5 replies to this topic

[Aegist]

I have wanted to stay young ever since I was in my mid teens. So you could basically say I have been an immortalist all of my life. This community we have here at ImmInst is where I belong, no question asked. But I regularly feel ashamed at my ignorance about the very topic I have chosen as my initial life purpose. I mean, I often feel like I know nothing about our movement. I feel like I haven't read the right books, I don't keep up to date enough with the right scientific journals, I don't follow the right news articles, or read the right websites (other than this one). And no doubt most of this is simply true (I really don't...and I should), and hence the idea behind this thread.

Where should someone start, who wants to educate themselves about the Immortality Movement?

Some complete newbie comes along, hears that some people think that lifespan extension may be possible in our natural lifespan, and wants to learn more.... Where do they go, what do they read? If possible, i would like to collect ideas here, and then formulate a 'Immortality 101 course' where we prescribe relevent materials, in order, for people to go through. Step by step introduction from teh philosophical background, to the rationalisation, to the scientific theories, to the scientific breakthroughs and ending on recommendations for the future. Starting with easy to get into material, leaving the hardcore scientigic referencing books until nearer the end.


So, to start with, the most obvious starting point would have to be :
Exploring Life Extension - The Imminst Film

But where from there? Should people move on to certain books? Science Fiction or Popular science? LongevityMeme, SENS, Tranhumanism.org, Singularity.org.... Where do we start, what order do we go through them?


Second would most likely be
The Fable Of The Dragon Tyrannt


Any suggestions?

[jdog]

Outstanding idea. I can't think of how many times I've brought the general subject of immortality up in a conversation with someone who's not in the field of science. I'll typically point them to imminst.org if they're interested in learning more. Don't get me wrong, it's a great place for relavent info, but what if the person coming to the site doesn't really know what they're looking for, or what they should look for? I can see now; someone who has no background in science, coming to imminst.org and looking at all this interesting stuff, but as they don't understand a lot of it, they just lose interest and move on. There's nothing laid out in a manner that attempts to teach, or at least provide the foundational concepts of this multi-disciplinary subject.

If there link I could instead point them to which provided a comprehensive introduction; one that could grab ahold of someone's attention no less, I think that'd be great.

[Aegist]

I think this could also tie in perfectly with the Splash landing page discussed in the Flyer posting thread.

We have a generic splash page, followed by the 'education' page.

[bgwowk]

Longevity Meme is a good overview of the field.

http://www.longevitymeme.org/

with articles listed at

http://www.longevity...rg/articles/#31

[Aegist]

Longevity Meme is a good overview of the field.

http://www.longevitymeme.org/

with articles listed at

http://www.longevity...rg/articles/#31

I suspected longevity meme is a good resource, but I have visited the site at least 10 times now, and never read anything on it. As stupid as it sounds, it is because of the layout of it, and I guarantee most of their visitors do the same as me.

I am sure Longevity Meme has TONS of useful and great information on it, but they need to devise a better method of conveying that information. The front page has several 'menus' of sorts for you to choose from, and each of those menus has way too many options (I've never bothered reading all of the options in any one of them), and then, to make it worse, the page is just block text from top to bottom. No doubt all of it is incredibly good information...but the best information on earth is wasted if people don't read it.

Regardless of whether this is a weakness of mine or not, I know I am not alone, and that most people, particularly people who are only just being introduced to longevity, have NO DESIRE whatsoever to trawl through the tons of information on Longevity meme trying to figure out what is worth their time and what isn't.

As Longevity Meme stands at the moment, I could only consider it, as a website, one of the final recommendations for the Immortality Education course, which isn't bad, it's where I would put ImmInst; its a place you go once you feel comfortable with the concept, not where you go to learn the basics (even though you theoretically could...).

So the articles link you gave looks a bit better than the front page, but even so, is someone supposed to read all of them? Is there any particular one which you think is superb? Or would you recommend one to the absolute beginner, one to the 'almost converted', one to the excited ready to go recent conversion, and one you think would be most important for a dedicated immortalist to read?

[Danail Bulgaria]

I found this topic while browsing the forum for something else.

I think, that I may contribute a post on that. Recently I found two free courses, with free certificates after you take the course.

https://longevity-de....teachable.com/
They are named "Longevity Medicine 101" and "Longevity Medicine 201"

 

If you see other free courses, that are concerning immortality, longevity etc., consider posting them. Especially if they are going with free certificates.