16 replies to this topic

[brokenportal]

The following are excerpts from pieces written by critics, and covering criticism of indefinite life extension. I'm looking to add many more. Please list more and I will go through them and consider editing them into this topic. I'll start it off with some self criticism.

Some Self Criticism:


There are many prominent people in societies around the world and in science that don’t stand against indefinite life extension. They earn degrees that delve into the details of the most sophisticated of facts surrounding the concepts involved in biology. Beyond that, if it were feasible, responsible and desirable, wouldn’t the elite echelons among us have already picked up this pursuit? Aging is a mountainous goal. What makes us think that we could even hope to defeat something that has been around since the dawn of time, especially as a rag tag assortment of activists, fringe PhDs here and there, some high school drop outs, wanna be philosophers, and all the rest?

We don’t operate as one organization with a well established business structure, with marketing plans and executives overlooking the whole of the scenario. We don’t operate as an institution. We don’t have broad support from anybody. The major nations of the world on the other hand, have institutions devoted to health, entire networks of organizations set up with billions upon billions in funding. They know the ins and outs of most every conceivable possible aspect of biology that we could hope to have in this day and age. They don’t work on indefinite life extension. They haven’t examined the data and decided that indefinite life extension was within reason, feasible, doable. Where do we get the tenacity to think that we, of all people, today, and throughout all of history, can tackle such a foe, where they don’t, where others couldn’t?

Maybe we have out of control egos, maybe we are a mixture of various states delusions, from grandeur to megalomania. Maybe this new age culture of TV and internet with opinions, scattered facts, random idealism, some new knowledge, and misinformation all mixed in together is making it hard to tell them apart, is wearing on our brains, giving us this new audacity. Who do we think we are anyways? Why do we think we can even effect a sliver of change? Why do we think that we deserve this? Who are we to challenge the natural order of things?

It seems that sometimes the more a person has, the more a person wants. It could be greed. It could be vanity. It could be any of a host of vices. In the end, we should consider leaving this to the established institutions of the world.



'Don't fall for the cult of immortality' By S Jay Olshansky PhD - 2004

http://news.bbc.co.u...ews/4059549.stm

"What do the ancient purveyors of physical immortality all have in common? They are all dead."

"They claim unabashedly that the science of radical life extension is already here, and that all we have to do is "live long enough to live forever".

What Kurzweil and others are now doing is weaving once again the seductive web of immortality, tantalising us with the tale that we all so desperately want to hear, and have heard for thousands of years - live life without frailty and debility and dependence and be forever youthful, both physically and mentally.

The seduction will no doubt last longer than its proponents."



Life Extension Pseudoscience and the SENS Plan - 2005

http://www.technolog...s/estepetal.pdf

"In supplementary material posted on the Technology Review web site we evaluate SENS in detail. Briefly, here are our conclusions: 1)SENS is based on the scientifically unsupported speculations of Aubrey de Grey, which are camouflaged by the legitimate science of others; 2) SENS bears only a superficial resemblance to science or engineering; 3) SENS and de Grey's writings in support of it are riddled with jargonfilled misunderstandings and misrepresentations; 4) SENS' notoriety is due almost entirely to its emotional appeal; 5) SENS is pseudoscience. We base these conclusions on our extensive training and individual and collective hands-on experience in the areas covered by SENS, including the engineering of biological organisms for the purpose of extending life span."
(rebutted by the sens challenge)  movement for indefinite life extension sens.jpg   28.3KB   7 downloads


Efforts to achieve indefinite lifespan spur controversy - By Dick Pelletier

http://www.positivef...archive/20.html

"Kass sees research into genetics, embryonic stem cells, and cloning, as threats to the very nature of humanity. He issues dire warnings that once mankind starts down that slippery slope the result might be something that is not human. Death, Kass has written, is a blessing. "The finitude of human life is a blessing for every individual, whether he knows it or not."

Does that mean that everyone should die eventually, even if they are still in good health? Frighteningly, when asked if the government would be within their rights in the future to tell its citizens that they have to die, Bioethics Council member Francis Fukuyama answered, "Yes, absolutely"."



"In Pursuit of the Longevity Dividend: What Should We Be Doing To Prepare for the Unprecedented Aging of Humanity?" - By S. Jay Olshansky, Ph.D., Daniel Perry, Richard A. Miller, M.D., Ph.D., and Robert N. Butler, M.D. - 2006

"What we have in mind is not the unrealistic pursuit of dramatic increases in life expectancy, let alone the kind of biological immortality best left to science fiction novels. Rather, we envision a goal that is realistically achievable: a modest deceleration in the rate of aging sufficient to delay all aging-related diseases and disorders by about seven years. This target was chosen because the risk of death and most other negative attributes of aging tends to rise exponentially throughout the adult lifespan with a doubling time of approximately seven years. Such a delay would yield health and longevity benefits greater than what would be achieved with the elimination of cancer or heart disease. And we believe it can be achieved for generations now alive."  1.jpg   12.9KB   0 downloads


The extreme arrogance of anti-aging medicine – By Robin Holliday – 2008

http://springerlink....1/fulltext.html

"Over the centuries there has beenmuch written about the possibility of human immortality or extreme longevity.This was done when very little was known about the biology of aging: speculations about life-extension gained the authors some notoriety, and sometimes some serious attention. The situation is quite different today: there is a vast amount of information about aging and age-associated disease, and the biological reasons for the evolution of aging have become apparent. There is now every reason to believe that the maximum survival time of human beings is determined by the evolved anatomical and physiological design of their bodies.

The views put about by those in the anti-aging movement are overbearingly arrogant, first, because they claim that they can be much more successful than the thousands of biomedical scientists who carry out research on age-associated diseases, and second, because they claim they can reverse millions of years of evolution in a very short space of time. Their predictions have little relationship to medicine and science. Theyare no more than a somewhat curious mixture of pseudo-science and wish-fulfillment. This mixture is manna to the media, and the gullibility ofthe public means that a huge and profitable industry of "anti-aging" potions and products has been generated. Regrettably, the futuristic scenarios that have been widely publicised also generate financial support for the further expansion and influence of the anti-aging movement."



Long For This World: The Strange Science Of Immortality - By Jonathan Weiner - 2010  movement for indefinite life extension long for this world.jpg   81.5KB   5 downloads

http://www.npr.org/t...oryId=128168264 (piece about the book, with audio)

"We can engineer as long a life span as we like, "even life for evermore" (Psalm 133). That's hardly the majority view in gerontology. On the other hand, the field is so splintered and spiky right now that it's hard to find a majority view. Gerontologists can't agree on a way to measure aging, or what they mean by aging. Because so much of the action takes place in the United Kingdom and the United States, they can't even agree on how to spell the problem under discussion: aging or ageing. They fight over definitions of longevity, health, life expectancy, life span, maximum life span. But even in this overheated moment, Aubrey is the most fervent of them all."

Edited by brokenportal, 22 October 2011 - 04:11 AM.

[niner]

If you arrange these items chronologically, things seem to be looking up.

[brokenportal]

What do you mean?

[chrwe]

Death, Kass has written, is a blessing. “The finitude of human life is a blessing for every individual, whether he knows it or not.”

People who are of the "I know better what you need than you yourself" variety, of all persuasions, are really the bane of mankind.

[chris w]

Death, Kass has written, is a blessing. “The finitude of human life is a blessing for every individual, whether he knows it or not.”

People who are of the "I know better what you need than you yourself" variety, of all persuasions, are really the bane of mankind.

Yes, the "whether he knows it or not" part really got to me too. And even if it indeed was a "blessing" ( though it's hard for me to even think hypotetically about it this way ), then Mr Leon Kass, I hate to break it down to you like this, but you can always swallow a plethora of colorful pills to bring this blessing to yourself. I'm almost sure that if humans had a choice to not die, then those religions who see suicide as an enormous sin would come up with some justifications as to why now, in this wholy new situation, it is ok to end your own life when you feel like it and you long to meet the Maker. I don't get how can someone be either that incredibely stupid or that incredibely malevolent as Kass to seriously hold that in the most important choice that a human being might have, it's better if "Nature" decides for them.

Edited by chris w, 13 July 2010 - 12:33 PM.

[brokenportal]

Right, why dont they commit suicide sooner then? Why dont they not go to the doctor, why do they care if their cars have breaks, why do they choose carefully what they eat? Why not grass, random berries, dirt, ice cream 3 times a day etc...? Its because we choose not to commit suicide, but when it comes to indefinite life extension, at this point, many of them are choosing to commit suicide. They have a choice to either drive down the road that takes them to these possible cures, or they have a choice to drive down the road that leads to the cliff. If you say no to the development of things that will save your life then it seems like thats suicide. Some people have no vision outside of the box they are given. There have been Luddites in every generation since the beginning of time. I would love to be able to see what the pre-fire, the pre language, the pre industry, and the pre tech Kass would have to say, (or grunt I guess).

[brokenportal]

Im adding this one here. I need help compiling more criticism of indefinite life extension. Please help me do this.


“In Pursuit of the Longevity Dividend: What Should We Be Doing To Prepare for the Unprecedented Aging of Humanity?” - By S. Jay Olshansky, Ph.D., Daniel Perry, Richard A. Miller, M.D., Ph.D., and Robert N. Butler, M.D. - 2006

"What we have in mind is not the unrealistic pursuit of dramatic increases in life expectancy, let alone the kind of biological immortality best left to science fiction novels. Rather, we envision a goal that is realistically achievable: a modest deceleration in the rate of aging sufficient to delay all aging-related diseases and disorders by about seven years. This target was chosen because the risk of death and most other negative attributes of aging tends to rise exponentially throughout the adult lifespan with a doubling time of approximately seven years. Such a delay would yield health and longevity benefits greater than what would be achieved with the elimination of cancer or heart disease. And we believe it can be achieved for generations now alive."  1.jpg   12.9KB   0 downloads

[brokenportal]

Ive added another excellent article criticizing indefinite life extension. Florin brought this one to my attention. This one is the extreme arrogance of anti-aging medicine, by Dr. Robin Holliday

Most all of this criticism seems heartening to me because if this is all they got then it seems we are in great shape. Not only that, but by bringing this criticism out they allow us to know the precise reasons why they are opposing it, and if their reasons arent strong enough, or are misled, or are missing certain perspective, then it allows us to correct it, and counteract it. If they wanted to repudiate indefinite life extension more decisively then they could do that by ignoring it. By engaging it I think many of them may be showing signs that they want to engage this discussion, that they want to be convinced otherwise. So lets continue to do that. I write rebuttals to the criticism quite often and I encourage you all to as well.

Besides rebutting it, it also gives you a chance to become more familiar with it, and to become more practiced at rebutting it as we move forward toward bringing world support to indefinite life extension.

[brokenportal]

Ive added this self criticism:



Some Self Criticism:

There are many prominent people in societies around the world and in science that don’t stand against indefinite life extension. They earn degrees delving into the details and the most sophisticated of facts surrounding the concepts involved in biology. Beyond that, if it were feasible, responsible, and desirable, wouldn’t the elite echelons among us have already picked up this pursuit? Aging is a mountainous goal. What makes us think that we could even hope to defeat something that has been around since the dawn of time, especially as a rag tag assortment of activists, some fringe PhDs, some high school drop outs, wanna be philosophers, and all the rest?

We don’t operate as one organization with a well established business structure, with marketing plans and executives overlooking the whole of the scenario. We don’t operate as an institution. We don’t have broad support from anybody. The major nations of the world on the other hand, have institutions devoted to health, entire networks of organizations set up with billions upon billions in funding. They know the ins and outs of most every conceivable possible aspect of biology that we could hope to have in this day and age. They don’t work on indefinite life extension. They haven’t examined the data and decided that indefinite life extension was within reason, feasible, doable. Where do we get the tenacity to think that we, of all people, today, and throughout all of history, can tackle such a foe, where they don’t, where others couldn’t?

Maybe we have out of control egos, maybe we are a mixture of various states delusions, from grandeur to megalomania. Maybe this new age culture of TV and internet with opinions, scattered facts, random idealism, some new knowledge, and misinformation all mixed in together is making it hard to tell them apart, is wearing on our brains, giving us this new audacity. Who do we think we are anyways? Why do we think we can even effect a sliver of change? Why do we think that we deserve this? Who are we to challenge the natural order of things?

It seems that sometimes the more a person has, the more a person wants. It could be greed. It could be vanity. It could be any of a host of vices. In the end, we should consider leaving this to the established institutions of the world.

[niner]

There are many prominent people in societies around the world and in science that don’t stand against indefinite life extension. They earn degrees delving into the details and the most sophisticated of facts surrounding the concepts involved in biology. Beyond that, if it were feasible, responsible, and desirable, wouldn’t the elite echelons among us have already picked up this pursuit? Aging is a mountainous goal. What makes us think that we could even hope to defeat something that has been around since the dawn of time, especially as a rag tag assortment of activists, some fringe PhDs, some high school drop outs, wanna be philosophers, and all the rest?

It's only recently become feasible to tackle aging. The prominent people are mostly involved in other things, and may be unaware of the changes in the science of aging. They are probably very much in the grip of the social, cultural, and religious pressures to accept aging as 'the way it is, and should be' because it's always been that way. We've broken free of that grip, and are aware of the new science.

We don’t operate as one organization with a well established business structure, with marketing plans and executives overlooking the whole of the scenario. We don’t operate as an institution. We don’t have broad support from anybody. The major nations of the world on the other hand, have institutions devoted to health, entire networks of organizations set up with billions upon billions in funding. They know the ins and outs of most every conceivable possible aspect of biology that we could hope to have in this day and age. They don’t work on indefinite life extension. They haven’t examined the data and decided that indefinite life extension was within reason, feasible, doable. Where do we get the tenacity to think that we, of all people, today, and throughout all of history, can tackle such a foe, where they don’t, where others couldn’t?

Most of the world has "more pressing problems", oddly enough. But we aren't alone. There are a lot of people working on science that is going to be instrumental in fighting aging. Keep an eye on the stem cell sector. Geron just released results of a phase 1 study where four patients with spinal chord injuries have been injected with stem cells in the site of the damage. So far, they've revealed that the treatment appears safe and has led to no problems. Efficacy will be the next endpoint.

Maybe we have out of control egos, maybe we are a mixture of various states delusions, from grandeur to megalomania. Maybe this new age culture of TV and internet with opinions, scattered facts, random idealism, some new knowledge, and misinformation all mixed in together is making it hard to tell them apart, is wearing on our brains, giving us this new audacity. Who do we think we are anyways? Why do we think we can even effect a sliver of change? Why do we think that we deserve this? Who are we to challenge the natural order of things?

Are we nuts? Well, some of us probably are. Why do we think we can even effect a sliver of change? We're the first generation to have this amazing new tool- the 'global brain' of the web. We have Pubmed and Wikipedia and Google and we have a global cadre of smart people who can answer our questions and spur us to think of new things. Do we deserve this? Wow, after billions of years of evolution, after multiple billions of human deaths, we find ourselves here. Not only do we get to watch our species go through the transition to post-human, we get to help! We may not do that much individually, but as a group, we're helping to give the whole process a little extra push. Maybe we don't deserve this as much as some of the great people who came before us, but we're the ones who are here. We aren't keeping this for ourselves alone; it will ultimately be available to all.

It seems that sometimes the more a person has, the more a person wants. It could be greed. It could be vanity. It could be any of a host of vices. In the end, we should consider leaving this to the established institutions of the world.

You just threw that in to get us going, didn't you? (niner logs out, smokes two joints...)

[ViolettVol]

I think there is a huge barrier in people's brains when it comes to thinking about longevity and immortality that has been ingrained on and on since they were children and in previous generations, even thinking about immortality is looked upon as lunacy, not to mention doing sth about it.
I recently tried to introduce my friend to this forum and after just skimming it he came to the conclusion that its fantasising and even begun to warn me not to join a "cult" - people are scared of this idea of immortality because it tells them they dont have to accept what they have been accepting for ages - that ageing is natural. It takes them from this safe comfort of thinking its just "the way of things" and that they might be going to a better place - those are coping mechanisms they are not willing to let go of because it scares them so much - to start thinking that every day they are closer to an end they might be able to avoid? That the barriers that come with age are the same as cancer and they are taking it all lying down? Thats a blow to their pride and so they prefer to think they're in the right instead of admitting they are taking a beating lying down.

It is a scary scary thought imagining what their life could be like if they had had more time to make the dreams of their youth come true - how many dreams have been abandoned due to age? I myself am one of the best examples of the struggles one faces when they see the time they lost and opportunities they missed as years went by, and I'm only 28! I nearly go crazy when I think of how much I want time to freeze and I want the world to give me just more room to grow before I wither...

I have been advised to accept aging and cherish every day but I CAN'T I can't ignore something I perceive as my greatest enemy - it leads to many psychological problems which I am an example of, but I'd rather have those problems and do sth about aging rather than choose to ignore it, treat it as natural and slowly die without a fight. It's the price I pay, every day when I wake up - another day gone by another gazillion or whatever cells aged, but I'm not gonna be serene about that I'm going to fight it!I never realized there was a period of blooming for me until someone informed me - youre 28, youre withered,

So SCrew them whether you're 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 SCREW those naysayers, we can reach this goal and we are worthy because each one of us are unique and blahblah, but most importantly WE ARE LIFE!!!!! If they fight so much for embryos that will become adults and die anyway of old age why dont they fight for us who are here ALIVE (used to be embryos too, hi!) trying to prolong it for everyone? This is true lunacy. We are not lunatics, we are the voice of reason. Help the people trying to prolong life and you will prolong the happy times of you and your children and other loved ones together!

If someone wants me to write a manifesto on this pm me because I'm feeling inspired and I see their stupid arguments crumbling as I write. Sorry if this post seems like random writing but ideas came to me as I was writing it and I'm on a roll.

And as to deserving immortality - after AGES of suffering from diseases, wars, concentration camps, racism, apartheid, intolerance, bullying, government lies, natural catastrophies (like the one in Japan) terrorist attacks (9.11 anyone?), famine, abuse, the list could go on - all the crap the world has thrown at many of us - we FUCKING deserve a MAJOR GOOD TOOL to defend ourselves against one more enemy - aging - and we should advance our species - not through evolution of new beings being born which brings only more wars in every generation but through evolution of beings already here who have amassed knowledge, expreienced much and have an idea how to improve things!


Edit: all this was meant as a possible response to all those who criticise the immortalist movement

Edited by ViolettVol, 13 November 2011 - 01:02 PM.

[Droplet]

You go girl! :D You'd make a wonderful speaker for the cause.

[ViolettVol]

You go girl! :D You'd make a wonderful speaker for the cause.

Thanks so much, I was feeling inspired, which does not happen often with me

[Marios Kyriazis]

People who don't have vision, those who don't think beyond the boundaries, those who are easily led without asking why, will never be able to comprehend what it means to conquer and eliminate aging. They will never experience it either.

[Droplet]

You go girl! :D You'd make a wonderful speaker for the cause.

Thanks so much, I was feeling inspired, which does not happen often with me

Wouldn't be suprised if Brokenportal could actually find an opportunity for speakers if you've the guts to do such a thing. I certainly wouldn't have the guts.

Edited by Droplet, 14 November 2011 - 07:17 PM.

[ViolettVol]

You go girl! :D You'd make a wonderful speaker for the cause.

Thanks so much, I was feeling inspired, which does not happen often with me

Wouldn't be suprised if Brokenportal could actually find an opportunity for speakers if you've the guts to do such a thing. I certainly wouldn't have the guts.

I'd probably have such stage fright lol, writing is easier

[Droplet]

[Wouldn't be suprised if Brokenportal could actually find an opportunity for speakers if you've the guts to do such a thing. I certainly wouldn't have the guts.

I'd probably have such stage fright lol, writing is easier

You never know, he may also be looking for speech writers or writers in general.

Edited by Droplet, 18 November 2011 - 12:41 PM.