Welcome to Note to Self Cafe. Would you like cream and sugar with your coffee? How about… butter?

We’re on a mission to try and change our minds and bodies with data—first with fitness apps, then by strapping sh*t to our heads. Now we have arrived at act three: biohacking. 

If you’re not familiar with biohacking, there’s this group of guys (yes, mostly dudes) who look at data and experiment to optimize their minds and bodies.

Enter, biohacker Dave Asprey, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur behind Bulletproof Coffee—a blended drink with grass-fed unsalted butter, Brain Octane Oil and puppy tears (two of those are actual ingredients). At this point Bulletproof is a huge operation that includes Bulletproof Radio, the best-selling book The Bulletproof Diet: Lose up to a Pound a Day, Reclaim Energy and Focus, Upgrade Your Life, and a blog.

A lot of people who are part of this biohacking wave, frankly, seem ridiculous and self-centered. But in this case, we’ll admit it, we really do want to live long and happy lives. And so does Asprey.

“The goal is to die when I want,” he tells host Manoush Zomorodi in this week’s episode. “I’m planning to hit at least 180.”

A goal that Asprey says isn’t so far-fetched. How does he plan on getting there? By reaching a high-performing, altered state through whatever means are necessary—as long as he can track it.

“The only thing wrong that Lance Armstrong did is he didn’t tell everyone he was doing it. As a matter of fact, from what I hear, he wasn’t the only person in pro-cycling doing this, not by a long shot. And here’s what pisses me off about this: Do you know how much precious knowledge we would have as a species had Lance published what he was doing? And all of the other people there? So I say if these athletes want to do experiments like that, they just need to publish the data. Why hide it?”

If you like this episode (or just can’t stop thinking about buttery coffee), you’ll probably also enjoy a story from our friends at Only Human about a man who started a dieting trend before most present-day trendsters were even conceived. You can listen to that here.

And one last thing: We have a request for an upcoming show we are working on about death. Sounds ominous, but we could really use your help. Do you have a story about how technology has changed or helped you deal with death? Record a voice memo on your phone or send us an email at notetoself@wnyc.org. We’re also here to listen on Facebook and Twitter.

Subscribe to Note to Self on iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, I Heart Radio, Pocket Casts or anywhere else using our RSS feed.