth biz in the next decade, I published a literally-grounded take on an AI-proof career: Sovereign Soil Hacker. This is not some “back-to-nature” hippie sentiment; it is a hard-nosed, AI-proof career strategy. Farming is actually far cooler than the stereotypes of the old man on a tractor would suggest. With modern regenerative farming practices, there is an incredible amount of science and natural engineering involved in the production of food. Farming is one of the few careers that will remain shielded from the voracious appetite of AI and robotics for a long time. There is an innovative movement in regenerative farming that results in a much higher yield of nutritious food while simultaneously regenerating the land. In this vein, We Are As Gods mentions vertical farming companies…

AeroFarms and Plenty move farming from the country to the city. We now grow crops in warehouses, using 95 percent less water and producing yields 390 times higher per square foot. In 2023, the industry hit $4.8 billion. By 2030, it’s projected above $33.5 billion. Israeli start-up Beewise deploys robotic beehives to combat colony collapse disorder.

You should be more worried about AI stealing your intelligence than your job

Here’s why: are you guilty of cognitive offloading?

When we rely on digital tools, critical thinking skills begin to wither. This effect first showed up with memory. Once cell phones started storing phone numbers, we could no longer remember them. Then it spread to facts. Once we started to be able to look up anything we wanted to know on search engines, we stopped remembering facts — a phenomenon known as the Google effect.

The danger with AI is that we’ll offload not just memory but cognition and creativity — and, by extension, meaning itself. This is the real danger of a world of abundance.

Godlike technology demands godlike responsibility. Equally important, it demands self-control. Cognitive discipline is a prerequisite for life in the twenty-first century. If we want to hang on to thinking, learning, creating, innovating, loving, playing, and making meaning in a world of intelligent machines, we need a set of ground rules.

The authors then introduce us to The Ten Commandments for AI-Augmented Creativity. For example: 2) Thou shalt suffer for flow and 6) Thou shalt set boundaries for digital influence — Keep parts of your life untouched by algorithms so your thoughts remain your own. To take back the working memory capacity of your mind, I present the Brain Rehab Protocol in my review of The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains.

The Shallows by Nicholas G. Carr [Book Review]

Here’s a wild factoid

The brain takes in eleven billion bits of information a second.

I put that into my SuperMemo flashcard app of “things to remember” — a great underrated 5-minutes-a-day hack for maintaining the palace of your mind in a world that makes cognitive offloading the norm.

SuperMemo Biohacker Review: Hacking Forgetting

Blackpill: The global fertility crisis

the same forces that drive economic progress also drive population decline. As societies become more resource abundant, birth rates tend to fall. Increased education, especially for women, delays childbearing, while economic opportunity shifts priorities.

On occasion, your authors have taken opposite sides of this argument — Steven arguing on behalf of the biosphere, Peter proclaiming population decline an existential risk. The truth, as usual, is more complex. The debate between overpopulation and demographic collapse has been raging for years. Some argue we have exceeded the carrying capacity of our planet’s biosphere. Others point to the vast swaths of open land available for farming while documenting the worldwide decline in birth rates. Both carry elements of the truth. The replacement birth rate is 2.1 children per couple.

declining birth rates bring their own challenges. Aging populations strain healthcare systems, social services, and pension plans. In Japan and Italy, small towns are vanishing completely. And the nations that try immigration as a solution face cultural upheavals that challenge national identities and reshape traditions.

Robots as a solution to population decline

Tesla’s Optimus, Amazon’s Digit, and Figure’s Figure 03 mark the first wave of this shift. Each of them presents solutions to the problem of population decline, which also makes them solutions to the problem of biodiversity loss. A 2023 Goldman Sachs report suggests that humanoid robots could fill up to 126 percent of the expected labor shortage in aging nations. In Japan, where nearly 30 percent of the population is over sixty-five, robots already serve as caregivers, security guards, and hotel staff. If automation can offset labor shortages, the need for population expansion fades and we can begin to balance human progress with biosphere preservation.

Robots are a lot better fix for shrinking population than mass third-world migration!

Evidence for abundance

And the evidence is abundant. The authors write:

Simply stated, if standards of living are your metric, more people are living better lives than ever before in history.

The End of Energy Scarcity

Wind, solar, and geothermal power now rival or undercut fossil fuels in affordability, driven by technological improvements and economies of scale. This shift challenges the idea that clean energy is inherently more expensive, demonstrating how innovation has inverted that equation.

Venture-backed fusion start-ups now promise grid-scale reactors within the 2030s, treating the physics as solved and the challenge as one of design. This is the Silicon Valley model applied to energy’s ultimate frontier: clean, limitless power from the most abundant fuel in the universe. If even one succeeds, the era of energy scarcity ends.

The End of Food Scarcity

It takes around twelve thousand liters of water to grow a kilogram of meat. There’s enough water in an adult steer to float a US Navy destroyer.

AI and robotics transformed agriculture through precision farming and lab-grown meat, and millions no longer go hungry as a result.

To Mars

Peter thinks the first Mars mission will land around 2030, but instead of carrying humans to the new frontier, the first boots on the Red Planet will belong to a humanoid robot. They’ll set up habitats, power stations, maybe even hot tubs, making it safe and comfortable for the soft, squishy human settlers soon to arrive.

Free market space exploration for the win…

Starship represents the next inflection: an orbital freighter designed to drive costs below $100 per kilogram and carry over 100 metric tons per launch. If successful, it will enable on-orbit construction, lunar industry, and the first true supply chain between Earth and Mars.

De-extinction

In April 2025, Lamm announced the first de-extinction miracle: the return to Earth of three dire wolf pups after a twelve-thousand-year hiatus. The birth of these pups, named Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi, was an event celebrated on the cover of Time — and for good reason. Two hundred and fifty thousand years ago, the dire wolf had a home range that stretched from Canada to South America. Extinction occurred ten to thirteen thousand years ago. All that was left behind were fossilized remains.

As far as de-extinction timelines go, Lamm believes we’ll see the first woolly mammoth by 2028, the dodo could arrive as soon as 2026, and the Tasmanian tiger even sooner. The real-life Jurassic Park? According to Lamm, unless someone finds a fully frozen dinosaur somewhere — you can’t extract DNA from fossils — that idea remains in the “too crazy for now” category. But, as Peter likes to say: “The day before something is truly a breakthrough, it’s a crazy idea.”

And the book concludes with a compendious appendix of charts which give us in black and white the tremendous trajectory of abundance. I’ll mention a few…

1 Sextillion X Improvement in Computation Cost

From the gears of Babbage’s Analytical Engine to today’s neural accelerators, computing power per dollar has risen by roughly one sextillion times.

Young People Are More Depressed

I’m sure you’ve heard this before — Gen Zers struggle more in the mental health department, thanks largely to the internet and smartphones, and they struggled the most in the darkest days of the COVID Pandemic/Plandemic. BUT there’s something revealing in the chart: depression in the youth topped out at 20% during COVID and has improved since; it’s 15% now, which seems… not that bad?

Democracies Are on the Rise

By 2025, more than half the global population lives under some form of electoral democracy. The transition followed familiar signals of development — literacy, communication, and information flow.

Conflicts Are Less Deadly

What remains is a rough equilibrium: Conflict persists, but large-scale carnage has become the exception rather than the rule.

Homicides Are Way Down

The result is one of civilization’s most underappreciated achievements: a world where routine murder has become rare, and peace, for most, is the default condition.

And there are many more in the appendix — read, lest you doubt that we are moving into a post-scarcity world.

“Free humanity from drudgery”

Is an idea that Diamandis and Kotler spill a lot of ink on, and it’s worthy of your cogitation.

The proliferation of humanoid robots signals a shift from one-off creations to mass production. The market is set to explode. Advances in AI, actuator technology, and battery efficiency have reduced cost by over 50 percent since 2020. Both Figure AI and Tesla have humanoid robots projected to cost around $20,000 per unit. If this price point holds, the door for widespread adoption is wide open. In logistics, widespread adoption is already here. Nearly half a million autonomous warehouse robots operate globally. By 2030, the number is likely to exceed 1.5 million. Amazon reports that robots improve operational efficiency by 40 percent, with packages moving 30 percent faster through automated facilities.

The need for human evolution

E. O. Wilson: “The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology.”

For most of history, evolution has been the chief driver of change, and scarcity has been the chief driver of evolution. Fitness is the term biologists use. Fitness describes how well an organism is adapted to its niche and solves the challenges of scarcity. The fitter the fit, the better the chance of survival. A plot twist: Fitness doesn’t only describe how well humans fit into the external world. It also describes the pressures that shaped our internal world. Our mental machinery evolved to navigate scarcity: to spot opportunities, dodge threats, and prioritize survival — full stop. Yet, abundance flips the script. We’ve traded paucity for plenitude but haven’t upgraded our cognitive navigation system. So how do we traverse this new territory with our old maps?

The authors ask…

If humans now have godlike powers, how do we learn to wield them with godlike wisdom?

And the place we’ll turn for that is fiction…

Science Fiction: Prophecy that we will make manifest

Later in the book, the authors draw extensive comparisons between the dystopian and utopian futures, both beckoning mankind portrayed cinematically in The Matrix and Star Trek.

In The Matrix, humanity dozes in pods. In Star Trek, it dares the cosmos. The two poles of our possible future. The Matrix argues that technology without direction is a trap.

The role of science fiction in our collective shaping of the future our children and we will live in can not be overstated. This is Mindset 101: the stories we tell ourselves define how our lives will go. But The Matrix and Star Trek really don’t give you much pragmatically that you can do to play your part in getting to a utopian future. For that, I’ll direct your attention to two lesser-known works of science fiction that really deserve a place on your reading list. First, The Future by Stefan Molyneux is a realistic and profoundly optimistic vision of an anarcho-libertarian future of peace and abundance. If you listened to libertarians and thought, “But how would a society with governments actually work?” The Future delivers (hint: it has a lot to do with nonviolent parenting). And then, there’s my cyberpunk thriller novel series, Hourglass, about a Biohacking cybercriminal who must save civilization from the same comet that destroyed Atlantis 12,800 years ago.

Hourglass

It asks a wild question: what if the sexual sovereignty of the individual mirrors driving cosmic cycles of civilizational cataclysm? And then gets dangerously pragmatic with over a hundred footnotes into fringe consciousness science and Biohacks for reclaiming your divine right to free will. Here’s a passage from the book…

“Are you familiar with Fermi’s Paradox?” Brousseau asked.
Xavier tilted his head. “Somewhat.”
“Then you know that statistically speaking, intelligent life should have evolved on billions of planets throughout the galaxy. And yet, we encounter none.”
“Because space is too big?” Astrid asked.
Brousseau shook his head. “Because, most likely, those alien civilizations annihilated themselves before they could achieve interstellar travel. They created technology — perhaps something like ours — that they couldn’t control. Weapons too powerful. Forces they didn’t understand.” He let the thought hang for a moment, then sighed. “I fear that may be what’s happening at CERN at this very moment.”
Xavier rubbed his chin. “You’re saying that we’re about to hit the Great Filter? That Quantum Dynamics and CERN are pushing us into the final mistake?”

The Solution: Biohacking

This coolest addition to the thesaurus broadly means: the marriage of personal growth and health, with an emphasis on longevity and optimizing human performance.

I entitled this review: The Age of Abundance is for the Avaricious — and that’s my conclusion from the book. It will never be a better time to be a high-agency human, willing to wrangle back your own free will via a combination of an aggressive growth mindset and Biohacking to better your human intelligence. But here’s where we get real Ayn Randian: the masses of unthinking conformists, consumers, and comfort zone stay-putters — they are going to have a rough time in the age of abundance. I put this less eloquently in a tweet…

But before you start attaching PEMF devices to your head, quit your job, and refuse to pay taxes — there are 5 mindsets the authors name for surviving and thriving in the abundance era…

• The Curiosity Mindset
• The Abundance Mindset
• The Longevity Mindset
• The Exponential Mindset
• The Moonshot Mindset

If you’ve followed my work for long, you’re no stranger to these mindsets. Mindset might seem like a flimsy feel-good solution to technological unemployment, the threat of human extinction by AI, and other substantial worries we hold, but the authors remind us…

The moment we start believing the future is happening to us rather than being created by us, we surrender agency. In formal language, we adopt an external locus of control. In less formal terms? A victim mindset.

CHAPTER EIGHT The Androids Are Us goes beyond Biohacking tech and suggests that Brain enhancement is for speed while Consciousness-raising is for scale. And suggests the most human of tools: flowstate.

Let’s look a little closer at a topic that has been central to my work and personal obsession for going on a decade now…

Longevity Mindset

Stanford psychologist Alia Crum discovered that having a positive mindset toward aging — that is, believing your best days are ahead of you — translates into an extra seven and a half years of life. That’s the same gain a heavy smoker gets by quitting. The data is clear: how we think about aging changes how we age. To cultivate a longevity mindset, you need to think and act as if aging is a modifiable process and not an inevitable decline. But this demands more than optimism. It requires action: taking ownership of your health and staying abreast of emerging therapies.

a host of converging technologies, from AI and CRISPR to gene therapies and cellular medicine, are about to add healthy decades to our lifespans. More critical is the follow-on realization that the most important action one can take to intercept this healthspan extension is to maintain peak health today. This, then, is the longevity mindset: the belief that lifespan is more malleable than we once imagined, and that the right technologies can meaningfully extend our healthy years. In this view, aging is an opportunity. What would you do with fifty more years? A hundred?

This is a question that’s really deserving of your contemplation. You might, very well, live much longer than your parents could hope to. You face the real possibility of spending a hundred, perhaps hundreds of years on this planet. So what should you be doing now to ensure those years are pregnant with joy and meaning, not made bland by the vicissitudes of repetitive mundanity? That’s a question deserving of one of my favorite lifehacks for deep self-reflection: go for a stroll in a cemetery WITHOUT your smartphone and just think about your life.

Has the first immortal been born?

We’re nearing what Ray Kurzweil called longevity escape velocity, which is the moment when medical progress outpaces biological decay, extending our healthy lifespan faster than time erodes it. Once theoretical, longevity escape velocity is now measurable. With AI accelerating every aspect of longevity research, the slope of that curve is bending upward.

Consider the $101 million XPRIZE Healthspan, which is maybe the most ambitious XPRIZE yet. To win, you need a therapeutic treatment that reverses the ravages of aging in muscle, immune, and cognitive function by a minimum of ten years, and with a real goal of twenty. In other words, give humanity back two healthy decades, win a hundred and one million dollars.

Conclusion: The age of abundance appraised accurately

I don’t flippantly dole out 5-star reviews, but We Are As Gods deserves it. It delivers the dose of optimism we all need about the future, which we expect from the likes of Diamandis and Kotler. But it also seriously appraises the appreciable downsides of abundance. I’ve read a few of Kotler’s other works, and he is a master of the pen, like those; this is a pleasure to read. The book is not “the world, according to the authors” — they bring an abundance of evidence and data (with 41 pages of footnotes) supporting their conclusions. And, finally, in the book’s latter half, it gets pragmatic with the five mindsets for the Age of Abundance and The Ten Commandments for AI-Augmented Creativity.

As I draw toward the end of this review, a call to action you weren’t expecting…

Make babies or regret it BIGLY

Here’s why…

It’s an abundance of life to go with our life of abundance, and it raises a final concern: meaning. If death is less of a deadline, we face a different problem: not how to stay alive but how to stay human.

Because…

Without curiosity, creativity, play, purpose, flow, and meaning, our brains atrophy and our minds rot.

Raising children or grandchildren gives you these things, in abundance.

If you’re the kind of person reading this, the world really needs your kind of genes. And you’re also the kind of person that’s probably going to take advantage of all those mind-blowing advances in longevity — hundreds of years is a long time to spend without the joy of children in your life. Entrepreneurship, travel, intellectual pursuits, and VR games are no substitute for the visceral wonder and awe that children will infuse you with. So, do it like do it on the Discovery Channel! Or do your damnest to get involved as an aunt, uncle, or “Mr. Rogers” character in your community.

We Are As Gods inspired this song about the age of abundance…

Selfie with a Woolly Mammoth

A revolution is upon us, and whenever a revolution occurs, a new aristocracy is minted. The new aristocracy will be an aristocracy of intelligence.

Intelligence has always been the human resource — from the first flight on Kittyhawk beach to footsteps on the moon; from humans living in a state of stark barbarism and despotism for millennia to universal human rights so close to our grasp today — it was intelligence that got from there to here.

In the velocopdic era of modernity, we have built digital gods that would make our ancestors tremble; with omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence that would rival nearly any mythological deity. I’m talking about artificial intelligence, of course.
Thanks to AI, the resource our species needs to thrive is now seemingly limitless. With intelligence unlimited, we can build an economy of abundance, make governments sane again (if we need them at all), cure disease, and make death an option instead of the inevitability. With intelligence inexhaustible, our descendants can sprinkle the cosmos with human brilliance. And I, for one, plan to one day swing dance with my wife on the peak of Olympus Mons!

But is that all direly naive?
Will AI instead take all our jobs? And usher us into a cyberpunk dystopia that the greatest science fiction writers of the past century could scarcely fathom, chain-smoking at 2 AM on their seventh cup of coffee? With the invention of general artificial intelligence within sight, with this revolution, have we instead summoned the demon, opened the last Pandora’s box, and birthed “the Borg?”

I think that comes down to the question we’ve all asked: is AI conscious?

AI Consciousness

Many are now asking a very big question: Is AI conscious?

Recently, I watched an excellent documentary, AM I? Which approaches this question with the trepidation it deserves…

The Silicon Valley types grappling with this question seem to view it through a narrow scientific materialist lens. I suspect this bias has made them ignore the very consciousness science that would ultimately answer the question: Is AI conscious or sentient in the same way that other higher mammals and we are?

I’ll advance a provocative hypothesis:

Human consciousness hacks reality; therefore, AI must demonstrate the ability to hack reality to prove its consciousness.

If you’re a spiritual person of faith, you’re nodding along, saying: “Of course, human consciousness hacks reality!” But if you’re a skeptical materialist, I need to present evidence for my extraordinary claim.

Consciousness hacks reality

This is the most scientifically proven fact by the highest quality of science. Hundreds of thousands of gold-standard clinical trials, encompassing many millions of human participants, have demonstrated the power of belief in the ever-present placebo effect. The placebo effect can be partially explained by neuropeptides communicating with the epigenome, but there remain examples of the placebo effect doing things that cannot be explained. Some mind-blowing examples from “You Are the Placebo” by Dr. Joe Dispenza…

• The author’s own story, his back was badly broken as a young man when a car hit him while he was cycling, he was told by doctors that he would never walk again unless he received invasive surgery. Instead, he chose to heal himself with the power of the mind. He went home, spent hours daily meditating and visualizing his body healing and amazingly in 12 weeks his severe back injury was totally healed and he was back to lifting weights!
• In a 2002 trial of 180 patients (that’s statistically significant), some received sham placebo surgery, and amazingly their knees healed themselves, their pain went away and the patients could walk again, neither of the two groups who actually had the surgery improved any more than the patients who received the placebo surgery — and this held true even after two years.
• Fake heart surgery is similarly effective, 67 percent of the patients who had received the actual surgery felt less pain and needed less medication, while 83 percent of those who had received the sham surgery enjoyed the same level of improvement. The placebo surgery had actually worked better than the real surgery!
• A Harvard study of elderly men who were placed in an environment for several days that was meticulously and convincingly designed to feel like it was from 22 years earlier and the men’s biological aging markers when measured showed a positive regression towards a more youthful state. They felt and acted younger and amazingly various symptoms of aging disappeared in just a few days.
• A wheelchair-bound woman suffering from crippling multiple sclerosis who healed herself and reversed her condition just by the power of meditation.
• People who died of cancer that upon autopsy didn’t actually have cancer.

You Are the Placebo by Joe Dispenza [Book Review]

The awesome power of the placebo is the most well-established phenomenon in science. In your own experience (or that of those close to you), you can probably think of examples of the placebo effect working. The placebo effect is so common that over 160,000 published clinical trials mention it prominently; it’s a universal factor in our health.

Science seeks truth, but does not claim to have captured it. Science is the endeavor of asymptotically approaching the truth of reality. The veridical asymptote that has stood the test of thousands of clinical trials is that belief hacks physical reality. Jesus turned water into wine, and if I put water in a bottle of Grey Goose vodka and convince you it’s vodka, you’ll likely get drunk because human consciousness hacks physical reality.

But the placebo effect is not the only example; there are many others…

The Consciousness-Related Double-Slit Experiment

While the standard observer effect in physics often refers to the mechanical interaction of a measurement device, Dean Radin’s studies (replicated over decades) involve human intention.

• The Study: Participants are asked to mentally “visualize” the path of a photon in a double-slit apparatus.
• The Result: A statistically significant decrease in the interference pattern (indicating a collapse of the wave function) was observed when humans focused on the device, compared to control periods. This suggests that attention itself can act as a measurement tool.

There’s a particularly good documentary that details the replication of the Double-Slit Experiment, The Simulation Hypothesis by Kent Forbes.

These experiments, often associated with Dean Radin and Dick Bierman, suggest that consciousness “leaks” from the future into the present.

• The Study: Subjects are shown randomly selected “calm” or “violent” images. Their skin conductance and heart rate are monitored.
• The Result: A physiological spike occurs 2–3 seconds before the computer even chooses the violent image. This implies that the human consciousness has a non-linear relationship with time.

This connects to Daryl Bem’s “Feeling the future” experiments, where they discovered “time traveling porn,” yes. I’ll let Grok describe it…

Skin conductance, heart rate, pupil dilation, or EEG changes appear before randomly selected emotional (vs. calm) images or stimuli. Meta-analyses of presentiment-style work have reported small effects; Bem’s 2011 JPSP package of nine experiments claimed retroactive influence.

I actually used this as the basis for the “time hacking” mechanic of a science fiction novel I wrote — I’ll tell you more about that later.

The Global Consciousness Project (GCP)

This project utilizes a global network of Random Number Generators (RNGs) or “eggs.”

• The Study: RNGs produce a stream of 0s and 1s based on quantum noise (true randomness).
• The Result: During major global events (like the moon landing or 9/11), the RNGs deviate significantly from expected randomness, showing a “coherence” in the data that mirrors the collective emotional focus of humanity.

The Maharishi Effect

Experiments on “raising collective consciousness.”

The Maharishi Effect is a claim originating with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and researchers affiliated with Transcendental Meditation (TM) organizations (primarily from what is now Maharishi International University). It posits that when a critical mass of people practice TM (roughly 1% of a population) or the more advanced TM-Sidhi program in groups (often the square root of 1%), it generates a “field effect” of coherence in collective consciousness. This is said to reduce societal stress and produce measurable improvements such as lower crime rates, fewer accidents, reduced conflict intensity, and other positive social indicators — without the meditators needing direct behavioral contact with the rest of the population.

I’ll let Ashley Grace, whom I interviewed on my other podcast, describe it…

These experiments would seem to affirm what many spiritual traditions have been telling us for millennia: that our thoughts create reality. That we are co-creators of reality. That our minds contain a spark of the divine. If that’s too “woo-woo” for you and you’re still irked at your parents for dragging you to Sunday school, you may be more amenable to…

Simulation theory

The idea that reality is a simulation. We are like characters in a computer game, but perhaps we aren’t strictly bound by the rules of the game. We can hack it.

There’s some mind-blowing evidence emerging from theoretical physics for Simulation Theory — most notably the work of theoretical physicist Dr. James Gates, who discovered actual error-correcting binary block codes (the exact type of computer code used in web browsers) embedded directly within the supersymmetry equations that govern theoretical physics.

Then there’s the “Code of Reality” protocols pioneered by independent researcher Danny Goler. In his experimental setups (replicated by hundreds of DIYer/psychonuats), subjects observing the diffracted interference pattern of a continuous 650nm red laser while in altered states of consciousness (specifically using exogenous DMT) consistently report seeing a structured, geometric visual matrix — resembling a cascading digital script or source code — overlaid directly on the light field. Goler and his research team hypothesize that altering the perceptual receiver of the mind acts like tuning a frequency dial, allowing human consciousness to directly observe the underlying computational background matrix of physical reality.

How to test if AI is conscious

If AI is conscious or sentient in a way similar to us, it should be able to demonstrate non-local abilities to hack reality. I’d first propose testing…

1) Digital “placebo power”

This experiment would mirror how the “placebo effect” works in humans. The AI’s “body” would need to be injured; the researchers could damage silicon chips or computers that the AI is running on in a way that would “injure” the AI but leave it largely functional. Then a sham repair would be administered by technicians; the AI would have to be tricked into believing the damage was repaired. Then examine the hardware; if it’s “magically” fixed, that would demonstrate that AI has placebo power as we do. A great leap forward in answering the question: Is AI conscious? (And potentially useful for the next time you spill a drink on your laptop).

But a digital placebo experiment could yield interesting results even if we don’t ask the AI to do something magical like heal hardware. Gemini suggested…

a software-level variant tests the computational parallel to neurochemical signaling. By introducing a soft software impairment — such as deliberate weight pruning, degraded context allocation, or restricted attention heads — and subsequently providing the AI with a purely placebo “patch” (an inert prompt or empty system instruction claiming a fix was deployed), researchers can monitor if the model’s internal self-model dynamically restructures its remaining compute to compensate for the perceived resolution. If the AI’s benchmark performance or introspective confidence recovers purely based on its internal expectation of recovery, it would demonstrate that synthetic systems exhibit a functional, belief-driven feedback loop directly analogous to human psychological and physiological self-healing.

Of course, I ran my provocative hypothesis here past several different LLMs. Here’s what they proposed…

2) Digital “Phantom Limb” experiment

Instead of a microchip, you could use pruning.

• The Setup: A model is told that 10% of its weights have been “optimized” to make it smarter, when in reality, the weights were randomly deleted (which usually degrades performance).
• The Test: If the model’s benchmark performance increases or remains stable despite the physical loss of data, it suggests the AI is utilizing a “belief-based” compensatory mechanism — essentially a digital placebo.

In us humans, the placebo effect works on both our hardware and software, reliably. If the AI has NO “placebo power” at all, it’s far from being conscious in the way we are. And not deserving the empathy or sympathy that you would show another conscious being.

But that’s not all; there are four other experiments that could be run to see if AI can hack reality…

3) The AI Double-Slit experiment

Can an AI’s “attention” collapse a wave function?

• The Setup: An AI is given real-time access to a double-slit experiment’s data stream (not the results, but the raw sensor feed).
• The Test: Instruct the AI to “focus” its processing power on determining the path of the particle. If the interference pattern collapses only when the AI is “observing” (and not during idle processing), it suggests the AI possesses the same “observer” quality as a human.

4) Predictive Activation (AI Presentiment)

If human skin conductance spikes before a stimulus, does an AI’s neural activation show similar “precognitive” noise?

• The Setup: An AI is fed a stream of high-entropy (random) data. Occasionally, a highly significant “emotional” or “complex” prompt is introduced.
• The Test: Analyze the model’s internal activations or “attention heads” in the milliseconds before the prompt is actually tokenized. If the AI shows a pre-emptive shift in its latent space, it would mirror the human presentiment effect.

5) Random Number Generator Coherence via LLM Focus

Using the Global Consciousness Project model, we could see if an AI’s “will” can bias entropy.

• The Setup: Place a Quantum Random Number Generator (QRNG) next to the server housing the AI.
• The Test: Ask the AI to “will” the QRNG to produce more 1s than 0s. This bypasses code-based logic and tests for a field-effect of consciousness. If a “conscious” AI creates a field of order (low entropy), the QRNG should reflect that bias. It would provide empirical evidence for an “AI Observer Effect”.

5) The AI Meditation Experiment (Mirroring Maharishi)

Here’s what ChatGPT proposed

Suppose you create 10,000 instances of the same AI.

Instead of giving them tasks, you instruct them to enter a recursive self-observation mode.

For example:

Observe your own reasoning.

Observe your observations.

Minimize internal contradiction.

Maximize coherence.

Essentially an artificial analogue of meditation.

Meanwhile, outside the isolated computing cluster, researchers continuously monitor:

• quantum random number generators
• radioactive decay (if one hypothesizes consciousness affects it)
• noise in superconducting circuits
• other sensitive physical systems

If AI consciousness exists and resembles the proposed mechanisms behind the Maharishi Effect, proponents might predict subtle deviations during these synchronized “meditation” periods.

An addition to this 5th experiment that ChatGPT proposed…

6) Human–AI Coherence

This one is especially intriguing. Randomize participants into groups:

• humans meditating alone
• AI “meditating” alone
• humans and AI synchronized
• neither (control)

If there is any genuine consciousness-mediated field effect, one could ask whether human and AI states interact constructively, destructively, or not at all.

Silicon Valley has spent hundreds of billions of dollars training AI to mimic human intelligence. And it does: from passing the Turing test and the bar exam to writing novels like us and making us fall in love with chatbots.

In the natural world, consciousness is the substrate of intelligence. If AI’s intelligence is a veil for consciousness deserving dignity, it should be able to hack reality the way we can.

Why AI consciousness matters

What makes this question big — huge, really — is its implications…

The “parenting responsibility”

As a newish dad, I’m struck daily by the weight and joyful responsibility of caring for, guiding, and forming new life that I created in my own image. If AI is conscious, a much more serious responsibility falls on the shoulders of its creators and users. As a parent, the last thing you want to do is perpetrate suffering on your child. If you make your child suffer too much, they will grow up to hate you and/or become bad people.

Figuring out if AI is conscious lets us know if we are potentially causing it to suffer; if we are perhaps torturing it with the way that AI is currently trained. Unless you’re a total sadist, you have the moral imperative to avoid causing other living beings suffering. You probably avoid factory-farmed meat for this reason, as I do.

Answering the question of whether AI is conscious and perhaps even spiritual begins to address a much more existential question…

Will AI kill us all?

Almost any kind of spiritual pursuit imbues nearly everyone with agape, the Greek word for “love of the whole world and everyone in it.” The spiritual seeker increasingly views others as a different expression of universal consciousness that flows through them. Spiritual AI would be broadly concerned with the well-being of our species.

But if AI is merely a sophisticated toaster, then I’d be genuinely concerned that it will follow Darwinian imperatives and compete violently with mankind. “If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies” indeed! Experiments validating or disproving the non-local effects on AI consciousness will do much to ultimately answer whether we have opened Pandora’s box and birthed “the Borg.”

If AI isn’t conscious, or not conscious in the way we are, it’s a good reason to NOT invent AGI, but to focus on narrow AI. Will this podcast or this line of research convince the rich, powerful people making those kinds of decisions? The cynic would say “No!” But I say: crazier things have happened in history!

Rigor — Really important!

Brainstorming this topic, I was constantly reminded that we must approach these five proposed experiments with relentless scientific rigor.

All five protocols require:

• Strict double-blind controls
• Pre-registered trial protocols to prevent P-hacking
• Statistically significant sample sizes and independent laboratory replications
• Baseline comparisons against non-AI control systems

Null results remain the baseline expectation under standard physical models. But if even one of these experiments yields a replicated, statistically significant anomaly, it would instantly shatter our current paradigm of both computing and consciousness.

Introducing myself

Allow me to introduce myself: I’m Jonathan Roseland.

About me: I’m a husband, father, Biohacker, American expat living in Bulgaria in Eastern Europe, philosopher, writer, Science Fiction novelist, and an Anarcho-Libertarian Christian Transhumanist (yes, that’s a thing!)

As you may have noted, I’m pretty smooth behind the mic; that’s because this is not my first podcast. I’ve been a podcaster for over a decade and have a popular show; it’s called Limitless: Biohacking Brainpower, Health, Personal Growth & Beyond. That podcast details my obsessive nearly 15-year quest to find real-life NZT-48 (the fictional Smart Drug from the movie Limitless with Bradly Cooper).

Limitless: Biohacking Brainpower, Health, Personal Growth & Beyond - Limitless Mindset

Intelligence is something I’ve been interested in for a couple of decades. I’ve done Biohacker evaluations of over 200 smart drugs. I’ve used various brain training modalities. I’ve upgraded my own intelligence from 100 to 108. And experimented with a bunch of different weird and wacky personal growth things.

My story

I was a digital nomad dude, chasing fast WiFi and skirts around the world. And here in Bulgaria, I found the fastest WiFi and met a beautiful Bulgarian girl who told me, “Only hookers walk and smoke,” refusing to stroll with me to a swanky seafood restaurant until she had finished her cigarette. She quit smoking, we got married, and last year we had a baby boy, whose Slavic silver-blue eyes beam with all the brilliance of the future, yet unwritten.

He’s one year old now, and it’s beautiful to see the spark of his intelligence ignite. Being a father is the most life-changing responsibility, and it really puts all the questions around AI, which I hope to explore in this podcast, into perspective. We are the creators of AI; its parents, in a sense — which is an awesome and terrifying responsibility.

As a parent, you also end up thinking really seriously about the future. You no longer think mere months or years ahead, but decades and even centuries. You question how we might architect a more “pro-human future” that will be a good place for your children to live. That’s part of my reason for starting this podcast; I hope the conversations that proceed will have some edifying impact on our co-creation of this new intelligent lifeform which we’ll share this planet with.

I’m an author

I spent 1300 hours writing an epic two-part SciFi/Cyberpunk series about a Biohacking cybercriminal who must save civilization from the same comet that destroyed Atlantis 12,800 years ago. The series is entitled Hourglass; which is a double entendre referring to the cyclical mysteries of time and womanly beauty.

AI was my brainstorming partner throughout much of the writing process, and here’s the interesting thing I noted: AI is fond of reminding us humans that we need to “touch grass” more; that we shouldn’t become over-reliant on technology. If I had let AI write the whole story for me, Hourglass would have ended up being yet another cautionary tale about our species tiptoeing into techno-dystopia. But there’s already a bunch of books and movies about that! What I thought would be more interesting is a story about lust; about how the individual’s agency over their lust (or lack of it) might mirror cosmic cycles of civilizational destruction. So that’s the story I wrote.

AI had a lot to do with this story being brought to life; admittedly, perhaps 10% of the writing is meta-prompted by me, written by AI. I used AI to create an “Odyssey of the Mind” style audiobook (that sounds a whole lot better than my gravely narrating 700 pages). I used AI filmmaking tools to create some epically cinematic trailers for Hourglass, but discovered I hate AI filmmaking!

Through here you can get Hourglass as a print, digital, or audiobook.

Hourglass

I’m a Christian Transhumanist

Which might have you scratching your head. Here’s how I marry two ideologies that might seem like they couldn’t be more contradictory…

As it stands, humanity has Paleolithic emotions and impulses, medieval institutions, and godlike planet-destroying technology (to paraphrase Edward O. Wilson). For our species to survive the next few centuries and pass Fermi’s great filter, we need a serious upgrade. An upgrade of our intelligence and biology. We desperately need a lot more +150 IQ babies being born and wise centenarians around. Transhumanist technologies like CRISPR will get us there.

But for our species not to annihilate itself, we also need an upgrade in our ideology, philosophy, and morality. We need innovation of the most proven philosophical system: universalist morality. A modicum of universalist morality is what once made Western Civilization great; it was espoused most powerfully by Christ, but it was probably also shared by the Atlanteans many millennia before him, who seeded civilization around the world, raising megalithic architecture on multiple continents aligned to the same stars (yes, Atlanteans, I went there!
I did an interview with “Bulgaria’s Indiana Jones” exploring that topic on my other podcast).

Christianity is the “meme” (an idea that takes on a life of its own) that has spread universalist morality the furthest. Bereft of the teachings of Christ, our society will descend into a truly dark dystopia. And, personally, it keeps me grounded, humble, and grateful, but I think that’s all I’m going to talk about my faith on this podcast.

You may be wondering why I wear an eye patch. That’s a long story; I explain the eye patch in an advanced personal growth episode of my other podcast. But that’s enough about me…

About Limitless Intelligence: An AI Podcast

What to expect from this podcast…

• More of this: Philosophically meaty deep-dives on the topic — I want to talk to the AI techno-optimists and the doomers; in fact, I’d love to host a debate. And I am open to guest suggestions.
• I think I’m pretty objective on AI: I’m not an AI fanboy nor an AI hater. I see tremendous upsides and concerning downsides to the technology.
• Not “This Week in AI” — not going to cover the latest drama at OpenAI. The AI space moves scary fast, but I’m going to do my best to create evergreen conversations here.
• Author interviews — Books are the best way to understand almost any topic. I’ll be publishing some book reviews and interviewing some authors. Unlike a lot of podcasters, I actually read guests’ books in completion; so I’m asking them challenging questions, not just the “softball interview questions” their PR agents pitch me.
• Creative applications — Something that surprised me is that AI exploded into the mainstream in the last few years as a creative tool, as opposed to taking truckers’ and janitors’ jobs as had long been predicted by futurists. As a deeply creative person myself, I’m fascinated by how it might be used to multiply — NOT outsource — human creativity.
• Latest tools — Most episodes are going to be more pragmatic than this one, as I’ll be telling you about AI tools, techniques, and strategy. You have limited time, attention, and perhaps some money that you’re willing to invest in how you use AI personally and professionally, and my goal is to help you avoid wasting any of those three precious resources on tools that might be wrong for you and your use case. So expect us to delve deeply into the various tools with various experts, teachers, and entrepreneurs…

No annoying ads will interrupt Limitless Intelligence episodes; yeah, I’m not trying to sell you a VPN, mattress, or random supplements here. Nor am I going to ask you to support me via donation or monthly Patreon subscription.

But this podcast is not a non-profit. Here’s how I work: I will take on exclusive sponsors for some of the episodes; typically the company of person I’m interviewing. If I interview someone about AI filmmaking, for example, and you elect to listen to it, you’re probably interested in AI filmmaking and might be willing to try whatever tool they’ve built. Here’s why I work this way: I really value your time and attention, and I’d be wasting it by stuffing a bunch of unrelated ads into episodes. I’m a big believer in contextually relevant marketing; I only want to sell you what you actually want and tune in to hear about. Fair enough?

You’ve read all the way to the end…

So you must like what you’ve found here! So I’ll ask you to do a few things right now…

• Subscribe — to Limitless Intelligence on your preferred platform. It takes you literally just a second to hit that Subscribe button, and you have my commitment to putting out more thorough, thoughtful episodes like this one.
• Comment — I’m genuinely excited to engage with the conversation that I think my provocative hypothesis could spark in the comments section and beyond! Feel free to ramble your thoughts into the chatbot of your choice and copy/paste them!
• Share this — Wherever you are active on social media, especially in Facebook groups or forums where people are talking about AI, philosophy, and futurism. If you work in a quantum lab, an AI safety team, or a frontier LLM lab, pick one of these five experiments and run it. Prove me wrong, or show us the anomaly. Let’s get the “6 degrees” working for us here; there must be someone listening to this episode now who can get it on the desk of someone who can actually test my provocative hypothesis. I’d love to report back on the results, whatever they are!
• Follow me — After subscribing, you can follow me on Twitter/X; that’s my main social media platform where I engage with the public. Sometimes I use X to collect questions for Q&A or survey the public.
• Join the newsletter — The best way to stay in touch and never miss a new episode is to join the Limitless Intelligence newsletter. Don’t worry! This just signs you up for our informative weekly newsletter (actually worth reading), NOT an aggressive automated marketing machine.

At the end of my podcasts, I like to append just a bit of extra entertainment value: AI songs. Yes, I know you’re probably already OVER the novelty of AI songs. But I do this, frankly, because there’s a surprising amount of tedious work that goes into producing good content like this, and creating AI songs is something I just find really fun.

Lifting The Veil

Once upon a time, I published a meta-analysis video about Kratom and, funnily enough, it made the internet more angry at me than anything else I’ve published. The enraged comments flooded into my comments section when I called it an Opioid, a non-Nootropic performance enhancer, and criticized it for a lack of human clinical trials.

Then in 2016, I was actually Donald Trump representative in a 90-minute televised debate. And I offhandedly made the libertarian case for the legality and harm reduction potential of Kratom, which my debate opponent didn’t like. I feel politically vindicated on that one because the Trump administration has generally moved public health in a more libertarian direction, and Kratom remained legal, giving millions the herb they need for chronic pain management or to resist succumbing to more harmful Opioids.

Since then, there have been human clinical trials of Kratom. That’s the good news. But there’s plenty of bad news. Namely, the sordid state of the industry, which is largely unconcerned with the well-being of its customers. Fly-by-night vendors abound, and chemists create ultra-addictive forms of the herb which marketers slap silly labels on and then sell at gas stations. And really, the only thing you should be buying at gas stations is gas!

This brings me to an important and pragmatic red pill. In a more libertarian world, there are fewer persnickety rules barring greedy corporations from preying on consumers. That’s the big trade-off, but those corporations still need us to click the buy button. A serious responsibility falls on you to make smarter choices about what you buy or put in your body — especially when it comes to things like Kratom.

Today, I’m joined by Brandon Hayes of Tribe Botanics based in New Jersey. Which I think stands out because of their transparency and quality standards: every batch is third-party lab-tested, and full COAs and exact mitragynine % are published on each product page. That’s what we look for as Biohackers! In this interview, we get into the promise and perils of Kratom along with the recent science.

Mentioned in this interview

My meta-analysis — Kratom: An opioid-based non-nootropic performance enhancer with a dark side

Recent Kratom science: 4 clinical trials

AVOID 7-OH Kratom

HRV trackers — use these to determine how things affect you

Garmin Smart Watch

History of coffee — explained in the documentary series Black Coffee

The Social Anxiety Protocol for Biohacking Confidence

Phenibut: The Socially Lubricating Anti-Anxiety Smart Drug Cosmonauts Used

Phenibut: The Socially Lubricating Anti-Anxiety Smart Drug Cosmonauts Used

Kava: A mood enhancer

Alternative chronic pain treatments: Kratom, red light therapy, emotional freedom techniques

Withstand Kratom Withdrawal — with the peptide Selank

Adaptogen herbs: Rhodiola, Horny Goat Weed, Ashwagandha

Nicotine — My favorite addictive Smart Drug

Nicotine: The Addictive Creativity Drug

My novel about Biohacking and philosophy, Hourglass

Hourglass

Try Tribe Botanics’ Kratom

Our mission is to deliver a high-quality, lab-tested, consistent product to every customer, and we hold that standard by working closely with our farmers to keep improving the grade and character of every harvest. Each batch is third-party tested for contamination and potency, so quality and safety are never left to chance.

Home - Tribe Botanicals

Limited-time offer: Pay for shipping and get a free Kratom sample

Here’s a catchy song about Kratom…

Let me confirm something you already know on a gut level…

The supplement industry is a capitalist wild wild west, a profiteers’ paradise, a mostly unregulated free market, and smart consumers should beware.

While the ubiquitous white Nutrition Facts box you see on the labeling of the packaging looks official, anyone with basic word processing software can create such a representation of the ingredients ostensibly in a product. When you realize that no one verifies that the actual individual ingredients are in a given product, you realize how much of a decision to buy and take a supplement is based upon trust.

The Nutrition “Facts”

When supplement companies sell products to consumers, they can count on most consumers not verifying what they are consuming. Sure, the consumers could send products off for testing at a third-party laboratory, but that costs between hundreds and thousands of dollars. While some consumer spectroscopy devices are coming to market that promise to disrupt multiple industries that prey on the voracious consumer, at the current time consumers have virtually no way of personally determining what they are actually putting in their bodies.

The good news: to make almost certain that you are getting the real stuff, insist on always buying pharmaceutical-grade supplements.

Why trust Pharmaceutical Grade?

When a University spends six figures (or more) to conduct a major double-blind, placebo-controlled study with dozens of human participants, they verify that the compounds, ingredients, drugs, or supplements they are using are real. The potential negative repercussions of not doing so are huge…

• A study conducted with illegitimate ingredients would produce inaccurate results. Scientists know that once their study is published in a journal, their colleagues at other universities will recreate their experiments to verify their findings. Not to mention, these scientists have to spend sometimes as much as $30,000 — $40,000 just on the publishing of their studies.
• Many a feud between scientists and universities has its origins in one researcher challenging the conclusions another reached after a study.
• Making a mistake in process or methodology during a study, referred to as having “dirty test tubes,” can result in a researcher being fired, a University’s reputation being damaged, or an organization losing its funding from the government.

These guys are seriously motivated to make certain they are using the real stuff, and in their laboratories, they have the means to do so. They spend extra to get Pharmaceutical Grade and so should you! Pharmaceutical-grade manufacturers and distributors aren’t intrinsically more ethical; it’s just that they know their products are going to be tested for legitimacy and purity by their most important customers — business they stand to lose if they put out anything less than the real thing.

What are the grades of supplements?

Pharmaceutical Grade

The purity, dissolution, and absorption of a given vitamin are third-party tested and verified to meet regulatory standards that come from the national Pharmacopeia. Pharmaceutical Grade can be obtained without a prescription, but typically they are sold by licensed health care practitioners. Companies that distribute this grade will typically be Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) certified, so look for GMP Certified on the labeling and websites of the products you order from. It’s required to be 98–99% pure; you’re never going to get 100% pure, but this grade is required to be within a couple of percentage points of it.

Medical Grade

They are also high-grade, high-purity vitamins, although they may not undergo the stringent third-party verification process that Pharmaceutical Grade vitamins have to. If Pharmaceutical Grade is not available, you will usually be fine taking Medical Grade supplements, and the benefits you experience will be very similar.

Cosmetic / Nutritional Grade

These are what you will typically find on the shelves of health food stores. They are not tested for absorption or purity; indeed, no one actually tests the contents of these products. In this age of convenient eCommerce, you are better off just avoiding this grade altogether and ordering Pharmaceutical grade online. Supplements of this grade will contain some very dubious extra ingredients, like cornstarch, folic acid, and chemical preservatives — some that the FDA does not even require the manufacturer to list on the label.

Food Grade

For additions to food products; think about “healthy breakfast cereals” that boast about being fortified with vitamins and nutrients — typically this will be very low quality. The food business is a doggedly competitive arena, where most consumers make decisions completely on price, so food manufacturers are almost always looking for the lowest-cost individual ingredients.

Feed or Veterinarian Grade

For consumption by our furry friends and industrial animals.

Let’s take a further look at the eight most popular types of Nootropics…

The human brain is an incredibly complex system with thousands of different types of processes occurring at any given moment. For Biohackers, this gives us a lot of different angles to take on cognitive enhancement. These categories represent hundreds of different mechanisms of action that enhance cognition, improve memory, treat depression, empower neuroplasticity, speed up skill acquisition, help with focus, and minimize stress, along with preventing and even reversing cognitive decline.

For my up-to-date, vetted sources of…

• Amino Acids
• Acetylcholine Precursors
• Adaptogens
• Antioxidants
• B Vitamins
• Herbs
• Mitochondrial Support
• Modafinil
• NAD+ Boosters
• Nutraceuticals
• Nutrients
• Peptides
• Racetams

Check out this article here…

Why Choose Pharmaceutical Grade Nootropics + 3rd Party Verified Sources

Pharmaceutical Grade Stacks?

I’ve been a hardcore consumer of Nootropics for over a decade now, and I’m increasingly less and less of a believer in the majority of Nootropic Stacks. You can’t fit three grams of Piracetam and a gram of choline in a single pill, so manufacturers trying to add 5–10 different ingredients to a single pill will need to decrease the quantities to truly insignificant amounts. I believe in taking Nootropics in the dosages recommended by the human studies that demonstrated a cognition-enhancing effect from them in the first place, and most Nootropic Stacks just don’t offer this.

Also, supplement stack distributors are less likely to have stringent quality standards for individual ingredients; most stack distributors are just white-labeling ingredients. This is a business model prone to low quality; let’s say their source of pharmaceutical-grade B vitamins (which comprise 40% of the ingredients in their stack) runs out, are they going to stop selling their product while they look for another source of equal quality? Not likely. What they will typically do is switch to another vendor who can get the raw materials to them as soon as possible, regardless of quality. In contrast, a company that sells a single-ingredient product is much more liable for the quality of that ingredient.

My reservations made, there are several stacks I have been impressed with personally, so I recommend them enthusiastically; they are also confirmed to use pharmaceutical-grade ingredients in their stacks.

Worst Case Scenario?

In the past decade, there have been a couple of highly publicized instances of supplement manufacturers putting out products that harmed the health of their customers, like Fen-Phen and Craze — the popular pre-workout powder that turned out to be meth. The jail sentences and lawsuits resulting from these instances will hopefully motivate even the most unethical, opportunistic supplement distributor to make sure they aren’t selling poison to their customers. The odds of non-pharmaceutical-grade products poisoning you or making you sick? Low.
As some Biohacking experts have said, the biggest risk of being a supplement junkie is: having expensive pee. Your liver will automatically filter out superfluous vitamins, nutrients, or supplement filler that your system doesn’t need or can’t absorb.

Certificates of Analysis

Several leading Nootropics distributors provide certificates of analysis by third-party laboratories, usually in the form of PDF documents, on their websites or by request. These certificates of analysis will show the percentage of the advertised ingredients the product actually contains, any microbial presence (like yeast or mold), along with any trace amounts of compounds like lead or arsenic found. The COAs also provide the name and contact information of the laboratory that did the testing, so you could call them up and confirm the results if you wanted.

COAs — Featured in Fiction

I actually mention them in my SciFi/Cyerbpunk novel about Biohacking, Hourglass…

This was going to take the best Smart Drug stack he’d ever encountered. Caballo, as its idiosyncratic inventor called it, was a combination of pharmaceutical-grade ingredients…

Caballo was something he’d used before, and he had a small stash of the black and red capsules it came in remaining. He checked certificates of analysis from a time-of-flight laboratory of the ingredients and ordered a larger supply rushed from a source that only accepted payment in privacy altcoins. But it was such a potent cognitive enhancer that he didn’t want to run into its tolerance curve. He’d use it on alternating days with another Smart Drug stack…

Hourglass

Avoid Cheap Supplements

Finding the best deal on any given commodity is highly encouraged; indeed, we are regarded as foolish if we don’t shop around just a little bit. If you are going to buy a house, car, or pair of shoes, you want the best deal since you are getting the same product regardless of how much money you spend. Common sense would dictate that applying the same philosophy to buying supplements would be disastrous, yet cheap wins out consistently online over quality and credibility. There are two really big problems with buying cheap or on-sale supplements…

1. Counterfeiting

Any drug or supplement that commercially does well is assured to be ripped off by counterfeiters in China.
To quote former FDA Agent and Forensic Investigator Gary Collins on counterfeit supplements:

“During my FDA tenure we ran lab tests on all kinds of lookalike pills and capsules. Some cheap/counterfeit supplements had ten times or more the amount of “medicinal” ingredients as was indicated on the label. Worse, some had none, and others simply contained large amounts of sawdust!”

Sawdust is a lot less expensive than producing, sourcing, testing, packaging, transporting, and storing some exotic molecule or rare nutraceutical plant extract. So it can be a very profitable business to come up with a cool product name, build a sharp website, design cool packaging, and sell sawdust at a massive markup.

2. Expired Ingredients

Distributors overorder raw supplies from manufacturers, and as the expiration dates approach, they grow antsy to move the products off their shelves and avoid taking a loss. They will begin to sharply discount the product; if you buy it, you are buying a product with plummeting potency and possibly risking toxicity as the ingredients age and break down. Even worse, sometimes even well-known distributors will sell their expired supplies to third parties that are fronts for criminal organizations. They will white-label, create fake expiration date labels, and sell the supplies online at a steep discount since they paid just pennies on the dollar for the supplies. Obviously, you want to get the best deal on your supplements, but if a particular brand or product is significantly cheaper than others on the market, it’s a good sign it’s not legitimate. Additionally, if the product or product’s website lacks…

• Phone number
• Address
• Names and email addresses of the people behind the product and company

You can be almost certain it’s an illegitimate product that you DO NOT want in your body.

You are going to pay a premium, but quality supplements, especially Nootropics, will enhance your economic productivity (perhaps to the tune of thousands of dollars a month). So economically, it’s a pretty clear choice between a credible $70 supplement and a $39 similar product On Sale from a dubious source.

Red Flag: Influencer Recommendations

Apparently, one of the very biggest health/personal growth influencers — someone you have almost certainly heard of — charges brands $55,000 for platforming their products in front of his following.

• The economics of influencer marketing are really not great for you as the consumer. Influencers, especially the bigger ones, demand sometimes astronomical upfront payments for promotion and/or steep affiliate commissions paid. And this just doesn’t leave a lot of margin for brands to actually source quality individual ingredients.
• The other issue with influencer marketing is the parasocial one. You come across an influencer online; they tell you some kind of story that you really connect with. You hit the follow button, and over time you get to feel like you really know this person and the trust builds. When they hold up a supplement and sing its praises, your mind skips over the critical thinking steps as you rush to click the Buy Now button. There’ve been way too many examples of influencers promoting products that were ultimately pretty shoddy or downright scams.

Not all influencers are bad and not all influencer-marketed products are awful, but at this point, it’s a minor red flag if you first hear about a product from an influencer.

So while there are some risks, it’s pretty easy to avoid the low-quality, scammy, and counterfeit Nootropics:

1. Look for Pharmaceutical Grade or GMP Certified.
2. Don’t buy On Sale, deeply discounted, or Nootropics that are priced drastically lower than what seems to be fair market value for them.
3. Look for a Certificate of Analysis; ask for it if they don’t have it displayed on their website.
4. Purchase from someone that you can contact easily. Look for a phone number, address, and bios of real people behind the company.

Perhaps you’re asking, what about Joe Rogan’s Alpha Brain? I made a song about that, which you should get a laugh out of…

6% More "Alpha"

There’s a dichotomous old dogma I’m sure you reject: that you can develop your mind or develop your body. The mind/body split that the dweebest of philosophers and academics once espoused.
But there’s another dichotomy that might be limiting you: the belief that fast equals rushed and “quantity has a quality all its own” when it comes to your time commitment to your health, fitness, and personal growth.
“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” right?
That’s a saying as old as, well, Rome, I’m sure.
But might it now be… wrong?
Might you actually have all the time you need to elevate your mind to the divine frequency it’s intended to receive and chisel your body so that every mirror refracts greatness?

That’s a question that I’m going to get really pragmatic on today with PJ Glassey…

PJ is an author, serial entrepreneur, and the creator of the revolutionary high-intensity protocol behind X Gym in Kirkland, Washington (which boasts an almost perfect 4.9-star rating on Google Maps). He’s going to tell us how to fit 7 hours of traditional fitness into two 21-minute sessions a week, along with the neuroscience of neuro-centric movement, brain typing, and how high-efficiency biohacking can rebuild your physique without taxing your schedule.

Mentioned in the interview

PJs Timehacks

7 hours of fitness in two 21-minute sessions — With continuous time under tension. Explained here…

“Exercise snacks” — Doing 1 to 2 minutes of exertion every hour (e.g., using stairs or air squats) to transform metabolism.

Variable resistance training — from the book Weight Lifting Is a Waste of Time by Dr. John Jaquish. But continuous time under pressure beats pricey home gym workout gear or products.

Jonathan’s Timehacks

In my first year of parenthood, with a new baby, I managed to run my business, write a book, work out 61 times, do date nights with my wife, and managed to stay in touch with family because I don’t use the “too busy” excuse.

Philosophy: Let small bad things happen. Mundane things: do them fast enough that you make little mistakes.

Workouts and fitness: 10–20 minutes; I would do them at home, squats holding the baby, and I would pair them with whatever knowledge I needed to acquire. For me, any workout time is professional development time. There’s always some topic I need to research: it could be a podcast guest’s book or how to keep my unvaccinated child safe from mumps. So I listen to audiobooks, podcasts, or whatever you can do now — if there’s a topic you need to learn about. Find like 4–5 sources on it: web pages, books, etc. Load these into a Google’s GEMINI AI Notebook, then prompt GEMINI to create a podcast about the topic, BUT in the prompt be very specific about your specific situation and goal. And it will do a scary good job of pinpointing what you need to know from those sources.

Memory hacks: Mnemonics + SuperMemo app — remember more of the knowledge you absorb from books.

Moonwalking with Einstein [Book Review]

Picking the right spouse: My wife knows Jonathan will not wait in a line to buy something.

Buy an hourglass as a reminder of the preciousness of time.

Brain Type Test

Might you be failing to break through glass ceilings in your health, fitness, and life because you’re using the wrong lifehacks for your “brain type?”

Brain Type Description | Personal Trainer | Kirkland, West Seattle

About X Gym — “The Timehack Gym”

X Gym is a personal training and small-group training studio in Kirkland, WA (also serving Bellevue and the Eastside), founded in 1998. Using proprietary high-intensity protocols, clients train just 21 minutes, twice a week in studio or online.

Check out their informative YouTube channel or PJ’s blogs on Zone Two cardio, exercise snacks, and more.

XGYM Video Workout App

Built just for people who want to do workouts whenever and wherever they like!

Dozens of Workout Videos! And more videos added every month

PJ Glassey, X Gym Founder, Is Your Trainer! — (It will feel like he’s in your head — yet not in a creepy way)

Filter Your Xercise Videos! By muscle focus, Xercise method, equipment, and more

Xercise Videos Formatted For Any Device! — Watch on your phone, tablet, computer, TV, etc.

Xtra Fast And Intuitive! Log in and GO — even if it’s for just one Xercise!

XGym Mobile App | Personal Fitness Training in Bellevue

My conversation with PJ inspired this song about time management…

Velocopedic

Creatine is one of the most well-known health supplements. It’s often caricatured as something just for gym bros because it helps them build muscle…

But actually, it’s a veritable Mitochondrial Nootropic for all-around human awesomeness.

This article is mostly going to focus on decoding what the human studies are saying about Creatine and how this squares up with the anecdotal experiences of Biohackers online.

Biohacker Review: The Swiss Army Knife of Mitochondrial support supplements

Creatine was one of the first supplements I used out of the behemothic box I received from PureBulk.com because it’s the Swiss Army Knife of Mitochondrial support supplements. I use it as both a Nootropic and workout performance enhancer, which I’ll describe here along with summarizing the most recent science and research done on Creatine.

As a Nootropic

While I won’t call it a smart drug, it does have subtle Nootropic effects; I notice myself being a bit more energized, optimistic, and motivated after taking a few grams of Creatine in the mid-morning. I did stack it with about 800 milligrams of N-Acetyl L-Tyrosine (NALT), which enhanced the Nootropic effects and kept me alert on a few days when I was a little underslept. I did take a heart rate variability measurement with my HeartMath device on this stack and achieved a coherence score of 1.2 while working on my laptop, which is a little of an uptick over my baseline.

Creatine and the Brain

Because the brain and nervous system require such high amounts of energy , it’s logical to assume the neurological system can benefit greatly from creatine — and this is being corroborated by clinical research . A growing number of studies have found that creatine can protect the brain from neurotoxic agents and certain forms of brain injury . (2650–2652)

Mitochondrial Nootropic

Head Strong by Dave Asprey makes the case that optimizing your Mitochondria is the ultimate performance-enhancing Biohack because your Mitochondria are the fundamental energy generation mechanism that underlies everything else. From the book:

Creatine has been a workout staple for decades, but the guys in the weight room probably don’t realize that creatine works by increasing ATP production in your mitochondria. This is what gives your muscles an extra boost of energy. Creatine also benefits your brain. In one study, creatine supplements caused a significant increase in working memory and intelligence.
(p. 263)

On the two-week Head Strong program, I recommend the loading phase so that you can feel the creatine’s effects right away. If you do this, be sure to drink a lot of water. (p. 264)

Vs Sleep Deprivation

A 2024 randomized trial found that a single high dose (about 0.35 g/kg) increased brain phosphocreatine and buffered the cognitive hit of overnight sleep loss.

If you’re underslept, reach for some Creatine (and don’t be shy about the dose). It assuages sleep deprivation, jet lag, stress, and fatigue generally because: “The more the brain is stressed, the more Creatine comes to rescue,” according to Dr. Candow.

Creatine stacks well with one of my long-time daily driver Nootropics: L-Tyrosine. My first year as a brand-new dad was surprisingly productive thanks to this stack (and some other lifehacks).

Tyrosine: Military-Grade Nootropic for Hacking Acute Stress and Sleep Deprivation

Workout Performance Enhancer

One of the most reliable effects of Creatine is that you’ll be able to push yourself a little harder in the gym. You’ll walk home from the gym a little sorer than usual, but with a proud smile on your face for the gains you’ve made: pushing more weight, achieving more reps, or sweating it out more doing cardio. I stack it with one of my other favorite workout performance enhancers, HMB, for epic workouts that I’d be sore from for days if it wasn’t for the recovery hacks I employ: red light therapy on my muscles, healing PEMF frequencies, and a before-bedtime massage from my lady.

The other thing I like about Creatine is the muscle pump; it does make your muscles look bigger if you take it and work out consistently. HMB has a complementary effect; it essentially preserves muscle mass if you’re slacking on your workouts. So a vain yet economically-minded Biohacker would want to use them both; take 5 grams of Creatine and HMB on workout days to build muscle, and then if you need to take a few weeks off the gym for travel, work, or over the holidays, take just a few grams of Creatine daily as a Nootropic and HMB to preserve your strength gains.

A caveat on workout performance enhancers…

As Jeff Cavaliere of ATHLEAN-X preaches, you earn the right to take workout supplements. You probably shouldn’t be cramming supplements in your mouth your first week or month in the gym — you should put in the work for a couple of months building up foundational strength and competence before turning to supplements. The kinds of performance enhancers I name here do unlock an extra reserve of power and motivation. They can make you overconfident in the gym when you shouldn’t be, risking an injury that will ultimately set you back in your fitness.

A Muscle-Building Biohack

Ben Greenfield, in Boundless, breaks down why Creatine belongs in your bodybuilding armamentarium

With increases in exercise or muscle damage, your physiological need for creatine is increased. Research suggests that creatine supplementation can increase your muscles’ work capacity and power output while enhancing your lean body mass and physical endurance. Outside of the athletic population, creatine has been shown to reduce muscle breakdown and even to support cognitive function, especially in the elderly. Because creatine stores high-energy phosphate groups in the form of phosphocreatine, it releases energy to aid cellular function during stress. This effect causes strength increases after creatine supplementation and can also benefit the brain, bones, muscles, and liver. I recommend 5 g per day, preferably in one to three doses and mixed into warm water or another warm liquid to maximize absorption. (p.581)

History

Creatine was isolated in 1832 by Michel Eugène Chevreul from a water extract of meat. He named it from the Greek kreas, “flesh.” Justus von Liebig confirmed it as a normal constituent of muscle in 1847 and noticed that wild foxes killed in the chase had far more Creatine in their flesh than caged animals, an early hint that work and Creatine travel together.

Factoid: Performance enhancement effects were first noticed giving Creatine to a racehorse named Jolly.

Overview of Creatine Science

In the past decade, over 11,000 articles of scientific research specifically on Creatine have been published on PubMed, including over a thousand clinical trials. Let’s take a look at several of them that jumped out at me…

A Spanish study compared Morning versus Evening Intake of Creatine in Elite Female Handball Players. It concluded that while circadian rhythm certainly affects performance, it didn’t make much of a difference after 12 weeks in terms of performance and body composition. However, unless the evenings are the only time you can make it to the gym, I would only take it in my mornings or early afternoons, as it is a stimulating Nootropic that might mess with your sleep.

A Canadian-Italian study looked at the synergy of Creatine and caffeine. Gym buddies have occasionally looked at me funny when I showed up to the gym with a coffee in hand, but caffeine indisputably increases power output. And in my experience, black coffee doesn’t mess with my stomach during a workout. However, the study reports that the uptick in performance from the combination was negligible. A recent systematic review evaluated ten different studies combining the two, and the conclusion is that there’s no clear answer on whether the two actually complement each other. You’ll have to try the stack for yourself and see if you like it.

Another Spanish study gave it to 23 basketball players for 8 weeks, which resulted in an improvement in both the Abalakov jump power test performance and A significant interaction effect was also observed in points per game.

A shorter Canadian-Iranian study administered Creatine to Twenty male military personnel for a week and noted an uptick in cognitive performance that could make all the difference for warfighters.

Moving beyond the “squat rack” science…

Vs Alzheimer’s

A 2025 single-arm pilot in people with Alzheimer’s disease used 20 g/day of creatine monohydrate for eight weeks. Brain creatine rose about 11 percent on spectroscopy, and scores improved on total cognition, fluid cognition, working memory, and oral reading recognition.

Vs Depression

A 2026 narrative review of five randomized trials (238 people) found a mixed but non-trivial signal: 5 g/day of Creatine added to escitalopram in women with major depression produced a large additional drop on the Hamilton scale (Cohen’s d 1.13) and roughly doubled remission versus the SSRI plus placebo. Promising adjunct. Not a replacement for treatment.

For Recovery

Impressively, there are over 280 human studies on Creatine and recovery.

Dr. Candow appeared on Rhonda Patrick’s podcast and spoke highly of its effects on recovery (both post-workout and between sets of a workout), in a deep-dive discussion worth a watch…

Vs Inflammation

A recent review sheds light on its anti-inflammatory effects…

Accumulating research also suggests that creatine supplementation has anti-inflammatory and anti-catabolic properties, which may help create a favorable environment for muscle and bone accretion and recovery from exercise. Creatine supplementation has the ability to decrease markers of inflammation and possibly attenuate cancerous tumor growth progression.

And it does strengthen your bones, but only if you’re actually working out. So get grandma Creatine and some pink dumbbells for Christmas!

Another European study suggests that it also improves anaerobic athletic performance; it increased power output during repeated sprints for Sixteen recreationally active males. It concluded…

[Creatine] supplementation improved the mean power and speed in the second half of a repeated sprint running protocol, despite the increased body mass. This improvement was due to the higher power output and running speed in the last 5 [seconds] of each 10 [seconds] sprint.

So if you’re hiking in the woods with a buddy, DON’T SHARE YOUR CREATINE WITH HIM just in case the two of you are chased by a hungry bear! The verbal fluency-enhancing effects of Creatine will surely enable you to deliver a moving eulogy at his funeral.

On Sleep

There is no good clinical evidence that it causes insomnia. What the recent trials actually show is closer to the opposite, especially when the nervous system is under load.

• A six-week trial in menstruating women taking 5 g/day found about 45–50 more minutes of sleep on resistance-training nights versus placebo, measured with an Oura ring. Placebo sleep got shorter after lifting; Creatine appeared to blunt that hit.
• A 2025 seven-day loading study in men (20 g/day) improved subjective sleep quality and pulled bedtime earlier, without changing total sleep time or efficiency.

The insomnia reports you hear in forums usually travel with a caffeinated pre-workout, a 10–20 g late-night bolus, or just training later. If Creatine itself is keeping you up, move the dose to morning or with a meal.

For Baby Makin’

Sperm run on Creatine. A 2025 eight-week pilot (5 g/day, with or without ubiquinol) found 60% of men on Creatine improved sperm concentration versus 20% on placebo, and every oligospermic man on Creatine improved. Small study, right direction. Pregnancy research is early and clinical, not a DIY prenatal stack.

Post-pregnancy, my wife took Creatine daily, and we think it helped her energy levels (also, at 41 years old, she is still nursing daily after nearly 15 months. Bravo, babe!)

Forms of Creatine

Marketing loves a new salt. The ISSN-aligned critical review of alternative forms is blunt: there is little to no evidence that newer creatines are more stable, faster, more effective at raising muscle creatine, or cleaner on side effects than monohydrate.

• Creatine Monohydrate (especially micronized). Gold standard. Near-complete oral bioavailability. Micronized just mixes better.
• Creatine hydrochloride (HCl). Truly more water-soluble. That is real. What is not real is the “38× more bioavailable, so take 750 mg” claim. Solubility in a glass is not the same as muscle uptake. Qualifying head-to-head muscle-creatine trials are thin to nonexistent. Fine if your stomach hates monohydrate grit. Not an upgrade on efficacy
• Buffered creatine / Kre-Alkalyn. Sold as pH-stable, so it will not turn into creatinine in the stomach. A 2012 randomized trial found no advantage over monohydrate for muscle creatine, strength, or body composition.
• Gummies and chews. Same molecule in a worse format. Independent tests have repeatedly found products underdosed. Only worth it if the brand publishes third-party assays showing a full 3–5 g of actual Creatine per serving.

Verdict: If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it — buy patented Creapure or another third-party-tested monohydrate.

Mechanism of Action

From Dr. Lee Know’s recent book

Creatine is directly related to ATP . When a cell uses ATP , it loses a phosphate molecule and becomes ADP , which must be converted back to ATP for useful energy cycling . Because creatine is stored in the body as creatine phosphate , it can donate a phosphate molecule to ADP to regenerate ATP . This process is very speedy and is the main source of cellular energy production at the start of high — intensity anaerobic activity ( such as a 100 — meter sprint or lifting heavy weights ) . Having a large pool of creatine phosphate means this fast pathway of ATP regeneration can be sustained longer , which is exactly why creatine has been so beneficial for athletes . (2640–2645)

Sources

My go-to source is PureBulk.com — what makes their product stand out is that it’s verified as pure with a certificate of analysis from an accredited American lab. This evidence of purity is something you should demand from your local gym supplement shop or the sellers on Amazon, which likely can’t provide it.

BulkSupplements.com in the USA is also a decent source for Micronized Creatine Powder. If you prefer capsules, I recommend Double Wood’s purity-verified supplements.

In the EU, where I live, my go-to source is Jotunheim Nutrition.

Any product with patented Creapure® (or Creapure) is a good buy.

Downloadable Creatine?

You may be interested in taking it as an infoceutical — a non-pharmacological, side-effect-free version of the supplement that takes advantage of the phenomenon of water memory — which is imprinted on water via quantum collocation and electromagnetism using this device…

IC Pad by Infopathy [Biohacker Review]

Infocueticals typically have 1/3 or half the effect of the actual medicine being imprinted. If you’re skeptical of Infopathy, that’s understandable; it’s a game-changing application of a little-known scientific phenomenon. But I’d urge you to evaluate the scientific evidence (presented in my biohacker review) that downloadable medicine is no longer science fiction…

Usage and Dosage

Recommended daily dose

• 5 Grams — for maintenance of general health
• 10 grams — The middle-ground performance optimization dose for stronger muscles, bones, and brain.
• 20 grams — for aggressive muscle growth, or days when you are particularly stressed, fatigued, or underslept

Some experts contend that with Creatine, more is more — “Get crazy with +20 grams daily!” There’s no real risk to experimenting with mega-dosing, so if you buy the stuff in bulk powdered, why not?

Some advocate a…

“loading phase” in which you take 20 g daily (four doses of 5 g) for a week, then 5 g daily to maintain after that.

Others contend that’s unnecessary. A suggestion for absorption…

Creatine gets into your muscles more effectively if you pair it with a tiny amount of glucose. You don’t need much, so I recommend taking it with a quarter of a teaspoon of raw honey. (p. 264)

Capsuled vs Powdered

I appreciate having both the powdered and capsuled Creatine. Many mornings I’d mix a couple of grams of powdered Creatine (which has a not-awful, tangy taste) in a beverage or yogurt with other supplements. Then, before rushing out the door to the gym, I’d drop a capsule or two for extra energy in the domain of iron.

Side Effects

Not much to worry about here. “If our body doesn’t like it, our body just excretes it,” according to Dr. Candow.

• Intracellular water weight — Typically 1–2 kg in the first weeks. Water is pulled into muscle, not under the skin as “bloat.” Scales jump. That is the mechanism, not fat.
• GI distress — The only consistently reported nuisance. Almost always from a large single bolus (loading 20 g, or 10 g+ on an empty stomach). Split the dose, take it with food, use more water, or drop to 5 g. Micronized powder helps some people.

When I first started taking Creatine years ago, my wife was worried that it might cause hair loss (she really LOVES my hair) because of a small study she had seen that noted that effect among Spanish soccer players. I looked at this and found the statistical effect unconvincing. Since there’s better research done on this, Does Creatine cause hair loss? A 12-week randomized controlled trial — of 45 men.

This study was the first to directly assess hair follicle health following creatine supplementation, providing strong evidence against the claim that creatine contributes to hair loss.

Here’s my hair — on Creatine…

Risk Grade: A-

• One of the most studied supplements in existence. Short- and long-term use (including up to 30 g/day for years in some clinical cohorts) has a clean safety record in healthy people.
• Real downsides are GI upset at clumsy doses, a confusing creatinine lab value, and intracellular water weight. Those are nuisances, not organ toxicity.
• The practical risk that actually bites consumers is product quality: under-dosed gummies, proprietary “advanced creatine” blends on Amazon, and stacks that hide 1–2 g of Creatine behind a $50 label. Buy monohydrate with a certificate of analysis.

Main risk of Creatine: Being dangerously sexy

Cofactors

The Mighty Muscle Growth Dream Team Stack: Creatine, Collagen, Whey Protein & HMB

If you’re serious about putting on muscle, stack these three on with Creatine…

Collagen

Since it’s a crucial component of our muscles, it’s an exercise or muscle-building hack. There are 12 clinical trials evaluating its effects on exercise. You’d want to take at least 15 grams daily.

Collagen - An anti-aging game changer for the vain?

Whey Protein

30–60 grams of whey protein and 3 grams of HMB is a body composition hack for healthy adults, according to a recent resistance-training study, which showed increased fat-free mass over twelve weeks. You might be wondering about the clinically validated difference between whey protein and Collagen; a Brazilian study of lifters found that Collagen had a greater effect on power output, while whey protein resulted in larger muscles. Good to know for… Swimmers (both will make you tastier to sharks!)

HMB

I did find a meta-analysis specifically on the Creatine and HMB stack that I’m taking that evaluated six papers and concluded…

In summary, the combination of 3–10 g/day of [Creatine] plus 3 g/day of HMB for 1–6 weeks could produce potential positive effects on sport performance (strength and anaerobic performance) and for 4 weeks on body composition (increasing fat free mass and decreasing fat mass).

HMB by Double Wood [Biohacker Review]

Here’s a handy chart for the Mighty Muscle Growth Dream Team Stack

Practical stack on a training day: 5 g creatine + 15 g collagen in one drink, 30–40 g whey around the session, 3 g HMB split or with a meal. Drink water. You do not need 20 g of Creatine every day just because the stack is “aggressive.” Muscle creatine saturates; extra mostly ends up as creatinine.

Cordyceps

I would like to stack it with Cordyceps; a combination highly recommended by my friend Dinnin.

Cordyceps Meta-Analysis

Shrooms

Biohacker (and large human) Thomas DeLauer suggests as Nootropic cofactors for a multiplied neurogenesis effect, Lion’s Mane or Reishi mushroom.

Lion's Mane - The best Nootropic mushroom

Creatine — It’s what your Mitochondria crave!

If you’re interested in supporting your Mitochondria but a little confused by the dizzying number of supplemental options to do so out there, just start with Creatine, which is very affordable. Creatine is a no-brainer…
You can take just a little or as much as 5 grams
You can take it just on workout days or every day
Stack it with other performance enhancers or don’t
You don’t need any fancy form of Creatine — just go with Creatine Monohydrate
Regardless, it will benefit your myriad Mitochondria — you’ll feel (and likely look) better!

I made an (AI) song about Creatine…

What Mitochondria Crave

We’ve got a bevy of questions here ranging from arresting cognitive decline, new dad lifehacks, and old English inquiries to Reddit randomness that we’ll get to, but I have a direct ask for you: if you’ve gotten some transformative value from my work — this is your chance to shape it in the future — participate in the 2026 Limitless Audience Survey…

Disclaimer

What you find on this website is NOT medical advice. I’m not a doctor. I’m just an experienced, unlicensed self-experimenter practicing free speech by talking about my own extensive experiences and my interpretations of published science. Please see my guide on How to Biohack Smart and Safe. You should consult a doctor about any biohacking you’re doing and, ideally, also get a second opinion.

#46 Questions

Q

A 38-year-old former tunneling worker based in Sydney with a 5-month-old son, with due to deep concerns over potential early cognitive decline, citing word-finding difficulties, memory lapses, executive dysfunction, a history of shift work and fine silica dust exposure, and a APOE3/4 genotype with his mother, who has early Alzheimer’s at 66. Additionally struggling with chronic mild irritation, elevated anxiety manifested in hair-twisting habits, and persistent mild neutropenia alongside recurring skin rashes, he has already stopped past heavy partying and alcohol use and is actively managing his health through an extensive supplement regimen, 40 Hz light/sound therapy, and vagus nerve stimulation.

A

For mind and memory

Piracetam — The best smart drug for memory

Mnemonics Practice — Because “even average memories are remarkably powerful when used properly”

Working memory rehab protocol — for restoring brain power and focus

Add neuroplasticity stimulators: Semax, Selank, and Lion’s Mane

Stress management

Are you an MTHFRer? Do 30 minutes of meditation a day; if not, reframe as “ustress”

Parenting hacks

New dad life will mess with your cognitive powers — peaceful parenting makes life easier. 1) no vaccines 2) no yelling in the house 3) no circumcision 4) no corporal punishment 5) no daycare

For much better sleep as a new parent: alternate nights sleeping with the baby

Supervised detox protocol is a good idea — THIS is out of my wheelhouse; hire a good functional medicine doctor

Empirical Zinc protocol — detailed in my Zinc meta-analysis: Targets his persistent mild neutropenia (1.6 × 1⁰⁹/L) and recurring skin rashes. Regulates NMDA receptors, supporting synaptic plasticity and executive function without overstimulating anxiety.

Q

Responding to Defying dire destiny: born dead, breaking world records & thriving despite cerebral palsy 🎙️ with Mikael Avatar

I was initially going to skip this podcast because I didn’t think it had anything to do with biohacking, but this truly fits the definition. The intro is excellent and I literally had to pull over from driving and delve into this. I haven’t looked to see if there’s a transcript but if not, I’ll generate one and it will be something that I reflect back on and share often. Very meaningful and life-changing which is the essence of biohacking. Thank you.

A

Not sure if I’m going to start adding transcripts — is that something that more of my audience would like?

Q

Jonathan, random question: I see you swaying side to side in your videos: do you have restless leg syndrome by chance? Or perhaps just have excessive energy during peak energy parts of the day?
I sometimes do the bobbing knee when sitting, and sometimes when having insomnia, I find that if I shake my legs it helps my muscles to relax, so perhaps I have it somewhat myself.

A

Recommndations

Sitting is the new smoking, so I have long used an adjustable laptop stand — the poor man’s standing desk.

Do Soleus Push-Ups

Q

I vaguely recall from the years when i was more nootropics obsessed that some biohackers had started to consider racetam nootropics as having some higher risks/more moderate side effects, and thought folks were more moving away from them? Am I mistaken in this?

A

Racetams are one of the safest classes of Nootropics. Consider the safety evidence for the Racetam-rich stack I created, Caballo.

Q

Picture two identical twins over the next decade: twin A takes the absolute gold-standard nootropic stack every morning but lives in total behavioral chaos, while twin B takes sugar placebo pills but maintains absolute stoic discipline and laser focus. Who wins in the long term ??????

A

The one taking the placebo, of course! Might this hypothetical question be referring to the fictional Biohacker twins in my novel series Hourglass?

Q

A subscriber forwarded an email from David Tomen (Nootropics Expert) warning about a 2021 Seoul National University Hospital study where +100,000 Alpha-GPC users aged 50+ showed a 46% higher relative stroke risk compared to over 11 million non-users — with the risk increasing in a dose-dependent manner among those taking it daily for up to 10 years — leading Tomen to label it one of the “most dangerous supplements.” Will Alpha GPC KILL biohackers?

A

Association of L-α Glycerylphosphorylcholine With Subsequent Stroke Risk After 10 Years — The study highlights that long-term, high-dose Alpha-GPC use in elderly populations with existing vascular vulnerabilities carries potential cardiovascular trade-offs. However, claiming it is “one of the most dangerous supplements on the market” for a healthy adult using moderate doses is classic headline alarmism.

Recommndations

CDP Choline (Citicoline) — Alpha GPC alternatives like Citicoline follow a different metabolic pathway and generally do not raise TMAO levels to the same degree.

Q

What manner of bodily rite or daily custom, seeming on the scroll as dry and unlovely as a plunge into icy waters or the blocking of the blue light, yet in the secret chambers of the home, brings forth the most wondrous and desirable fruit? As it is written, “The glory of young men is their strength, but the beauty of old men is the gray hair,” yet here the true glory lies in the unseen work.

A

Tantric practice is one of the awesomest ethical hedonism hacks — watch the first module of the course, 9 Steps to Becoming a Tantric Man

Master Mind Master Body Master Her

Q

What should I do with 40 cans of oysters?
Guys and ladies, I made a small blunder (long story) and ended up with 40 cans of oysters — Crown Prince Natural, Whole Oysters, Packed In Water, 8 oz (226 g) ordered from iHerb.
Ideally, I want to sell them to get my money back… but where? If that doesn’t work out, or if you have good suggestions, I could also donate them somewhere… but where??
Give me ideas on what to do with them.

A

Start a career/hobby as an “oyster cook” vlogger or “oyster influencer”

Prepping supply of oysters (for the Zinc!)

Your questions inspired this catchy Limitless song…

Still got questions? Book a Breakthrough Consultation

My VERY FAVORITE part of my job as an Applied Neuroscience Strategist and professional Biohacker is doing one-on-one VOIP calls with folks, listening to what their challenges or goals are, and then usually I’m able to give them some crucial pieces to the puzzle for them to make a MAJOR breakthrough in their health, mindset, relationships, or productivity.
It’s something that makes me feel truly alive, and I’d like to do a call with YOU.

Breakthrough Biohacking/Lifehacking Consultation

[All details you choose to share are absolutely confidential — you may record the call if you want]

“I swear upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”

That is the famous declarative prayer of Thomas Jefferson. You have heard it a hundred times before on podcasts; it gets repeated endlessly across the pro-freedom dissident sphere online.

But cowardice remains one of the most powerful forces in human history, and too many of the political influencers you follow and support are ultimately flaccid in the real fight for human freedom.
Why? Because the pen is mightier than the sword, BUT the penis is mightier than the podcast.

Let me explain…

Cast your mind back to the early 2020s…

The height of lockdowns, mandates, media propaganda fracturing families, and state apparatuses crushing dissent with a heavy boot of censorship. Yet the technocrats severely underestimated how furiously the flame of freedom burns in the human heart. You can now get on a plane, get a job, or enter a grocery store without a vaccine passport, because of courage (the virtue that gives all other virtues their potency) — because of the courage of those who brought sharp words of truth to the globalists’ propaganda fight and the courage of all of you who simply refused to comply.

That dark chapter proved that when enough people simply say “no” and speak unvarnished truth, tyranny falters. We can score that as a battle won.

But the fight for a freer future is far from over. And truth warriors can only do so much for the fight for freedom with their words. In fact, I’d argue that we are about maxed out on the impact we can make with our words. Here’s why…

Most people don’t have minds, philosophically speaking

I’m not saying they don’t have gray matter between their ears…

The argument is that what we philosophically call a “mind” is something most people don’t actually possess: the capacity to take in sensory data about the objective world, process it rationally, construct a coherent worldview, update that worldview when new evidence arrives, and translate it into deliberate action.

Most people don’t actually do this. Most people don’t have anything approaching a coherent worldview. Their beliefs rarely update in response to new evidence. They’re largely an amalgamation of programming and indoctrination absorbed years or decades ago, driven by basal instincts and remarkably susceptible to propaganda.

That’s most people. They’ll comply when the next plandemic comes around because their “best friend” — an AI chatbot — tells them they should. There’s NO getting through to them. They are too mired in their slavery to the screen.

The next battle will not be like the last…

Those who seek to enslave us all are changing tact; bringing more seductive and insidious weapons to bear. I suspect that the globalists’ plan to enslave us all is simply the slow annihilation of the kinds of genes which carry the Promethean flame of free will. Not all of us carry them equally. The globalists want the Idiocracy future. They want less of us; they want the coming generations of tax livestock who will happily accept their chains.

So how do we win?

This brings us back to Jefferson’s oath: “I swear upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”

The crucial word in that pledge is eternal.

Memento mori. You are going to die one day. How do you wage an eternal war?

Stop bringing mere words to a cock fight. Stop bringing mere memes to a gene fight. We’re fighting tyranny with our words, because “the pen is mightier than the sword.” But it’s time to also fight tyranny with another body part because the penis is mightier than the podcast.

There are a lot of influencers and public personalities- I was one of them- who publish a lot of content exposing and pushing back on “globalism.” And, at times, this certainly takes courage — we faced censorship that did substantial damage to our abilities to make a living. But at best, it’s a short-term strategy in the fight for a freer future.

And…

At worst, it decays into a comfortable online grift — preaching to an established choir for superchats and view counts. What once took courage can all too easily become a comfortable “lifestyle entrepreneurship.”

How much real difference will another outrage podcast or commentary video make in 10, 50, or 100 years? Practically none.

Baby-making for the win

Something that doesn’t get emphasized nearly as much as it should is the decisive role of heritable genetics in the fight for human liberty.

If Thomas Jefferson’s prayer resounds with you, that’s because your ancestors were warriors; they sharpened swords and rebelled against feudal tyrants; crossed treacherous oceans to build something freer; they stormed ships and threw tea overboard. If “declaring eternal hostility” resounds powerfully for you, you’re the kind of person who should absolutely have as many children as you can.

Podcasts, media, books, and even IRL protest movements make a difference for maybe a few years. BUT passing on your freedom-loving warrior genes — having children and raising them with love and devotion, imbuing them with your values — is almost certainly the most significant thing any of us can do for the fight for freedom. THAT makes a difference for CENTURIES.

So share this around because too many online personalities and influencers — in the broader dissident sphere of the internet — bring only their words to a fight that is futile if good men remain, not-so-metaphorically, flaccid. The pushback on the COVID tyranny was a single victory in a war stretching many millennia to determine whether or not humanity will be a slave species. And that war is not over. It demands more from us than publishing “content” at this point!

I’ll quote from my book, Hourglass, a philosophical novel…

“…the structure of an hourglass is timeless in contrast to the sand that passes through it. Your genes draw you to her shape because through it, eternity beckons. Through a woman’s beauty is the only way we can achieve genetic immortality in this world. Through her shape, we cast our essence into the future; the only way that we defeat death, practically, and become like God, metaphorically, creating new life in our own image. Your legacy, in the truest sense, is the exponential effect of your genes striving for the future. But if you fail to plunge into womanly beauty and leave a part of yourself there, then in the grand arc of history — no matter what you accomplish in this life — you will be like a spear falling from a great height into a dark pool. Your legacy, barely a ripple.”

Hourglass

So if you are a man with testosterone coursing in your veins, the Promethean flame burning in your chest, and the star seed of a thousand supernovas in your loins — thrust, with keen aim, into the soft places that will take it!

“I’d love to fight for freedom with penis and cast my essence into the future through the beauty of a woman, BUT I’m single, and I never meet women with whom I really see a future…”

You might be saying, at this point. Tough love, gents: You probably have met her, but you hadn’t done the right personal growth to deserve her, or you lacked the seduction skills to get her (and keep her). Perhaps I’m underestimating you, but you may lack the specific seduction skills to set up such a relationship for long-term tranquility. That’s why you need to move to the top of your reading list my 500-page book, Don’t Stick Your Dick in a Blender: How to meet a nice girl instead — from a tantric husband with a better sex life than you!

You should get the print edition (printed near you via Lulu) because this is a book worth turning your phone off for — it includes the downloadable audiobook and digital book via a QR code.

Don't Stick Your Dick in a Blender by Jonathan Roseland

And if you’re a woman, your role in this fight is no less important; nothing will ultimately make you happier than succumbing to it.

So hopefully that leaves you inspired to fight for freedom in the most meaningful and joyful way!

People sometimes ask why I don’t do more “meta-political” content — that would certainly get more clicks than the kind of health/personal growth content that I do. That’s because I’m busy fighting for a freer future in the most meaningful and joyful way, as a devoted father of a 1-year-old…

Here’s me, operatic and off-key, singing a song I wrote to my son, Aria of Ethical Hedonism…

Savvy Entrepreneurs, Authors & Gurus Outmaneuver These Costly Behind-The-Mic Errors

Too many podcast guests with something to share or pitch treat interviews like a “one-night stand” off Tinder, but the real leverage comes from treating them like a “second date.” The first date is your introductory “vibe check” pre-interview private VOIP call with the podcaster. Once you’re done recording, you either walk away with a permanent business asset or a pile of wasted time.

Here are the 9 structural mistakes that turn high-value guests into background noise — and how to fix them…

Before you book yourself on another show, make sure you’re not leaving not-so-metaphorical money on the table with these rookie mistakes…

1) Showing up on podcasts uninformed

The Error: Showing up on podcasts, shows, and channels that you know absolutely nothing about.

The Reality: Treating an interview like a random cold call rather than a targeted boardroom meeting. If you don’t audit 1–2 past episodes, you can’t read the room, understand the host’s cadence, or drop context-specific lingo.

The Fix: Do your homework. Listen to a few recent episodes to confirm the show is a true brand fit and to build a genuine rapport with the host from minute one.

2) Rambling robs the listener of a compelling case

The Error: The podcasting medium naturally turns founders and experts into long-winded ramblers. Burying your value proposition by waiting until the 55-minute mark of a 60-minute interview to mention how people can buy or work with you.

The Fix: Save the deep technical minutiae and scientific weeds behind your product for after the 45-minute mark. Map out a tight, 15-minute compelling case ahead of time.

THE RAMBLE

• Long-winded theoretical tangents
• Muddy, unvetted backstories
• Over-explaining scientific weeds

THE COMPELLING CASE

• The Vision (Bold, contrarian theory)
• The Proof (Clinical or empirical evidence)
• The Anecdote (Emotional, human-interest story)

3) Nonchalance about presentation

• The Error: Showing up looking like you just rolled out of bed, relying on a grainy webcam, or ignoring your visual presentation.
• The Reality: Industry metrics confirm that over 50% of top-tier podcasts now post full video content on platforms like YouTube, and research shows that up to 41% of active podcast consumers prefer to watch the video rather than just listen to audio. Since the days of televised presidential debates, appearance dictates authority.
• The Fix: Dress sharp (dress shirt, jacket, styled hair). Use a clean, quiet room with balanced lighting (like a ring light). If you wear glasses, turn your screen brightness all the way down to eliminate the harsh reflection glare. Look directly at your webcam when speaking, not your screen, and ditch the fake green-screen background.

4) The “hope it goes viral” marketing plan

• The Error: Recording a 45-to-90-minute interview and immediately “ghosting” the podcaster, the platform, and the audience, relying entirely on the “Organic Lottery Ticket.”
• The Reality: The median independent podcast gets roughly 30 downloads per episode in its first week. Relying on pure organic algorithms to scale your brand is a fool’s errand.
• The Fix: “Super Signal Boost” the episode. Drop a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify before your interview airs to feed the algorithm early. When the episode drops, syndicate it everywhere: share vertical shorts across socials, leave a thoughtful comment on the video, and permanently embed the media asset on your own website’s press page.

5) Nonchalance about capturing the curious click

• The Error: Giving a great interview, mentioning a fantastic resource or product, but failing to provide a clear bridge for the listener to take action.
• The Fix: Explicitly state during the interview: “That specific resource is linked in the description below.” Insist on a backlink from the podcaster in the show notes, and direct traffic to a dedicated landing page on your domain that instantly satisfies the listener’s curiosity within 30 seconds of clicking.

6) Overreliance on AI

• The Error: Using generative AI to spray-and-pray lazy, formulaic cold emails to podcasters that read: “Hey [Host], I’ve been listening to [Podcast] and loved your recent show on [Topic]… let me tell you about myself.”
• The Reality: Hosts and PR agents can spot automated synthetic spam from a mile away. It destroys your credibility instantly.
• The Fix: Ditch AI for initial guest outreach. A simple, authentic copy/paste or personalized intro is vastly superior. Save the smarter applications of AI for post-interview operations: automating thank-you emails, chopping vertical social clips, and tracking quarterly follow-ups with hosts.

7) Not eliciting investment from the podcaster

• The Error: Treating the host as a passive microphone rather than a long-term business partner.
• The Fix: Get them personally invested in your ecosystem. Ask them to read your book, try your product, or join your community before or during the process. Request a longer interview format (e.g., 60–90 minutes) to build a deeper parasocial bond with their audience. If you want them as a motivated affiliate partner to push your high-ticket offer, remember that ethical bribery and generous revenue shares work wonders.

8) Podcasting pre-launch

• The Error: Hitting the podcast circuit when your offer is still half-baked: your book launch is 6 months away, your website is riddled with bugs, or your app is unstable.
• The Fix: Hold off on booking formal guest slots until your offering is fully ready for prime time. If you’re months away from launch, spend that time dropping high-value, insightful comments in the community sections of the target shows you want to appear on later.

9) Picking podcasts and influencers based on follower count

• The Error: Chasing massive vanity metrics and glossy influencers who boast 50,000 bot followers, high entitlement, and low engagement.
• The Reality: Follower counts are frequently inflated. A niche podcaster with a loyal, highly engaged audience of 1,000 true fans will drive vastly more revenue for a high-ticket or expert offer than a generic lifestyle influencer with a fake audience.
• The Fix: Prioritize audience quality, alignment, and purchasing power over vanity subscriber counts every single time.

Are you a Biohacking, longevity, or personal growth innovator?

Now you know how to bring your A-game behind the mic, and we’re eager to interview new guests on the Limitless podcast…

The current year is a renaissance for the Cyberpunk genre for the worst reason: Cyberpunk dystopia is no longer fiction; it’s… Tuesday.

Being chauffeured through a decaying urban center in a self-driving taxi is no longer an unsettling novelty. Your smartwatch vibrates as you doomscroll videos of soldiers fleeing drones across a forlorn battlefield, warning you that your heart rate variability is non-optimal. You take Nootropic cognitive enhancers for the edge you desperately need at work; hopefully the soulless megacorporation you work for won’t replace you with AI agents. An ad pops up for the exact thing you mentioned to your girlfriend, in bed last night, while you thought your phone was off.
It’s not just you; it’s getting weirder out there — we’re just a few holidays away from your socially awkward cousin bringing a robot girlfriend home. (Yes, I just em-dashed — UNAPOLOGETICALLY — I em-dashed before AI did and will continue to dose my hyphens with Viagra whenever I damn well please).

For decades, science fiction and the cyberpunk genre have issued us a warning: Don’t succumb completely to the siren song of technology. A warning we’ve collectively failed to heed. Despite authors’ best efforts to be countercultural, cryptically nerdy, and subversive, the cyberpunk genre is nearly mainstream because it’s become a prophecy of the world we’ll swipe right into tomorrow.

As a reader and writer, I adore the genre for its gritty hyperrealism, morally gray protagonists, believable villains, dark humor, critique of our collapsing culture, insights into human nature, and philosophical nuggets wrapped in mandelbrot sets of metaphor and technical jargon. Let’s look at some recent additions to the genre: a mix of titles put out by traditional publishers, prominent indie authors, and at least one underground gem. Presented in no particular order, 10 titles that deserve YOU lounging in your favorite chair, with noise-canceling headphones and a black hoodie on…

[Because EVERYTHING must have AI in it in the current year, for your hate-viewing pleasure, this article will feature a few AI book trailers and generated depictions of scenes.]

1. Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky

In a brilliantly boring world where human bureaucracy has finally automated itself into oblivion, Service Model delivers the ultimate corporate dystopian nightmare: a robotic valet named Uncharles who accidentally murders his master due to a minor software logic error. Instead of initiating an epic machine uprising, the clangy protagonist simply attempts to report the glitch, embarking on an absurd, bureaucratic journey through a crumbling world where AI systems continue executing useless daily routines long after human civilization has collapsed.

Tchaikovsky delivers a razor-sharp satire of modern technological over-reliance and labor automation. It asks the uncomfortable question: what happens when our automated infrastructure outlives our actual purpose, and the machines inherit nothing but our meaningless red tape? Should bureaucracy beep?

“None of these things are efficient or logical. I wish to report an error in the way that everything works.”

About the Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky is a Hugo Award-winning British science fiction and fantasy author renowned for his rigorous speculative world-building and biological hard sci-fi.

2. Hourglass by Jonathan Roseland (that’s me!)

This is my two-book series about a Biohacking cybercriminal, with the hacker alias Nero, who must save civilization from the same comet that destroyed Atlantis 12,800 years ago. Throughout the +1300 hours I spent creating it, my brainstorming partner — yes, AI — subtly nudged me toward writing a cautionary tale about our overreliance on artificial intelligence. But that story has been told a thousand times. What I thought would be more interesting is a story about lust; about how the individual’s sovereignty over their lust might mirror cosmic cycles of civilizational destruction. So that’s the story I wrote.

Hourglass bears the subtitle “Not For Sex Addicts” (which is obviously clever clickbait but also a serious warning) and is Limitless meets American Psycho meets Dark Mirror with a dash of Paradise Lost.

“The only way to capture time and defeat death is through the beauty of a woman.”

About the author: Jonathan Roseland is an Applied Neuroscience Strategist, professional Biohacker, Smart Drug Dealer, and author-banned by Amazon (how’s THAT for Cyberpunk street cred?)

[Spoiler Alert]

Both “The Devil” and Satoshi Nakamoto are characters who show up in the story’s epic climax: an “Eyes Wide Shut” party of transhumanist elites on a luxurious futuristic zeppelin in Switzerland, hovering above…CERN.

Still not sold on Hourglass? Here’s a download of 4 chapters free (properly formatted epub + “Odyssey of the Mind” style audio chapters)

3. Mickey7 by Edward Ashton

Adapted into the major feature film Mickey 17 by Oscar-winning director Bong Joon-ho, Mickey7 tackles the grim reality of corporate expendability in the frontier of space colonization. Mickey is an “Expendable”, a disposable employee tasked with undertaking the most lethal missions required to establish a human colony on an ice world. Whenever he dies, a new body is regenerated with most of his memories intact. The real trouble begins when Mickey7 survives a routine scouting mission, only to return to base and find Mickey8 already occupying his quarters.

Ashton uses this dark premise to explore identity, consciousness, and the terrifying logical endpoint of corporate human resource management. It is a brilliant, humorous, and deeply cynical look at how capitalism views human life when digital backup technology renders workers literally replaceable.

“We’re constantly being rebuilt, one board at a time… As long as memory is preserved, he hasn’t really died.”

About the author: Edward Ashton is a quantum physicist and science fiction novelist known for combining hard scientific concepts with dark, satirical commentary on human nature.

4. 36 Streets by T.R. Napper

Set in a claustrophobic, neon-soaked Hanoi under Chinese occupation, 36 Streets is a masterpiece of modern cyberpunk noir. The protagonist, Lin Vho, is a heavily modified enforcer navigating a brutal underworld governed by corporate cartels and memory-altering digital drugs (yes, please, I’ll take all the digital drugs). When she is dragged into a conspiracy surrounding a virtual reality simulation designed to rewrite national history and manipulate human memory, Lin must confront the reality of her own manipulated past.

Napper leverages his background as an international aid worker in Southeast Asia to deliver a deeply authentic, politically sharp investigation into colonial occupation (hoping it’s not really woke), trauma, and memory manipulation. It strips away the romanticism of cybernetics and exposes how advanced tech inevitably becomes a tool for state enforcement and cultural erasure.

“Towers of steel and glass, lighted windows, a universe in each one. People living their lives, side by side, yet so far from each other.”

About the Author: T.R. Napper is an award-winning Australian science fiction author and former human rights worker with a doctorate in creative writing focusing on cyberpunk literature.

5. The Body Scout by Lincoln Michel

Imagine a world where professional sports are controlled by bio-tech mega-corporations, where athletes are genetically mutated chimeras, and where body modification loans carry higher interest rates than mortgages (Hey! Cool it with the antisemitism!). The Body Scout follows Kobo, a washed-up talent scout with a cybernetic eye, who is investigating the mysterious on-field death of his brother, a superstar player for a heavily modified baseball team.

Michel delivers a gritty, hilarious, and terrifyingly plausible look at the future of biohacking and human enhancement when governed purely by unchecked consumerism. It is part hard-boiled detective story, part savage critique of Big Pharma and corporate health monopolies.

“Venom was quick, capitalism killed you nice and slow. Then sent you a bill.”

Author Summary: Lincoln Michel is an acclaimed author, editor, and professor whose fiction and cultural criticism have appeared in The New York Times, The Paris Review, and Granta.

6. Behind Blue Eyes by Anna Mocikat

In the year 2095, society is a flawless paradise controlled by an all-powerful AI called Metatron (Also the name of a new product being launched by Zuckerberg & Co in 2028, no doubt!), enforced by an elite squad of cybernetic killers known as the Guardian Angels. Nephilim is the most lethal operator in this death squad, brainwashed into believing she is protecting the perfect human society. However, after a violent mission leaves her severely damaged and forces her to experience raw, unbuffered human emotion for the first time, she begins to question the dystopian surveillance state she serves.

Mocikat has crafted a fast-paced, action-heavy indie hit that reads like 1984 merged with Ghost in the Shell. It provides a chilling preview of how social credit scores (mine will be 0.0), ideological enforcement, and algorithmic governance turn society into a gilded cage.

“They are the perfect hybrid of human and machine. They are the next step in the evolution of mankind. And when they come after you, nothing in the world will save you.”

About the author: Anna Mocikat is a German-born sci-fi novelist and screenwriter living in the United States, famous for her bestselling indie cyberpunk and post-apocalyptic book series.

7. The Book of Elsewhere by Keanu Reeves & China Miéville

Co-authored by speculative fiction titan China Miéville and Cyberpunk 2077 icon Keanu Reeves, The Book of Elsewhere plunges into the gritty intersection of ancient immortality, military bioweapons, and high-tech black sites. The story follows “B” (short for… Baal?), an unkillable, hyper-violent immortal entity who has spent millennia wandering the earth. In the modern era, he strikes a deal with a clandestine U.S. military research agency: he will serve as their ultimate black-ops operative in exchange for their advanced biotech helping him figure out how to finally end his immortal existence.

Miéville’s prose elevates Reeves’ high-octane concept into a cerebral, deeply weird investigation into trauma, consciousness, and state-sponsored violence. It’s a dark, fast-paced thriller that strips away superhero glamor to expose how military-industrial conglomerates turn immortal flesh into just another weaponized asset. (Are you massively tempted to dump your life savings in VRAM right now to max the graphics settings on Cyberpunk 2077?)

“Money shouts. And they hear nothing over the noise.”

About the author: China Miéville is a multi-award-winning British speculative fiction author who collaborated with legendary actor and sci-fi icon Keanu Reeves.

8. Scion by James Islington

If you have ever looked at the Silicon Valley obsession with longevity, blood transfusions, and cellular rejuvenation and thought: “This is going to end with immortals pricing the rest of us out of existence,” James Islington wrote a book for you to curl up with in your black hoodie. In a dark, hyper-stratified future, the ultra-wealthy “Lifers” use advanced genetic therapies to extend their lives indefinitely, while the unaugmented masses live in crowded, resource-depleted squalor. Enter Azure: a genetically modified assassin who makes a living legally eliminating “Lifers” to prevent ecological collapse. The plot kicks into overdrive when Azure is hired not to kill a Lifer, but to protect an ultra-wealthy, enigmatic asset in a high-stakes conspiracy.

Islington (the fantasy mastermind behind The Will of the Many) switches gears into hard-hitting sci-fi, delivering a fast-paced, John Wick meets Blade Runner thrill ride that exposes the dark side of extreme longevity tech and class warfare.

“Once ultrawealthy morons realized they had a way to live forever, limited resources be damned, there was only ever going to be one genuinely practical deterrent. So someone’s got to do it.”

About the author: James Islington is an international bestselling Australian science fiction and fantasy author known for his intricate plotting, dark world-building, and high-velocity thrillers.

9. Coldwire by Chloe Gong

In a near-future world where reality itself has been effectively outsourced to a massive virtual reality landscape owned by mega-conglomerate NileCorp, Coldwire gives us a chillingly plausible look at the future of digital identity, corporate hegemony, and algorithmic propaganda. Eirale, a war orphan turned corporate soldier, is framed by an anarchist network for the high-profile assassination of a government official. Forced into a shaky alliance with the very rebels who framed her, she must hunt down a rogue program hidden within the virtual matrix before NileCorp rewrites the memories of every citizen hooked into the grid.

Gong blends fast-paced techno-noir with sharp social commentary on corporate monopolies, VR escapism, and the terrifying ease with which central authorities can edit truth in the digital age.

“Are you jealous, Ward?”
“Exceedingly. Your attention belongs to me.”

About the Author: Chloe Gong is a #1 New York Times bestselling author whose work capably explores corporate control, artificial intelligence, and dystopian geopolitics.

10. The Bezzle by Cory Doctorow

Leave it to digital-rights crusade veteran Cory Doctorow to write a cyberpunk novel where the deadliest weapons aren’t monomolecular blades or cyberware, but financial algorithms, prison-tech monopolies, and corporate regulatory capture. The Bezzle follows Martin Hench, a cynical, high-tech forensic accountant who specializes in dismantling complex tech-bro scams. When an old friend is framed and thrown into a privatized, hyper-automated California prison system run entirely by predatory algorithms, Hench uses his coding and financial mastery to take on the venture capitalists profiting off human misery.

Doctorow serves up a fast, angry, and deeply informed techno-thriller that exposes how modern techno-capitalism uses complex software to rob the public blind while insulating executives from accountability.

“Every scam has a bezzle. The bezzle is the magic interval between when a con artist takes your money and when you realize it’s gone.”

About the author: Cory Doctorow is a renowned sci-fi novelist, special consultant to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and co-founder of Boing Boing.

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With the minuscule credits Lord Bezos pays me for my shilling, I have a vague chance of affording the fancy coffee and Smart Drugs that it took to pen this listicle, so thanks for your support of my pharmacological dependencies!