10 Years of RAADfest: The Longevity Movement That’s Changing Everything

Opening on COVID and the anti-aging movement 0:00

I believe that people often ask me, they say, you know, what's the most important thing that's happened for the crusade against aging in the past ten years? Or questions along that line. And my own answer is an answer that, absolutely blows away almost everybody. My answer is Covid. Covid is the best thing that's happened for, failed. And the reason it is, is because it has. But what happened recently is that people remember the nuts and bolts, the details. And second of all, it shows us what humanity is capable of doing when it actually comes together and put its mind to it.

Well, that was an extraordinary thing. You can measure it in many ways. One way is look at what happened with the vaccines. You know, these vaccines were developed, literally developed and distributed literally more than ten times faster than any other vaccine in the history of humanity. Welcome to rad cast, where science and soul converge in shaping the future of human potential. I'm your host, Doctor Melissa Grill Peterson, and together we're stepping beyond limits to explore super longevity. Produced by the coalition for Radical Life Extension, the visionaries behind Rad Fest. Broadcast is more than a podcast.

It's a movement for the bold, the curious, and those who refuse to settle for anything less than the extraordinary together will uncover the cutting edge of science, unknown strategies and transformative practices,

Rad Cast intro and RadFest anniversary announcement 1:32

paving the way for a future of limitless potential. If you're ready to think bigger, dream bolder, and live longer, you're in the right place. This is rad, Cass. Now let's get ready to explore the future of life itself. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to Rad Cars. Now, today is a very special episode that you are not going to want to miss because we're actually celebrating a decade of movement that has been boldly challenging the limits of aging early on, sparking a revolution and radical life extension.

Today, I'm joined by James Stroll, the visionary co-founder and executive director of the coalition for Radical Life Extension and one of the original forces behind Rad Fest, the largest and most passionate gathering for those committed to living long, strong and radically alive. Now, alongside him is none other than Doctor Aubrey de gray, world renowned biomedical gerontologist and founder of the Longevity Escape Velocity Foundation. Aubrey has been a cornerstone of this movement with his groundbreaking work to extend life and reverse biological aging ideas that once seemed fringe but are now moving mainstream.

This year marks the ten year anniversary of Rad Fest. It's going to be July 10th through the 13th. Out in Las Vegas, we want you all there. And for the first time, these two powerhouses right here that we're going to hear from today. They have brought their organizations together. They're officially joining forces to host what prom is this to be the most inspiring, informative, and transformative rad fest yet? James and Aubrey, welcome to the show. Well, thanks having me. Thank you very much. Hi. So I love every opportunity I get to speak with the two of you individually, but today we just have both of you here.

I feel like, you know, a kid at Christmas, it's like, okay, let's unwrap the presents and let's have a little fun. So we're going to kind of we're going to kind of go back to go forward. So we're just going to give our listeners, although I'm sure they are very familiar with both of you, just a little bit of context. And I think this is such an exciting time because, you know, James, I want to start with you. And I would love for you to just take us back for a moment to really what inspired the birth of Rad Fest ten years ago, and what did you imagine that it could become like?

Did you imagine it could become the global movement that it is today? Whoa. Wow. Okay. That's a that's a pretty big question, but we're going in. We're going in. First, let me say how honored I am to be doing this collaboration with Aubrey for Rad Fest. 2025 here, July 10th through the 30th. Like you said, I'm very excited about this. I think we both are. He and his, Natalie were both here, a couple weeks ago. We had a great flow together. It's just been coming together in a beautiful way. So energetically, it's, I think it's going to be the best ever.

That's what a 10th anniversary event should be about. And we were going to bring the best of science, and I'll be happy to do that. And inspiration. So I just let me say that. And then so it's kind of a combination of what I feel, we started in 2016, the first rad best, and thought up, you know, we got better all the time. Yeah. I and 2015, early 15, we started officially here at People Unlimited, which is a, longevity community here in Scottsdale as an international community, we started thinking, oh, you know, we need to broaden ourselves, you know, we were, doing,

How RadFest began and grew 5:18

well, what we were doing, but we knew that there needed to be something more. I'll say, bass, we wanted to bring in some, you know, some more science. We had very little that at the time. So. So we when we went to the drawing board and now we said, okay, let's start reaching out to community anywhere I went. Anyway, it was funny. People joked with me about it. I went to restaurants or anything else. I ended up taught the waiter. The waiter had asked me, oh, and they're always asking me like, what do you do?

Because I'd be with several people. And then I start the conversation and Joe would it's me and go, oh, you know, now, are these waiters going to come? They're they're just they're just moving you because they want a good tip. You know. But anyway, I talk everywhere I go, you know, so, so so so Joe said, he said, well, why don't you go out, you know, start reaching out to the community. There's a lot of people not more. More people in the network, the Longevity Network, and so short stories. That's what I started doing.

And, you know, some of the first scientists and, and, advocates, you know, we're like Bell Andrews, Bell Saloon, many, many others at the time out. Max Moore and Natasha at Alcor, and and then David Keck, which unfortunately isn't here anymore with us, but, he has preserved. So that's great. And we just had a great. So I started to open up to these people, you know, in the contacts that were made, introductions, from people introduced me to them. And then overwhelmingly great response. I mean, I was really thrilled because, seemed like the timing was just right.

I presented the idea of the coalition and then having a kickoff event like rad Fest. That's what we ended up naming it. We had a lot of the people tell us, scientists and etc. oh, don't have another, you know, boring science event place. Put something together that we, you know, we draw the public and will enjoy and, you know, so I thought, oh, okay, that's different. I heard that before. So so that's what we did. We went to the drawing board, said, why don't we put something together like a Woodstock for rather for a radical life?

Is it something fun fest of people can enjoy a draw on the public, have music, etc.? And so that's what we did. And, you know, at that time, Arbor got in the picture too. I don't remember that exact happening, but somewhere, I guess, me, you, Aubrey and and Aubrey was great. You know, he, said he had. It was funny because he talked about maybe, you know, and rightfully so. He doubted that that it could, you know, he liked the idea, but he doubted that could be that success. It was. And so, again, fast forward into the first Rad Fest 2016 and San Diego, we end up having over a thousand people that had never been done from that level.

Aubrey came to me then. He was great. And I remember in the back of the room he came to me and said, I'm never going to doubt you this again. Well. And so here we are today. He's never doubt. He's been at every event. And here we are today doing a collaboration. So I think that's pretty darn amazing. And yes, ever since we had to step back from every like everybody did at that pandemic, had virtual we stayed steady. We still did the event, put out the best we could virtually for a couple years, and then came back and, and, now we're doing, like, a lot, a lot of people are dealing with now.

And the events to get back, the crowds getting to not be afraid to come to, you know, public events which more and more are doing and not not just the set up for online events. And, so but that's how this came about, and I'm very grateful today. Absolutely. So yeah, from my side, I started out, you know, I'm kind of a scientist originally, I was actually of the computer scientist, and I switched to biology and to the biology of aging in the mid 90s. But for the next five years, at least, I was hardly doing anything outside of the hardcore academic community.

I was, you know, involved in a few online, mailing lists and, but really nothing much. But then it all started to really change around 2002, when I were first invited to speak at the cryonics meeting in Newport Beach, California. And from there, inspired quite quickly, I started getting the attention of, mainstream people for what? The kind of things I was saying. And I started to end up, you know, being able to leverage other talents of my own, charisma and talent and generally, become quite useful as an advocate, not just as a scientist.

And I started running my own conferences starting in 2003, which were hard core science by and large, but which were, also very much opening up an open to and welcoming gifted amateurs, people who knew enough science to be able to, understand most of the talks but who were not working and, whose, profession, but who were very much longevity. They wanted to do something about aging. The time went on, you know, I did more and more of that. I did actually speak to People Unlimited, one time, but I forget which year that was.

It was probably about, oh 4 or 5. Oh, by the time, Run Fast became contemplated, certainly the mid to 20, 20 tens, I was thinking like, you know, Albuquerque has a real place in the you we've got to get people on board. And a lot of that involved, you know, focusing on the inherent merits of doing something about aging as opposed to the nuts and bolts of how we're going to do it. And therefore, organizations like People Unlimited, you know, have a very definite, legitimate place in this ecosystem.

But, the ecosystem works the best when it's an actual ecosystem. In other words, when there's good communication between those groups. And that's really hard to do, because of a certain amount of, you know, either, as you said, they, advocates thinking that the science is boring or the scientist thinking that they advocate, distraction and so on. So it's very hard to put them together. And honestly, when Jim Bernie started trying to do this back in 2016, I was somewhat skeptical that it would be possible at all.

And in fact, I felt that having come from a history of being on one side of that fence already actually made it harder. You know, because you got, you've got a particular, reputation already, as opposed to death coming in, coupled with having no, having no, prior history. But the fact is, it's said, you know, they pulled it off in a, in a big way. They didn't just get a lot of people in the door. They also constructed a program that that that worked. There were only a few, a few really credentialed scientists there at that time.

But for myself, it was Bill. And you've you've already mentioned, I think Michael Rose was also there the first year. Very few though. But over the next couple of years, it grew in terms of its hybrid nature. It made it really work. I wrote an editorial in my journal, Rejuvenation Research, celebrating this and congratulating Jim and Bernie on having pulled it off. It's just gone from strength to strength. So fast forward to this year. I've been continuing to run my own scientific conferences, but for the last decade I've been in Europe.

In fact, I've worked almost all been in Europe. There was just, a couple that we ran in San Francisco in the early 20 tens. And that's been good because there's been other conferences over in the U.S not just read fast, but quite a few others that have been kind of doing the right doing that job. In, in Europe it's not there's not been much, but that has gradually changed. And now we have a situation where the European Longevity Conference environment is really saturated, that a lot of that. There are two new ones left last year, whereas in the US the opposite has happened.

A couple of the most important conferences in the US in this field

Aubrey de Grey on conferences and collaboration 13:06

have been discontinued. So, you know, there's not enough. And so I felt like there was the time to relocate and, into the how to relocate. You know, then the German job came to, to me, and I was already thinking about maybe having a closer relationship with rod first than just turning up and giving a talk. And so the whole idea of doing this essentially half and half, you know, came together extremely quickly and smoothly. And since then, of course, it's all been the operational aspect of figuring out how to dovetail the two organizations and make it work.

And that's all gone really smoothly as well. Yeah. You know, we haven't had really any hiccups. It's the coalition. People are a joy to work with. And, you know, I'm so looking forward to July the 10th. So let's talk about. So, you know, Jim, you were just saying how just a few weeks ago, Aubrey and his team were there, and you guys really were just flowing. So give us a little sneak peek. What can we be excited that you guys are envisioning for this, this amazing time? Of the two organizations coming together, also right there at the ten year anniversary you're in, you're doing it at a different time of year.

You're doing it in a resort location, so there's more room for us to spread and to truly, like, take in all the beautiful aspects of what it means to be human. So what are some of the things that you guys are envisioning for this ten year grad fest? Well, okay. Wow. Yeah, it's going to be first of all, Aubrey, I know has got some new, announcements that he'll be making, some, some progress of the progress of announcements. I'm sure some of the speakers he's bringing to the table will have some exciting new news to, the whole everybody we're bringing in this year.

You know, as as I've said many times, the coalition is not a commercial organization in the sense that we're now selling products. Our our focus is to bring the best, to the table, every time, for people to be able to have the best opportunities to improve their health, to, labor, vitality and strength. So, you know, for example, you know, I encourage people to take olive oil, tablespoon of olive oil at night. I think it's a, a good another good little practice, a little good little hack. But we don't sell olive oil, right.

We don't sell any this. So we don't have a vested interest in anybody have to account to any company. We don't get percentages from the exhibitors. You know, they're there and, you know, providing their whatever they've got to offer people and people can have their choices there. So that's a very powerful thing in itself. So we're focused, with Aubrey and I, I think we've multiplied our focus here is what we've done for this ten year. Yeah. We've expanded our focus, with the best of science and the best of, of information and application, because that's important.

People want to come there. They not only want to learn, they want to know, okay, how do I do this? They want to be inspired to do it because so often, you know, by a bunch of products somewhere at some event that go home, use them for a little while, you know? No, not then stop it. Not have any, you know, sustainable movement. And so that's what we want to create where sustainable movement we want that. We want to show people what they can do on a daily basis to stay alive. That innovation comes along.

So that's the biggest thing I fear right now for this event is that between our being out now, we've magnified, you know, our, the, the whole program to like x x x x ten times x. Now it's not going to be a very powerful. And we're the original. We're the original event. There's other events this month and I'm happy they did. I'm I'm all for anybody doing anything on that level. But we're the original event where we're that we're the original gangsters here. The longevity revolution is about more than just searching online for a few hacks, or any one of us moving our biomarkers in the right direction.

It's about coming together to learn, share, to connect and create the unlimited future we want. That's why you need to be at Rad Fest 2025, in Las Vegas from July 10th to the 13th. Rad Fest The Revolution Against Aging and Death is proud to be partnering for the first time with Doctor Aubrey de Gray and Longevity Escape Velocity Foundation. The form the single most comprehensive, advanced, informative and inspiring event on Aids reversal for a general audience. Meet the people you want to make forever with Rad Fest 2025.

Take advantage of lower advanced pricing now at Red fest.com. I love that the OG is okay indeed. And you know I would be almost as bold to say you you really are part of part of the original, biohacking movement from the standpoint of you guys brought something to market at a time that it was only just starting to be discussed kind of in other realms, like how do we how do we hack our health? How do we hack our life to, to be more right? And so I will say, I am privy you guys. So I'm, you know, I'm privy to get to have, being on the board and having some of these meetings.

I can tease you and tell you that there's going to be it's going to be a very immersive experience this year. And, you know, Jim, you just said something really, really important that I know it's near and dear to your heart and also yours as well. Aubrey, the for you, Jim, it is radical life extension and you are an immortal list. And obviously Aubrey, you did the movie The Immortal List. And so this idea of like, how do we just really flip the script on how we have come to be programed to believe what aging is and what more can be possible, and you both in your own lanes

What to expect at the 10th anniversary RadFest 18:38

and your own way, have each been out there as a voice for a bigger vision of what is possible in the human system for a very, very, very long time. And yet, Jim, what you said was so important is it's we're not here to sell stuff, but we're here to help you get what you need today. Because, Aubrey, you tell us all the time about longevity, escape velocity. We got to be good today so we can get to this thing that's coming. So Aubrey tucked us a little bit about that because again, you've been telling this for a long time what's coming.

So what do you feel are maybe some of the most important things that might be talked about at this year's Rad Fest or highlighted that can help people today to get to longevity, escape velocity? Well, let me answer that question. I have two questions because it kind of is, the, the where the program's going to be. All right. Arranged is that essentially, Jim and Joe have given me half the time to organize a third of the time, or maybe 40% of the time on the main stage, plus a bunch of breakout sessions.

And that's still going to be a squeeze for me. It still means that, the total amount of time on stage that I'm going to I have to allocate to speakers is considerably less than I would have had at my event over the past several years. But I'm fine with that because, first of all, the audience will be broader than it would have been if we were not collaborating with the coalition. And secondly, because, you know, this is the first time we do it this way. I get into the transition. Maybe we'll have more next year.

So I'm fine with that. But it does mean that, the, the program as a whole will be much more hybrid. You know, there'll be, there'll be something for everybody. And I'm quite sure that the participation will be much more hybrid as a result. Which is, of course, definitely what we want. We want to bring people together. That's a mantra that I've had ever since the beginning of my conference organizing career, starting back in 2003. Which I guess makes me even more of an original gangster than Jim.

But, but, but, but but I mean, with, we were taking that to a whole new level by combining with rad fact. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, in terms of the other part of your question about what can be done, I think that when most people ask themselves or ask me for that question, they mean, what could they do today in terms of diet and lifestyle? You know, supplements and things that are available right now? Sorry about this helicopter, I think. I assume it won't last too long. I should I stop for a minute until it goes away so you can I cannot hear it.

You're good. Your mic is is really good. Okay, guys, All right, so, that so when I answer that question, I remind people that they can do a great deal more to day than just look after themselves and, you know, wear a seatbelt. I mean, that's very important. When people ask me what I do, I say, I don't accept seminar invitations to dangerous countries. Right, right. But the thing is, what one can do is invest in the future. A future rate of progress. Because at the end of the day, everything we have today, however well you adhere to it, it's going to give you a couple of years of extra life.

You know, it's really it's not the polygraph. It's not the fountain of youth. It's better than nothing. But it's only a little bit better than nothing. And yes, being better than nothing means that you will slightly improve your chances of making the cut and being around when we get to longevity escape velocity and we have aging and, well, for practical purposes, it amounts to complete medical control. But the other way to increase that probability is to hasten the arrival of longevity escape velocity.

And that means doing a whole bunch of other things. It means advocacy and all manner of ways. Everyone can do advocacy. You can all talk to your friends and your colleagues and your, you know, family and persuade them that this is actually a good thing to be thinking about and that they should not be, you know, holed up in this terrible state of terror, of getting their hopes up the way that almost everybody is across the whole world. There's also funding, of course. You know, at the end of the day, this requires research, which costs money.

And a lot of people will say, oh, you know, I don't have much money. I can't make much difference. First of all, every dollar counts. But second of all, it it links up with the advocacy part because the the poorer you are, the more people you know who are wealthier than you. And so the more people you can influence, right? That's not that's not frivolous. That's a real thing. And then of course, that other way of of having influence, you're doing it right now by interviewing me and jam, you know, you're making a difference by raising the quality of people's understanding of the field, where it's going, how rapidly it's going, all those kinds of things.

You know, there's a lot of people like you who aren't doing what you're doing. And they they should be, you know, so, and there's more than that. There's political influence. Of course. There's no we all know that politicians have one goal in life, which is to get reelected and therefore they won't actually do anything unless they think there are votes in it. However, you know, warm their words. Maybe when you talk to them. But I mean, we just have to make sure that there are votes in it, right?

Yeah. Which again, goes back to advocacy that all of these things, you know, I'm always about the short term and the long term together. If you're only focused on your supplements and your diet and your lifestyle,

Longevity escape velocity and what people can do now 24:18

then, you know, focusing on the long term. If you're only focusing on the science and you're not focusing on the short term, you need to do both. Yeah, I love that. So I want to bring a few things together and I want to throw something over to you, Jim. So, you know, one of the factors that I appreciate the most when looking at centenarians, one of the main qualities that they all hold is how they look forward. There's always this forward thinking, forward looking, and so being very present, like they're completely immersed in the present and they're always looking forward to what's next.

And you just really surmise that saying, hey, it's a little bit of an both, right. Like we need to do the things we can do today. And one of the big things that you're saying is advocacy, which I really like. And hang tight, Jim, I'm coming to you at this. And so that can begin today in how we show up to look forward. The advocacy is about looking forward to what is the world we want to create, what is for ourselves, for our community, for our family, globally, collectively, what can become possible.

And until we start having a different conversation, we're just going to have more of the same that we've always had. So we will never move the needle if we don't start at least asking new questions and just opening up to new potentials and possibilities. And yet this conversation around radical life extension or even immortality can be polarizing to some. And now I know we're not saying that it has to be advocating all the way to the forum, but one of the things you say, Jim, often is like, let's have a smorgasbord at the table.

So I'm curious what you might offer so that we can invite more people to the table of advocacy and conversation and potentiality. What do you say to skeptics who claim that radical life extension is unnatural or even undesirable? And how can we begin to flip that narrative? Okay. Well, yeah. I, we already made a lot of good points on this. I would say that, the biggest thing right now, is, well, a couple of things, I guess, is that it's important that, our everyone who has any sense of that, that death.

Okay. And aging is really shouldn't be as unnatural, should be a real Trump making a sound, you know, blowing the trumpet. And any way that they feel a capacity, they can do that, whether it be like podcast that you're doing, you know, social media posting continuously. I mean, a lot of people who say I maybe have the platforms that we have available to right now can post, right. They can post up and then just keep, you know, bring it, bringing that out to the public, because that's really the reason a core reason we started. Right.

This is to bring this great opportunity of unlimited life and limit the unlimited potential for living and vitality, vitality and strength to the world to give people an option. We're not trying to push this on anybody. You said it's like, we're trying to set the table for. So people can pick what they want. I'm, I'm in and more or less. But I'm not saying everybody has to be that. You might just want to live a few extra years and with vitality and strength, you know, I, you know, like, make first of all, I recently said people sometimes say, oh, you know, I want to live time 90 until they get 90 and then they want to keep going.

So it's really important that they be in touch with that. So some people oh they say, well I'm, I live to 150. Okay. Great. I want to encourage you let the 150 the vitality is straight. But I also tell them, look, I bet you when you get there and you're feeling good, you're going, well, you're going to want to keep on going. But the point being that, you know, choose what what works for you. And I think that's going to, bring together, if you say, how are we going to bring together more people is not be judging about anybody, where they come from, who they are, what their belief systems are, if they have anything about living at all to encourage to encourage that, have a wide open, conversations that people can criticize or challenge whatever we're doing at any level.

As long as that's done respectfully, I say, at best, you know, that we can question things. We can. We're trying to get I don't have an investment of what I what has to be right. I have my investment is in the best, way for us to achieve what we want to achieve and unlimited life spans. And I think by opening up back that, I'll say, spectrum for everybody, that opportunity for everybody, instead of having I've heard sometimes, like, for example, certain people in the network criticize others, you know, maybe different belief systems and kind of alienating.

We should be alienating anybody. All right. There's there's I think what we have to offer is for everybody in the world, and we're not to to condemn or demonize any, any other organization or the FDA or anybody else where I think we're offering. And this is the great thing about it, we're offering a great life here that everybody can benefit from a great, great opportunities. Great. Like I said, maybe it's just a couple more years extra life we can get now by doing these things. And who knows? I mean, it'll expand and expand, every it's exponentially.

Growth is amazing. But, yes, we're looking for an amazing, you know, age reversal and age stopping Metallica. That will happen, but we have to stay alive to get there, that we have to open this up to everybody so that we so we can get everybody input because collective intelligence is the best. And yeah, I want to I want to really echo that for a moment because, you know, in the time that I've been in this field, the thing that Glenn emphasized, has really confirmed, you know, there are still, streams as a few people who engage in, you know, criticism of people with different belief systems in this space, but the far, far left of it.

And then there was, you know, you know, 20 years ago when I was, one of the things I was saying about the how to go about the science were, quite controversial in contrast to now and they're very, very much accepted. You know, people were saying that I was doing harm to them, to the to the field, even though they were also saying that I was bringing people into the field and inspiring them. You know, that has pretty much gone away. There is on the academic side, I'm talking now. There is a very widespread understanding that even though, you know, different people have different opinions about the emphasis of the messaging, you know, the extent to which one should talk about radical life extension versus healthspan, you know, so there's the there's much less criticism and in-fighting within the field than they used to be.

Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, the, the reasons for that, that spectrum of emphasis are valid reasons, like I, for example, you know, my credibility comes from being a good scientist and, you know, the non-scientists listen to me because, I mean, because they know I'm a good scientist. So I always run away very, very far from the word immortality. Just because it's taken its actual meaning is, you know, zero risk of death from any cause, you know, even the heat death of the universe, you know?

Advocacy, skepticism, and broadening the movement 31:08

And, you know, I don't do that. But I certainly do talk about longevity escape velocity, which is something that a lot of my colleagues have difficulty talking about, even though they know that it's mathematically inevitable. You know, so there's always a spectrum because of different people having different audiences and different sources of their own credibility. And that's okay. Are you ready to redefine aging and unlock your full potential as a longevity leader at the Human Longevity Institute, our world class certification programs train doctors, coaches, and wellness professionals how to deliver cutting edge, integrative longevity health solutions so people can live better today for longer, healthier, and more vibrant tomorrows.

If you're ready to join the Longevity Revolution, visit Human Longevity institute.com to enroll and become a practitioner today. Well, and you know, you both said something so important I want to, bring just bring our listeners in to, again, give context that we can sit here and, and we have our passions, we have our backgrounds, we have our science, we have the movements that we are all, you know, involved in to the potential lay person, the enthusiast that's listening. You know, you even teed it up, Aubrey, by saying, hey, you know, since 2002, you were one of the very, first, very first conferences out there.

And the landscape now is flooded, especially in Europe. And why is this? Why are we seeing more and more people come to the table? Why are we seeing the conversation more and more comfortable? Democratize, you know, more agreed to because fundamentally we have a flip in the global population, like the reality that we are living longer, not necessarily better yet, although that's a big part of this. Right. And if we look at if we keep doing things the way we've been doing them, then we're on that path for more of an economic demise.

However, you know, again, the big reason for this whole health span conversation is that it gives us something measurable. And Andrew Scott's work was the pinnacle of it, of showing when we can just add one extra year of health free from sickness and disease. Just in the U.S. alone, we infuse over $4 trillion annually just here with one extra year of health not being on medications. And so that's really powerful, right? And money leads the way and leads the conversation to what drives economics around the globe.

And the one word, the one word that explains all of what's happened over the past 20, 25 years. In that respect, what would it bootstrapping the if the progress that we've made is not nearly as much as we would have liked to see, but it's really impressive nevertheless. It's really unrecognizable. And it's all happened through a long series of incremental small changes, small pieces of progress that have made incremental, small changes to the tone, the form of words that authoritative people say.

And that has spiraled. So, you know, back in 2003, when I started my conferences, I would the only not only proper, you know, translational Gerontology conference in the world, there were academic conferences that were all about understanding aging as a phenomenon, rather like, you know, conferences about seismology. You know, you know, people who study earthquakes. I know bad for you, but they, they, they, they don't have any aspiration to actually stopping them from happening. Right. And then there were companies like the AA forum, which were really all about selling snake oil, and that was all right.

And so I came in with the first ever legitimate translational Gerontology conference. And then though the progress was so slow in labs around the world that even though I was the only conference, I would not have the material with which to run it every year with every two years, you know, for the first 12 years. And, and now we've got, as you say, saturation, almost, which is fantastic. And it's the same at the level of the economy. So I'm just got to work is fantastic, but it's not new. I mean, it's new in the sense that it's more there's more data behind it, there's more analysis.

But the term longevity dividend, which is the exact, you know, moniker for all of this, was coined 40 years ago, at least 30 years ago. You know, there were papers with that title, back then saying pretty much exactly the same thing, you know, almost going to the same numbers. And they're getting more of an audience now. People are actually listening because they think that the possibility that we might actually achieve that one year, let alone the seven years or whatever, is greater than they used to think it was.

Yeah. And that's and I would say you're in large part to that. Having the conversation around longevity escape velocity again continues to bring us back to the here and now to say the little things that we do today, turn heads that gap, right? Can can give us just a little, just a little bit that we need. So let me drill down on that a little bit because because now you mentioned Andrew Scott. This is actually a rather good example. So Andrew was the first person, even though the longevity dividend concept been around long and Andrew was the first person ever to go with the to actually analyze properly what he called the Wolverine scenario, which is actual rejuvenation rather than slowing aging down, which is, of course, what I'm all about and what Jamie thought about, but he did it really badly.

The first time we did was he said, okay, let's see what happens if we rejuvenate people by 20 years and we do it when they're 60, but then we only do it once. We never do it again. I mean, what the I mean honestly what the hell. Why would anyone want to analyze that. But anyway he's still got very good numbers. Right. And then after me beating him up quite a lot, he did a second paper which said, okay, we're doing this intervention and repeatedly. And he got even better numbers. But even then he didn't do the proper longevity escape velocity thing, which requires the interventions to improve over time.

The whole point about it is that it buys the scientists time to make the therapy better. And he didn't, he said. We buy the same therapy each time, and sure enough, you get, you know, a good result. But it's nothing like indefinite longevity. It's nothing like what Jim and I walked, and I've been beating him up and beating him up for the past two years, saying, do the right thing for goodness sake. He understand what the right thing. And he's always kind of not quite found the time. So think about that.

Is he actually not finding the time, or is he just terrified that the numbers he will get? Will be so bizarre that it will hurt his professional reputation? Right. So we're not there yet. Yeah. Let me just add, something here, Melissa, that I, to another point. So, I want to point out that, for this year's Rat Fest, also is, we're putting out a call. I am particularly, for people to be there, the longevity advocate and anybody else is interested and and becoming one or just exploring, this new world, because it's going to be also a launchpad, that we're going to use for the, longevity rally we want to do at DC, in the, in the 26.

Why the longevity conversation is expanding 38:30

And we'll probably be holding Rat Fest DC, too at that time. We're looking for a location to come back kind of combined and both but this is very important, because, we have, more and more exposure. Okay. Like you're talking about more and more, events popping up, etc., etc. but we're still dealing in my mind a situation, the money being channeled, you know, to, real age reversal research, train aging research. All right. And, you know, and like I said, you know, small amounts, you know, every amount matters.

Okay. But overall, huge amounts of money are being funneled too often to, I'll say, dead end streets. Or or seeing not as, advantageous, results. Okay. Yeah. If we get, for example, at the rally, one of our initiatives is to get aging. Defined as a disease or even a best choice as some of the other initiatives we put out. Then we're going to start being able to, coordinate, efforts because, like, also like we said, the politicians are not going to do much, they're going to do what they get bored in for where we start getting public opinion on this, a level, that's what I'm interested in.

This money gets funneled to where it really can can, you know, accentuate and expand the growth of what we're trying to accomplish here. Next difference in the world to not enough money yet goes to, add your age reversal or age, curing aging research. All right. Very little, very little overall. And to offer it's misdirected. Then another another waste. So I want to say this because this is important, that anyone who's listening to this, be it read fast, we're rallying there, we're going to gather not only we get the best of the benefit of that event, but you're then contributing.

This is how you can contribute to the mass movement of what we want to create in this to to shift public opinion and to get where we want to get more rapidly. Yeah. No. And thank you, Jim, that that also brings it ties it into advocacy and what is coming in the ways that people can engage and participate. And and one of the things I want to just share is as we kind of we've got a few minutes left together today and I'm really excited about it, but I really want to inspire our listening audience to appreciate that.

This conversation around longevity and radical life extension, it is not just health in the human system, but rather and we're going to talk about this this year, you know, understand that this is a global conversation because, yes, it starts in the physical body. And we need to look at how do we help this human system be healthier, longer yet, what drives the expression of health and the human system is all of the inputs from the exposome, from everything around us, from the environment in the world and the foods and the thoughts and the frequencies and all the things, all the things.

But my point being is that all of the things are across all these different sectors of society. So the decisions that governments make, the corporations make that farmers make, that urban planners make the artists make the decisions that are made in these different sectors ultimately trickle down and influence us on an individual level. What if we could flip it all on its ear? And this is part of what's going to be shared this year at Rad Fest, if we can begin to same coin, different side, we look at it from a different way and see if we understand what can create more of that.

Healthspan what are the things that can allow this system? What are the breakthroughs that can support greater states of health expression? And now we look at where can this be driven from across these sectors of society. This isn't just a what's happening in the lab and what's happening at a cellular level conversation. It is. And it is also so much more so when we talk about advocacy, when we talk about what is here and what is coming, what we want to invite you all into, it's something quite massive.

And it's not just siloed in only one lane. There are there's going to be so many ways that each of us can get behind this conversation and have more of these conversations based around our own interests as well. You know, I mean, talking with Joe, he's he is an artist and he creates movies and scripts and he's like, I want to talk about it through the artist lens. I'm like an absolutely because that matters. Also, what are the stories that we are telling? How do we represent this conversation? Right.

And and the innovation that can come when we actually think about living better today for longer is hitting that escape velocity. It's it's an exciting time, isn't it? It is. Yeah. 100%. Yeah, yeah. You got gotta think. Go ahead. I'm. I'm sorry. No. Go ahead. Well, no, you go ahead first. I've got one slogan I want to end with. Okay. Yeah. I was just going to mention that that. Yeah. And to that point of, of, you know, people being able to, experience or to develop, like you say, having like Joe and developing, you know, the magnitude of what he wants to part be alive.

You know, I, I'm going to talk about, how to do that, how to get that resilience and strength, you know, that you need because we're going to we're going to need a lot more than we think. And living, you know, an unlimited lifespan or longer than than expected because there's so many challenges. We see that through kovat and and many other things we've already faced this last, you know, five, ten years,

RadFest as a launchpad for advocacy and public policy 43:48

and I gotta wear myself and awaken in that to, hey, we're going to do that like a supernatural strength. And and we have that in us. And I'm going to talk about how to tap into that more at best. And that's going to benefit everybody from that level. That's exciting I love it. Oh, brain. Well, so Jim actually slightly stole my thunder there. And I'm very pleased that you did because this could lead to a very interesting synergy. I ran fast, but the thing I want to make sure to end this thing with was to to highlight the slogan that I am using and I've been using for a little while now, maybe the past 6 or 8 month.

That really underpins my current plan for really doing something about aging as quickly as possible. I believe that people often ask me, they say, you know, what's the most important thing that's happened for the crusade against aging in the past ten years, or questions along that line? And my own answer is an answer that, absolutely blows away almost everybody. My answer is Covid. Covid is the best thing that's happened for, failed. And and the reason it is, is because it has. But what happened recently.

So people remember the nuts and bolts, the details. And second of all, it shows us what humanity is capable of doing when it actually comes together and puts its mind to it. It's not what we were. There was an extraordinary thing. You can measure it in many ways. One way is look at what happened with the vaccine. You know, these vaccines were developed, literally developed and distributed literally more than ten times faster than any other vaccine in the history of humanity. You know, if you ask people the previous year whether, a vaccine could be distributed even twice as fast as had never happened before, they said, well, obviously know, you know, a lot of these regulations and, you know, and, and risk aversion on the part of the public and so on and so forth and back, you know, it was all completely swept away with all just like as if it didn't exist.

That is a precedent, and it's something that we can start from. We also have to look at the sacrifices, the fact that this was a very, very age specific disease. I mean, not entirely specific, of course, but more age leaning than almost any other infection. In terms of the age of the people who suffered and died and yet the whole of humanity, people in the young adulthood. Pretty willingly accepted a very substantial diminution in their quality of life for quite a while in order to save other people's lives.

That's what has been really missing in the longevity world. You talk to 90% of the people who are already longevity, and they will focus on themselves in terms of why they're doing what they're doing. They will not be, you know, focused on humanity in general. I've never understood that. I so my slogan is ergo, my slogan. No, my, oh, I'm talking to the longevity community. My slogan is let us make aging the new Covid. Interesting that that is going to that's going to catch some attention for sure.

And I like that because it is, everybody's going to go, oh, what? What's right? Yeah, that's a disrupter. And that's what you've done forever, Aubrey. The party, your magic. And it's like, you know, in and it's beautiful because it can be so disruptive, but it makes people won't forget it.

Aubrey's COVID slogan and closing remarks 47:48

They'll be like, what? What do you mean by that? Like so interesting. I absolutely love it. Awesome point. You know awesome. That's a disruptor, right? Completely I hope so, I hope so, I hope I hope it will astonish people enough to make them actually think. I think so, yeah, I like it, I like it, Aubrey. And that's exactly what's going to happen at Rad Fest this year. Everyone. It is about disruption. It is about thinking bigger, broader, bolder, to to stay curious. Right. Because together we are all and you just said it and I really want to applaud it.

Aubrey and Jim, I know this is what you've always been about. It's why you started to co-found People Unlimited. It's really about the power of community, meaning, thinking bigger than self and how, you know, my entire Earth mission is to to make this positive contribution in human flourishing. Like, how can I help to enhance human flourishing globally? It's never about one. It is about the whole because we are all in it together. So when you all come to Rad Fest this July 10th through the 13th, in Las Vegas at the beautiful Red Rock resort, and it is quite lovely, you will be inspired, you will be educated, you will be uplifted, you will be engaged.

You will be really, I can say it, having attended multiple Rad Fest, it is really unique in that you have the experts and enthusiasts all in one place together, sharing, collaborating, and and really helping to to create the new future beginning today. So I want to thank you both for your time. This is going to be an epic gathering. And what a brilliant time for the two organizations to come together. Thank you Jim, thank you Aubrey. It's just been an honor. Well thank you. We like. And see you then.

Yes, absolutely. All right, everybody, the links are below. Get your tickets. We want to see you guys there. You are going to want to be there. You're going to get to go talk to these amazing humans together. I'll see you there too. And until next time, continue to be bold, stay curious and express your greatest states of aliveness. Bye everyone. Thank you for tuning in to Doctor Talks. We hope today's episode has enlightened and inspired you on your path to optimal health. Each day is a new opportunity to make choices that empower your well-being.

For more insights and strategies, subscribe to our podcast and visit our website w WW doctor Talksport.com. Stay connected, stay healthy and join us next time on Doctor Talks. Real talks from real doctors on the issues that matter to you most.