i don’t think it is, and that’s why i think a lot about the philosophy of what it means to apply scientific results to a n of one. it’s a weird grey area where we rely on ‘science’ to make decisions about our lives, but that process itself is not scientific. my main concern with influencers (whether they self-label as that or not) like BJ is just being completely honest with oneself about what you’re doing. BJ is doing a lot of advertising on behalf of science, but I think it’s a tale as old as time where individuals advertise they have found the fountain of youth and have convincing arguments for why they are right this time.
Except this time we can use the backing of ‘science’ which is supposedly the most reliable approach to converging on the correct solution. I mean I wouldn’t be here either if I didn’t at least partly believe in this either.
Much more can be said on the topic, but the way I frame to my friends is that: I have followed people like Peter Attia, Huberman, BJ, etc. from day one (same alma maters too), and I always suspected their philosophy or approach would converge, i.e. ‘disclaimer: this is just a discussion on data/knowledge and not a prescription for what to do or advice on what’s best for your health.’ Everyone converges on that because of the backfire that would ensue if what they ‘sell’ turns out to be wrong decades down the line.
Yet the conundrum is that their reputations, whether they openly admit it or want to believe it themselves, is in large part due to the practices they follow as n=1. People are mimetic creatures, they copy what others do, and if someone appears to have authority on a subject, people will follow their practices. So they can deny that they’re selling anything and they are just spreading information, but underneath that I don’t believe it to be the base reality of what’s happening.
I always knew Attia would change his stance from originally being very dogmatic about nutrition, to the complete opposite, where now he says “i hate talking about nutrition, we don’t know xyz, we can’t do the actual experiment, etc…” It’s actually surprising to me that it took this long for him to come to that self-realization.
To come full circle on this, my bias is to be suspect when people use words like ‘science’ (or any buzzword) to support their claims. It’s similar to what Thiel says when he repeats often that it’s a tell when certain fields have to label themselves as ‘sciences’, such as social science or political science, whereas physics is just physics, math is just math. I tell my friends that this can actually be expanded to anything. When influencers say ‘this is not advice, just data’, it often means the opposite. The reason? If what they said was blatantly obvious and true, they wouldn’t have to say it. An honest person never has to say ‘I am an honest person.’ Modus operandus is to be suspicious of people who do make that claim. Or, the good ol’ meme, ‘this is not financial advice,’ means that the claimer precisely knows what he is saying is financial advice, and therefore must temper it by making the opposite claim.
This is quite the digression so apologies if it’s off point, but overall I still pay attention to what these influencers say and do. I don’t throw everything out with the bathwater. The challenge is to know what to throw out. For example, BJ in a recent X post says “Friends - don’t do cheat days, cheat weekends, or cheat nights. They’re bad for you. You know this…they’re never ever, ever worth it. The only thing they reliably deliver is regret. Instead, build stable, reliable systems of good habits that create enduring contentment.”
He’s verging into guru territory now. For argument sake, what if what he says turns out to be wrong? Should his reputation take a hit? I actually think so contrary to what others might argue, because he is precisely giving advice and indirectly monetizing off of people’s attention based on his supposed authority status on the subject.
I wouldn’t do anything differently from how I am doing. Like everyone is saying, we only have one life and so just have to weight our own internal probabilities of success of our methods, however so we come to those probabilities. But I would be crystal clear with myself what and why I’m doing what I’m doing. And it comes down to what (one thing I agree with) Peter Attia recently has been converging on, which is having the Pascal’s Wager mentality.
