Packy McCormick's latest dispatch from Not Boring arrives not as a standard year-end recap, but as a manifesto for radical biological and technological optimism. While the world often fixates on incremental gains, McCormick argues we are standing on the precipice of a fundamental shift where death becomes a solvable engineering problem rather than an inevitability. The piece is notable for its synthesis of disparate fields—from organ perfusion to psychedelic pharmacology—into a single, coherent narrative about extending the human lifespan.
The Era of Swappable Parts
McCormick anchors his optimism in the work of Science Corporation, a venture led by Max Hodak, formerly of Neuralink. The core argument here is a move away from the frantic, time-sensitive logistics of current transplant medicine toward a model of biological inventory. "It really takes you from this world of conventional medicine and many of its very difficult problems to potentially a world of swappable parts," McCormick writes, quoting Hodak. This framing is powerful because it reframes the organ shortage not as a tragedy of scarcity, but as a failure of logistics and preservation technology.
The current reality is grim: donated kidneys are placed on ice and must be transplanted within a day or two, or they die. McCormick highlights Science's new "Vessel" division, which aims to keep organs metabolically active outside the body for weeks rather than hours. "Could you get to the point where you could check a kidney as luggage on a United flight to the East Coast?" Hodak asks, a question that McCormick uses to illustrate the sheer scale of the potential disruption. If successful, this turns transplantation from an emergency procedure into a scheduled one, dramatically expanding the pool of viable donors and recipients.
This vision echoes the philosophical concept of the Ship of Theseus, a companion topic in McCormick's broader deep dives. Just as the ancient ship was replaced plank by plank until it was no longer the same object, the human body could theoretically be maintained by swapping out failing organs with fresh ones. The implication is a future where aging is managed through maintenance rather than accepted as decay. Critics might note that the cost of such technology could initially be prohibitive, creating a new tier of biological inequality before it becomes democratized. However, the trajectory of medical tech suggests that what is once a luxury for the few often becomes standard care for the many.
If you can keep organs alive outside the body for weeks instead of hours, you could transform transplantation from emergency surgery into scheduled procedure.
The Psychedelic Metabolic Reset
Shifting from hardware to software, McCormick turns his attention to Bryan Johnson, the entrepreneur famous for his "Don't Die" longevity protocol. The piece details Johnson's recent self-experimentation with psilocybin, treating the psychedelic not as a recreational drug but as a potent therapeutic tool. McCormick notes that Johnson observed broad benefits across mental, hormonal, and metabolic systems, describing the results as a "metabolic reset button for the brain."
The data presented is startlingly specific. McCormick writes, "My blood sugar control improved from the top 2% of the population to 0.2%, better than 99.75% of 18-25 year olds." This level of quantification aligns with the historical tradition of psychonauts like Humphry Davy and William James, who famously experimented on themselves to understand the human condition. McCormick frames Johnson's work as a modern, data-driven continuation of this lineage, suggesting that the Schedule I classification of psilocybin is increasingly anachronistic. "Whoever is behind that classification must be trippin'," McCormick quips, a sharp critique of regulatory inertia in the face of promising clinical data.
The argument here is that the anti-aging frontier is not just about physical replacement parts, but about resetting the body's internal regulatory systems. By reducing inflammation and cortisol levels, these interventions could slow the biological clock itself. A counterargument worth considering is the risk of over-interpreting n-of-1 experiments; Johnson's results, while compelling, may not generalize to the broader population without rigorous, controlled clinical trials. Yet, the sheer magnitude of the reported effects demands that the scientific community take notice.
Unlocking the Terahertz Gap
McCormick also explores the invisible infrastructure of the future: the terahertz (THz) frequency range. This section of the commentary is a masterclass in making obscure physics accessible. He describes the terahertz range as a "technological no-man's-land," sitting between what traditional electronics and conventional optics can handle. "It's too high-frequency for traditional electronics and too long-wavelength for conventional optics," McCormick explains, highlighting why this gap has been so frustrating to bridge.
The solution, according to researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, is 3D printing. By printing microscale helix structures, scientists can now manipulate terahertz waves in ways previously impossible. "The tiny spirals, optimized through simulation, then precisely printed, do what no natural crystal can at these wavelengths," McCormick writes. This innovation is critical for the next generation of telecommunications, including 6G, and for advanced sensing technologies that can detect chemical signatures without the dangers of X-rays.
This development underscores a recurring theme in McCormick's work: the convergence of manufacturing and material science is unlocking new frontiers. Just as the Ship of Theseus relies on the ability to replace parts, the future of communication relies on the ability to fabricate materials that do not exist in nature. The ability to encode information in the polarization of light itself, creating a "chiral QR code," suggests a future where data transmission is as much about the physics of light as it is about the code being sent.
The Frontier of 2025
In the final analysis, McCormick leans on a comprehensive review by Arb Research and RenPhil to score the year's scientific breakthroughs. The highest expected value goes to Waymo's finding that self-driving cars are ten times safer than human drivers, a statistic that promises a massive reduction in traffic fatalities. The review also highlights sobering progress in global health and safety, noting that "murder rates worldwide have fallen 25% since 2000" and that extreme poverty in India has plummeted.
Yet, the review is not blind to the risks. McCormick acknowledges the dark side of scientific advancement, citing the creation of "artificial chimeras of bat coronaviruses, with up to 100% lethality, produced, on purpose, under BSL-2 conditions." This serves as a necessary reminder that the same ingenuity that cures diseases can also engineer them. The piece concludes with a nod to the human element, celebrating the "tacit knowledge" of craftspeople like knife makers and perfumers, even as AI advances. "Science and technology allow the art to push beyond its own artistic frontiers," McCormick quotes perfumer Christophe Laudamiel, suggesting that the future is a collaboration between human intuition and machine capability.
Bottom Line
McCormick's strongest argument is that the convergence of biological engineering, pharmacological innovation, and advanced materials science is creating a feedback loop of human improvement that feels unprecedented. The piece's greatest vulnerability lies in its reliance on optimistic projections and self-experimentation, which, while inspiring, lack the weight of long-term, peer-reviewed consensus. Readers should watch for the transition of these technologies from experimental labs to regulated markets, where safety and equity will become the primary battlegrounds.
If Theoretical Terry Tao Soup Computers were the least impactful thing that happened in 2025, we did great.