Biohacking

The term “biohacking” can be traced to Michael Schrage, who used it in a 1988 Washington Post piece entitles “Playing God in the Basement”.  The original sense of the word was homegrown, do-it-yourself biological experimentation, especially the idea of applying hacker-style tinkering to biology.

The modern biohacker has morphed into something even more ridiculous. He is rarely seen without a bottle of expensive designer water, a glucose monitor, a watch that takes his ECG intermittently, and the superior expression of someone who has outwitted biology. His creed is simple: if my body feels less than perfect, do not rest, reflect, and certainly do not seek proper medical care; instead, purchase something that promises optimisation.

So-called alternative medicine (SCAM) is the biohacker’s natural habitat , not least because it offers what evidence-based medicine cannot provide: excitement, indulgence, drama, and mystery. Conventional medicine is known to be tedious in the way evidence, knowledge, and science often are. It asks for trials, doses, mechanisms, proof, and outcomes. SCAM prefers vibes, anecdotes, and the kind of certainty usually reserved for fortune cookies.

The biohacker speaks eloquently about inflammation, mitochondria, hormones, quantum effects, and “ancient wisdom,” typically in the same sentence and with equal confidence. For him, a detox is not a real detox unless it also offers a spiritual purge; a supplement is not a supplement unless it promises to restore something modern life has stolen from him, such as vitality, masculinity, or the ability to wake up at dawn without resenting humanity. If a SCAM cannot be proven, it can still be marketed. If it cannot be marketed, it can still be rebranded as a journey.

The biohacker distrusts institutions yet trusts any odd charlatan on the internet who sells expensive powders with mysterious ingredients. He defames “Big Pharma” while buying a dozen unregulated capsules because his favourite wellness influencer, speaking from a candlelit kitchen, assures him that natural means safe. He rejects medicine for being impersonal, then spends his money on the anonymous wellness market.

The biohacker rarely wants merely to be healthy. Health is too modest a goal. He wants to become enlightened, upgraded, purified, encrypted and, if possible, immortal. Ageing offends him because it is vulgar. He wages war on his own body with ice baths, fasting, powders, nootropics, and devices that make him feel invincible.

And yet biohacking boils down to a pitifully vulgar story: fear mutated into commerce. Fear of mortality, fear of decline, fear of being ordinary. SCAM supplies the myths that soothe those fears; biohacking supplies products to monetize them. Together they form a perfect alliance of wishful thinking and premium fees.