WEBVTT - CLASSIC: The Mysterious Death of Biohacker Aaron Traywick 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:05.440 Fellow conspiracy realist. We are returning with an episode about 0:00:05.680 --> 0:00:08.200 something was quite a hobby horse of ours for a while, 0:00:08.560 --> 0:00:13.160 the concept of biohacking. Matt off Air, we were looking 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:15.280 through some of our files and you said. 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:20.000 Trey Wick, Yeah, I remember, I remember this really well. 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:25.360 This is around a time when maybe we were just 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:29.800 getting hip to it, the use of ketamine specifically as 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:35.600 a drug to treat PTSD and other, you know, other 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:38.920 mental health issues. And you know, we were also looking 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:42.519 around this time this twenty eighteen so looking at psilocybin 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:46.440 and other psychoactive substances that can be super helpful with 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:50.080 those things. And when we heard about what happened to 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:54.040 Aaron Treywick, or at least what allegedly maybe happened to him, right, 0:00:54.920 --> 0:01:01.080 it was utterly fascinating. And yeah, this is this entire episode. 0:01:01.560 --> 0:01:05.280 It makes you wonder, right because I don't know how 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:08.400 deeply we go into it, but maybe in just my 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:16.680 personal weird mental travels thinking about what a sensory deprivation 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:21.720 tank can actually do for the innerspace and then what 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:24.880 happened to Aaron, I don't know, it's weird, man. 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:28.720 Yeah, as you know, I'm a big fan of sensory 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:31.320 deprivation in general, so I think this hit both of 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:34.839 us on a personal level. Here we are, without further ado, 0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:40.640 from December twenty eighteen, the mysterious death of biohacker Aaron Treewick. 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:45.319 From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:49.720 riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:51.760 learn the stuff they don't want you to know. 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:07.160 Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:08.200 my name is Noah. 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:10.560 They call me Ben. We are joined with our super 0:02:10.600 --> 0:02:14.959 producer Paul Mission Control Deck, and most importantly, you are you. 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:17.880 You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't 0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:21.520 want you to know. I have a question for the 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:24.800 table and for everyone listening to set off this episode. 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:30.240 Here it goes, if you could, if you could enhance 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:35.600 yourself through some sort of technological or even genetic means, 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:38.000 what kind of thing would you, guys choose? 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:39.280 I would want to spoiler? 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:42.400 You would want to spoil it like as on audible. 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:45.000 Yeah, yeah, so I could run faster, I would cut 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:48.320 down my wind resistance, so I'd wear a windbreaker and 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:51.320 then have my spoiler. See, I would be unstoppable. 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:54.000 Gotta gotta correct you here though that spoiler, and you 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:55.799 tell me if I'm wrong about this. But I think 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:58.880 that spoiler is to actually provide a tiny bit of drag, 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:00.040 Isn't it to push their. 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:05.120 I need some downforce or I'm a running sitch and 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:06.120 that's what I'm looking for. 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:06.760 Spoiler. 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:09.720 Would it be mounted on like your posterior or your shoulders? 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:13.440 But yes, it would be on both. Oh it would 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:16.440 have dual spoilers, Oh my god, because surely where one 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:17.800 is good, too is better? 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:19.240 Dude, double double good. 0:03:19.280 --> 0:03:21.160 That's what a lot of mods think. 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:23.440 Had some air vents and you're good to go. 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:24.760 Yeah, what about you met? 0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:27.320 For me, it would be something that would enhance my 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:32.600 either vision or hearing capabilities. I think hearing would be 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:36.200 a lot of fun, especially because I've got pretty bad 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:39.280 hearing as of the moment due to those drums. 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:41.560 You're really making me feel like I've squandered my choice. 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:43.400 But I should have thought of this through. 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:43.800 A little more. 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:46.800 I guess I would want to live forever. You would 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:48.960 want to live forever, I mean as your horses. 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:50.680 Yeah, I get okay, totally. 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:53.640 They are horses live forever with the option to kill myself. 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:55.560 So somehow it's always on the table. 0:03:55.840 --> 0:03:57.080 Yeah, tell me about it. 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:01.480 Somehow modify your cells to not die off in some. 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:07.400 Way to prevent some of that inevitable decay. There's good 0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:11.160 and bad news, right. The good news is that in 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:15.400 each of the things we described, we'll ask Paul off 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:18.720 Air in each of the attributes we described. While we 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:21.719 may not be able to get the full realization of 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:26.520 our wishes, we have different types of technology that can 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:31.120 can help us. We have the technology, to quote bionic Man, 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:36.000 to build, for instance, a spoiler hoodie right or spoiler slacks. 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:40.599 We have hearing technology that can improve someone's natural hearing. 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:46.440 We do have some anti aging stuff, but that's probably 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:50.960 more controversial. It's weird because we're talking today sort of 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:56.000 about do it yourself medicine. DIY medicine and human experimentation 0:04:56.120 --> 0:04:59.800 has been historically speaking, one of the most controversial issues 0:04:59.880 --> 0:05:03.760 is this realm. The controversy continues in the modern day. 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:08.800 Here in twenty eighteen, because recent medical innovations and breakthroughs 0:05:08.800 --> 0:05:13.400 have allowed for affordable, if super risky, self experimentation, we 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:16.600 have officially entered the age of do it yourself biology. 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:20.719 There's sometimes referred to as biohacking. Next question, what the 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:21.320 hell is that? 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:24.720 Well, this one's also interesting because the human experimentation that 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:28.160 we're talking about historically has often been against people's will, 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:31.160 and this enters this adds another angle to it. It's 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:33.960 almost like assisted suicide, where it's like, this is my 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:36.440 body do this to me? I would like to do 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:39.000 this to myself. So who is the onus of responsibility 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:40.800 on it? On the individual doing it? Are on the 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:44.479 people that are secretly doing this research and not going 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:46.440 through the proper channels, And we'll get to that right. 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:50.599 Yeah, And so the concept of biohacking itself has to 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:54.800 do with any kind of activity that exploits genetic material. 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:58.480 This is going to be like humans in their genetic 0:05:58.560 --> 0:06:00.760 material or animals, but in the most cases with the 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:03.960 DIY stuff, it's on yourself. So it's human genetic material 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:08.040 and you're experimenting with this stuff without regard to whatever 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:12.279 the accepted standards are, like what the FDA might say. 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:16.760 And this is generally done for either these kind of 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:22.000 self startup kind of ventures, or for just an individual, 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:24.240 or sometimes even for criminal purposes. 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:29.240 Yeah, that's what you will hear alarmist reporting. They'll say 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:33.960 these these crazy kids, these insane biohackers, are going to 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:38.080 change something about themselves or potentially in the future, something 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:42.440 about their unwitting victims. And this sounds like it's the 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:47.080 stuff of science fiction, but it is real to some degree, 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:50.799 and it's related to other discipline. You'll hear other words 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:55.240 described in the same conversations. There's grinding, the practice of 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:59.560 installing technological devices in the human body, such as magnetic sensors. 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:02.560 I think with talked about that on the show previously. 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:03.960 Right, Yeah, a lot of times you'll hear the term 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:06.599 what where when dealing with these things. 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:10.520 And it's also related to something called nutrient genomics. If 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:11.840 you heard about this one. 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:12.840 This one I had not. 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:18.960 So it's the use of it's leveraging genetic information to 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:24.840 determine effects of nutrition and how the foods you intake 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:28.240 and the substances you intake can affect a change in 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:33.520 your biology. Of course, neither grinding nor nutrient genomics are 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:37.559 particularly new. People have been installing medical devices and human 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:40.920 bodies for decades and decades and decades. If you're listening 0:07:40.960 --> 0:07:45.240 to this, you have probably at some point met someone 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:49.000 who had a pacemaker. Yeah, And on the subject in 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:52.920 nutrient genomics. It's really easy to say, Hey, isn't that 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:58.960 just you know, a diet, yeah, just like eat better? 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:00.360 Yeah? 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:02.080 Or are we talking about like some of these Alex 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:06.360 Jones remedies you know, yeah? Whatever? Ingesting? Then at what 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:08.400 point does something go from the realm of food to 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:10.800 the realm of drugs? You know what I mean? It's 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:13.080 like a supplement versus a medication. 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:16.040 This is something my wife has been talking with me 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:19.680 recently because she follows someone called the medical Medium. Who 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:22.440 is this guy who is I guess a nutritionist, but 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:26.600 he also claims the phrase medical medium. He claims to 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:29.720 be able to walk up to someone and basically say 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:33.640 what their ailments are without knowing anything about them, and. 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:35.080 He guess their age and weight too. 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:37.240 I'm assuming it sounds like a parlor trick. 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:41.840 And a jar thing pretty much, but with like blood 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:42.800 and organs. 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:44.440 It feels like some kind of cold reading, right, That's 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:46.600 what I immediately, That's what triggers in me when I 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:48.720 hear it. But the guy didn't. I don't know if 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:51.560 he invented it, but he popularized this thing that is 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:55.640 very similar to neutrogenomics, where it's oh, what is it 0:08:55.720 --> 0:08:58.680 celery juice that has become I guess all the rage 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:03.040 in wealthy arts of America. Or you just drink celery 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:05.040 juice all day long and it's going to change your 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:07.400 body somehow. I don't know. 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:08.880 Do they sell it at Whole Foods? Do you have 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:09.800 to juice it yourself? 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:12.560 It was What Diana told me is that it was 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:15.319 sold out of Whole Foods for a while there because 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:16.880 this guy popularized it so hard. 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:19.040 So you can't find celery anymore. There's a big run 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:19.480 on cellar. 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:21.679 There's a run on celery deally, you would want to 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:22.640 juice it yourself. 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:23.560 It's fresh. 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:27.320 Xactly did you eat? Somebody checked me on this. But 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:31.280 side note, it is more expensive for your body calorically 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:36.080 speaking to consume celery. Uh, like you're losing calories. This 0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:37.360 is when you eat them. 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:39.320 This is my belief because I've heard that too. Yeah, 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:40.480 I don't know if it's true. 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:43.520 All right, So let us know celery fanatics in the crowd, 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:46.120 and if you are a celery juice enthusiast, tell us 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:50.800 about your nutri genomic journey. This stuff parallels closely with 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:55.080 a philosophy known as transhumanism, the idea that through our 0:09:55.160 --> 0:10:00.360 own gut gumption technology and can do it. Vanis can 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:05.480 improve ourselves and become something that transcends the idea of 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:06.319 homo sapien. 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:07.120 Love it. 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:11.920 Yeah, it's a cool idea. It's fraught with problems. We've 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:16.080 talked before about the Gadiga possibility. We've talked before about how, 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:20.200 based on the way the world works now economically speaking, 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:25.760 the first people who would become truly transhuman would likely 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:29.800 be very, very wealthy people, or people who are transformed 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:35.760 into weapons of war. Unfortunately, that's just how how things look. 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:39.840 But our story today takes place in this murky world 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:44.120 of biohacking, of transhumanism. But this isn't exactly a dive 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:48.679 into the ethical complications of unsupervised self experimentation. In fact, 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:51.599 it's a little more true crime than tech. It's a 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:56.760 little more murder than medicine. It's time to meet Aaron Treywick. 0:10:57.440 --> 0:10:57.560 So. 0:10:57.800 --> 0:11:03.520 Aaron Treywick was born December nineteenth, nineteen eighty nine. He 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:08.800 was a transhumanism activist and also the CEO of a 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:14.400 company called Ascendance Biomedical, which aimed to make new, revolutionary 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:21.120 and affordable gene therapies capable of treating previously incurable afflictions 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:24.320 let's call them like herpes or HIV, things that medicine 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:26.920 has yet to figure out a solution for that. We 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:28.800 just people who have them. They live with them, you know, 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:29.280 for the rest. 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:29.960 Of their lives. 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:30.640 Yeah. 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:36.079 And the emphasis there is on cure yea, right, so 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:41.719 not treatment not treatment. So most many diseases or afflictions 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:44.959 have very effective treatment regimens. 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:45.280 Right. 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:51.319 They can repress the symptoms or the consequences of a condition, 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:54.840 but they will not cure it, which works out great 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:58.960 for pharmaceutical companies. And I'm not saying that that's what 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:02.920 they want to happen. But you know, somebody paying you 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:05.240 five hundred dollars a month for the rest of their life, 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:07.199 that's a guaranteed income stream. 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:10.400 We've kicked this old chestnut down the street many a time, right, 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:13.840 where it's like, does it benefit anyone that's making money 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:18.520 off of treatment to cure something? Are people actively holding 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:22.480 back said cure? I mean, it's it's a question that 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:24.040 we ask all the time, and I don't think we've 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:27.120 seen definitive proof that yes, that's definitely happening, but it 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:28.000 sure makes sense. 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:32.920 There's definitely motivation there and it's true that drugs. Making 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:38.920 drugs here in the US is a labor intensive, very 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:42.640 very difficult process, lots of time, lots of time, not 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:44.880 just because it's a needle in the haystack, and the 0:12:44.920 --> 0:12:48.280 haystack is the human body, which we still don't fully understand, 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:54.760 but also because of the bureaucratic oversight that's required, and 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:58.160 that comes into play here later. So Treywick was born 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:01.640 in DC. He lived in Alabama. He graduated with a 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:07.679 degree in interdisciplinary studies, which is sort of just it's 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:10.800 a very customizable degree, I guess is a good way 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:15.240 to put it. So interdisciplinary studies will have you encountering 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:18.840 your basic prerecs or your core classes, the one oh ones, 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:21.520 the eleven oh ones, and then branching out into stuff 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:24.320 that interest you more like the intersection between history and 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:30.520 biology or so on. Trewick had no clinical science background whatsoever, 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:36.760 no formal training, no research experience, and critics were quick 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:41.320 to point this out. His critics and opponents also hated 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:44.640 his frequent use of the C word or cure because 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:48.080 they felt it was essentially begging for increased scrutiny and 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:51.840 then possible litigation or legal action from the FDA, the 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:55.679 Food and Drug Administration. His first big splash into the 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:59.960 world of transhumanism and biohacking came about in twenty sixteen 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:02.839 when he worked with an outfit called the Global Health 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:08.720 Span Policy Institute, a nonprofit advocating investment in unorthodox, radical 0:14:08.760 --> 0:14:13.120 approaches to anti aging treatments. There's a story here, and 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:18.840 may it may bias some of us against Treywick, but 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:21.840 it is important to know it's completely true. He got 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:24.920 hired because the company was run by his adoptive cousin, 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:28.560 a person named Edwina Rogers. She was a lobbyist, former 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:31.000 advisor to w Bush. 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:33.600 Because just really fast, because Trewick was not his given name. 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:35.920 He was adopted by the Trewick family. 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:39.320 That is correct, Yeah, he was adopted by the Trewick family, 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:43.720 and he's not a blood relation to Rogers. So he 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:47.320 graduates from college and he calls Rogers and asks for 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:50.400 some career advice. She says, well, what are you interested in? 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:52.880 And one of the topics that came up was the 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:56.960 idea of life extension, just another way to package anti aging. 0:14:57.400 --> 0:15:00.520 That's a passion she shared with him. And you know, 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:03.320 by the time you get toward the end of your 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:07.720 individual's story. Most people are very interested in life extension 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:13.680 or anti aging. She decided to start an organization dedicated 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:18.720 to expanding healthy human lifetimes. So she founded this GHPI, 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:23.600 and then she installed Treywick as the CEO. She also in, 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:26.600 you know, trying to be a good family member. She 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:29.600 also helped him move into the house that she and 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:33.720 her husband shared in Washington, d c. Three weeks into 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:38.160 his stay, things started to go south. Treywick told her 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:42.560 husband told Roger's husband, a mister Neemeyer, that after college 0:15:42.560 --> 0:15:45.160 he had lived in a tantric sex house in Colorado, 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:49.000 and he started talking about his experience there. Mister Niemeyer 0:15:49.280 --> 0:15:53.600 was not happy or impressed, and we have a quote 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:56.160 from him about his opinion of Aaron Treywick. 0:15:56.640 --> 0:16:00.400 He had delusions that women wanted him. He'd be talking 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:03.560 with them and promising them meetings with senators, and this 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:05.760 is outside of the quote. He also said that at 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:09.040 one point mister Treywick referred to the women he slept 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:11.720 with as my skanks. 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:17.800 Gross all class, all class. So Rogers realized fairly quickly 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:20.680 into this that Treywick was lying to both her and 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:25.800 her husband Treywick was intercepting professional correspondence that was meant 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:29.600 for Rogers, and at least once he took an airplane 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:33.240 ticket and a conference invitation on her behalf. So they 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:35.960 said we want you to come to this conference. He said, oh, 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:38.920 they must be me or I want to go. You know, 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:41.200 it's just a little bit of a credit hog. And 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:45.440 one night in late March, when Rogers' husband was out 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:48.640 of town, Treywick attempted to force his way into her 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:51.480 bedroom at two in the morning. This was one of 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:55.800 the last straws. Rogers fires him on July seventeenth, twenty sixteen. 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:58.600 He continues to tell people he works at the nonprofit 0:16:58.680 --> 0:17:02.000 for about a year after and then he goes on 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:05.240 to found what you had mentioned earlier, nol A Sentence 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:07.200 Biomedical in twenty seventeen. 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:10.320 Yeah, that's right. And this organization had a mission and 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:14.680 it was quote to make cutting edge biomedical technologies available 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:19.200 for everyone. And there was of course a controversy from 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:22.639 the start. As you might imagine, Ascendance aimed to save 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:26.840 money by avoiding the rigor and expense of clinical trials, 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:33.520 those pesky clinical trials and FDA oversight that seems highly problematic, 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:34.040 doesn't it. 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:36.719 Yeah, And again it gets back to that whole idea 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:42.280 of those trials. That process is crazy, crazy expensive and 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:44.920 also takes a ton of time. Both of those are 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:48.520 directly linked. And according to Treywick, he said that this 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:52.600 kind of getting around these regulations is not illegal. And 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:53.359 here's a quote. 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:56.399 There are breakthroughs in the world that we can actually 0:17:56.400 --> 0:17:59.040 bring to market in a way that wouldn't require us 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:02.199 to butt up against the FDA's walls, but instead to 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:06.960 walk around them. Oh and what they're talking about, essentially 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:12.760 is self experimentation. Self experimentation is strongly discouraged by agencies 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:17.480 like the FDA, but it's difficult for regulators to intervene 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:22.879 unless you are using a drug that is already a 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:26.000 schedule drug. You know, unless you're saying I want to 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:30.760 figure out the benefits of heroin or MDMA, they can't 0:18:30.800 --> 0:18:33.040 really prosecute you. You know, if you say, I'm going 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:37.160 to live on a diet of celery juice and buttermilk 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:40.720 just for three months and just see what happens to 0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:44.000 my body and wheat grass and wheat grass very important component, 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:46.840 they can't stop you because it comes to a matter 0:18:46.880 --> 0:18:48.280 of personal liberty. Right. 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:50.560 But my question is like this guy sort of casts 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:53.600 himself as being at the forefront of this, you know, 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:58.280 self discovery, self experimentation field, but it seems here that 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:00.840 he's almost using this as like a work around for 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:03.680 his company, right, so he doesn't actually have to spend 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:05.520 the money that it takes to do the research and 0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:07.120 to do the I mean, you know, you can say 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:08.680 what you will about the FDA and all on how 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:11.160 long or you know, that approval process takes. But this 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:13.760 does not seem magnanimous in the way that it's being 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:15.560 discussed here. 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:19.560 Yeah, it's it's a good point. What are the true 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:25.119 motives versus the stated motives here? And equally important, what 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:30.200 did a sentence Biomedical actually do? We'll tell you after 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:44.000 a word from our sponsors. 0:19:37.960 --> 0:19:42.320 And we're back now. I think something that sets Ascendance 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:46.000 apart as well as Aaron Treywick is kind of the 0:19:46.040 --> 0:19:50.720 showmanship that he had and some of the more radical 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:52.800 things that he was willing to do in front of 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:53.840 a live crowd. 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:54.359 Yeah. 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:58.959 In October twenty seventeen, the company Ascendanced Biomedical shared a 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:05.000 live broadcast over the Internet airwaves, Facebook specifically, and it 0:20:05.080 --> 0:20:09.080 featured Treywick and one of his colleague slash associates, a 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:13.679 guy named Tristan Roberts. Tristan Roberts had HIV and he 0:20:13.760 --> 0:20:19.560 injected himself with an untested experimental gene therapy. This was 0:20:19.640 --> 0:20:23.359 presented as someone saying, let's get rid of this unnecessary 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:28.160 red tape holding us back. Tristan in the video does say, 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:30.879 you know, he indicates that he has consented to this. 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:34.360 It is his choice, it's his body, so legally, there's 0:20:34.400 --> 0:20:36.399 not really too much you can do about it unless 0:20:36.400 --> 0:20:38.720 you could prove the guy was coerced. But then they 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:44.120 had another another similar experiment that involved Treywick himself. 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:47.240 Yeah, he injected himself with something that he referred to 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:52.119 as research compound, and in a later interview he referred 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:56.960 to this as a treatment and another term bound to 0:20:56.960 --> 0:20:59.920 catch the unwanted attention of that old FDA. And it 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:03.000 turned out that this was, at least from everything I've read, 0:21:03.359 --> 0:21:06.639 a herpes treatment, right, that's right, And you know, these 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:11.720 both of these actions feel very radical to me personally. Sure, 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:16.080 going on a live stream to inject yourself and or 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:19.440 your associate to inject himself with something on and it's 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:20.760 gene therapy of all things. 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:25.560 Well, that's also that's part of the strange dissonance in 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:28.399 the guy's character that we're talking about. He publicly compared 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:32.720 himself to Jonas Salk and several other like Louis Pasteur, 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:37.920 several other great scientists of note, great innovators of medicine, 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:41.840 self experimentation, though at what point does it become just 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:47.040 performance right spectacle? So it's not a surprise that he 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:51.040 was a controversial figure in the transhumanism or biohacking community. 0:21:51.440 --> 0:21:54.200 His critics there were many saw him as little more 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:57.919 than a smooth talking showman, prone to over promising and 0:21:58.000 --> 0:22:02.760 rushing headlong into these deadline that were just cartoonish without 0:22:02.840 --> 0:22:06.040 realizing the extent of research and science that was required 0:22:06.080 --> 0:22:09.639 to accomplish the goals. His friend Tristan Roberts, who we 0:22:09.680 --> 0:22:13.600 mentioned earlier, put it this way. He has a great 0:22:13.680 --> 0:22:14.359 quote about this. 0:22:15.040 --> 0:22:18.960 He seems to promise anything to everyone who was looking 0:22:19.000 --> 0:22:22.080 for something. He was actually developing some of the things 0:22:22.080 --> 0:22:24.240 he was saying he was developing. On the other hand, 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:27.159 it did seem like he would take any money that 0:22:27.200 --> 0:22:30.320 people handed him with no regard for executing. 0:22:31.920 --> 0:22:34.800 And here's a question, let's stop for a tick here. 0:22:35.040 --> 0:22:37.800 Why are all these people speaking of Aaron Treewick in 0:22:37.840 --> 0:22:42.000 the past tense? Well, it's because he is dead. 0:22:42.440 --> 0:22:45.840 That's correct. On April twenty ninth, twenty eighteen, the body 0:22:45.840 --> 0:22:49.160 of Aaron Treewick was discovered floating in a sensory deprivation 0:22:49.280 --> 0:22:53.160 tank at soul Ex Float Spa in Washington, DC. 0:22:53.760 --> 0:22:59.960 And a century deprivation tank is a meditative, mildly therapeutic 0:23:00.160 --> 0:23:04.000 thing where where you float with minimal clothing or nude 0:23:04.080 --> 0:23:09.240 in a body of water or fluid salty water. Yeah, 0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:12.040 so that so that you can float similar like dead 0:23:12.080 --> 0:23:16.840 sea level and you are left alone with your thoughts. Yeah. 0:23:16.880 --> 0:23:21.520 It's usually dark, quiet and just you. Your mind is 0:23:21.600 --> 0:23:23.640 released a bit from its body. 0:23:23.359 --> 0:23:27.800 And some people it would cause serious anxiety. For me 0:23:27.920 --> 0:23:29.960 being one of that, just the idea of this does 0:23:29.960 --> 0:23:33.200 not appeal to me. But our cohort, Robert Lamb from 0:23:33.200 --> 0:23:36.280