Today's episode is an encore presentation of a conversation I had with B.J. Miller way back in

2021. B.J. Miller is a physician who specializes in end-of-life care. You might expect an episode on

dying to be depressing, but I suspect you will find that B.J. Miller

is such an extraordinary human being that this episode is anything but depressing. For me,

this is one of the most uplifting episodes we've ever done. If there's one topic that nobody wants to talk about, it's death.

So it tells you something that my guest today, B.J. Miller, has a TED talk on dying that has garnered nearly 15 million views.

Simply put, B.J. thinks that our society's approach to dying is completely wrong,

and he's on a crusade to change the way we die. He's a physician who's seen over and over

how our medical system fails people at the end of life. If you care about the quality of your

own death or the death of your loved ones, you owe it to yourself to hear what BJ has to say.

We're sacrificing anything we might resemble a quality of life for this potential for a few more

minutes on the planet, and that's a tricky bargain.

Welcome to people I mostly admire with Steve Levitt.

B.J. Miller is a palliative care physician who's worked at the University of California, San Francisco's

cancer center. He's taught at the med school there, and he's worked with a Zen Hospice

Project in San Francisco. He now sees patients through an organization he started to help

provide support and guidance to the terminal ill. It's called mental health. Now, mostly, I just try to

have fun on this podcast, but my hope is that this conversation today will actually turn out to be

important for some listeners. Like most people, I generally try to avoid

thinking about my own death. But preparing to talk to BJ, I've thought a lot about dying,

and I'm glad I did. Maybe the same would be true for you.

So right off the bat, I want to ask you about death and education.

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