Thread

Health culture is huge and growing. This is great! People value exercise more and now fast food includes chipotle and sweetgreen instead of just mcdonalds and burger king. But I ask for more, specifically on exercise.

Culture around exercise today feels transactional. We do exercise, and in return we get improvements to health or appearance. I would like to see a shift towards the belief in physical excellence as being virtuous, that pursuing your peak performance is a part of what people just ought to do.

The greeks had this concept of kalokagathia, which was roughly that the ideal of a person brings many different aspects of virtue into a coherent whole. Education's goal was to make a well-rounded citizen, and incorporated physical, mental, and artistic training. Classical gymnasiums (mentioned) were places where people would train physically as well as intellectually. The physical aspect was partly to train young men to defend the city, but excellence was also seen as virtuous, to honor the gods.

I just think this culture would be awesome. I think the olympics are great, but only reserved for professional/elite athletes. Marathons are a good existing example, where I think most people don't run them because it'd make them healthy, and more because it's just awesome to see what you can do. And the vibe of a marathon is very celebratory and fun.

One day I would like to see some monumental structure or public space dedicated to physical excellence, as both a manifestation of a culture that values this, as well as something that promotes this culture in a powerful way. Instead of gyms today that look like factories, devoid of spirit, imagine your favorite form of architecture applied to a facility for training the body. (Of course this needs an over-embellished AI depiction to go with it, you're welcome).

I think Bryan Johnson is really interesting. My interpretation of his actions are that he believes that the highest impact to most people's health is culture, not a particular drug or wearable or future technology. I think there's some truth to this, and although I'm not really advocating for this specifically because I want people to be healthier, I think his approach of intentionally influencing culture is fascinating. I guess this is what advertising and propaganda has been doing forever, but it's interesting to see it done by an individual, for goals other than selling a product, funding a war, recruiting, etc. Maybe this could be a way of bringing this dream to life.

Much more to be said here, but what do you think?

• Culture towards exercise today
• Beautiful structures for physical excellence
• Intentional influence of culture for public good

Some images that inspire me in this direction:

As always feel free to correct me where i butcher things, this is not super polished, etc.