Like many other nerds and optimization enthusiasts; I have been incredibly drawn to Bryan Johnsons Blueprint project. Im particularly intrigued by the idea of giving up control in some area of your and letting an "algorithm" make decisions for you. In Bryan's case this is centered around longevity. He gives up autonomy to the health algorithm het built with his team. In doing so, he has effectively converted the hundreds of weekly health decisions into a single choice: follow the algorithm or don't. When you convert a decision into a binary like this, the choice becomes incredibly easy. In Bryans case, he has both simplified and magnified the choice to choosing life or death. In his world there is no partially following the algorithm, every choice he makes is casting a vote for A) Life or B) Death. This is a much easier choice to make than the decisions most people make about their health on a day to day basis. For example, lets imagine you've been trying to lose weight and someone offers you a donut. You immediately begin thinking through weather or not you will eat it. You may think "well i really like donuts, but i've been watching my sugar and carb intake. Buuuut, i went to the gym yesterday so maybe, if i go to the gym today too it will make up for it. But damn, I also had that extra slice of cake 2 days ago so..." so on and so forth. This decision fatigue ultimately compounds and causes people to undermine their long term goals. Now lets explore the same scenario but from Bryan's POV. The decision would be instant and effortless: "The Blueprint diet does not include donuts, so no, I will not have the donut". The entire decision has been offloaded to Bryans algorithm, thus he accumulates very little decision fatigue and is able to easily compound positive health decisions. Humans are inherently bad at making long term decisions for ourselves, we tend to favor short term gratification while consistently being overoptimistic about our future performance. But what if we applied Johnson style algorithms to other areas of our life? What if I developed an algorithm that helped me create new habits, brake bad habits, and achieve my professional goals? If an all knowing intelligence could control my actions what would would it have me do? This potential lack of autonomy scares people, exemplified by the largely polarized response to the Blueprint project. But is it really a lack of autonomy? Or are you just letting your smart self make decisions in advance for your weak self?