15 replies to this topic

[brokenportal]

If you're lost in a blizzard and you know there aren't any towns for hundreds of miles in all directions, then you don't know that you can get to safety, but you do know that you have try to get to safety, you do have to go if you are going to get to safety.



It's the same thing with indefinite life extension. We are lost in the universe, tucked away on this tiny little orb, fighting the onslaughts of agings merciless seige as it snows its damage down on us. We dont know if we can beat the damage and escape the orb, but we have to see if we can. We are not at all content to sit there in the blizzard and do nothing. We don't know that we can succeed in getting to safety. We don't have to know that we can get there to go there, but if we are going to get to safety, then we do have try, we do have to go there if we are going to get there.

There are many that think we need to wait until science, or even politics or economics gives us the go ahead to say this cause is alright to support, but we dont. If we do nothing we will "freeze" to death at the hands of aging. The go ahead is ipso facto. We go because we must.

The MILE premise is: We don't have to know that we can get there to go there, but we do have to go there to get there.

Edited by brokenportal, 24 October 2011 - 10:58 PM.

[Marios Kyriazis]

I agree. By just trying to achieve indefinite lifespans we make the aim more likely to be reached. If we don't try, we have no chance at all. And it is not good enough to sit back and wait for others to come up with the answers and necessary treatments, but we need to come up with the answers ourselves, now. The good news is that, to refer to your analogy, we are now well equipped to go ahead: not only we have the suitable 'clothing' (protective determination), but also the 'snowmobiles' (technology).

[brokenportal]

I agree. By just trying to achieve indefinite lifespans we make the aim more likely to be reached. If we don't try, we have no chance at all. And it is not good enough to sit back and wait for others to come up with the answers and necessary treatments, but we need to come up with the answers ourselves, now. The good news is that, to refer to your analogy, we are now well equipped to go ahead: not only we have the suitable 'clothing' (protective determination), but also the 'snowmobiles' (technology).

Right, we dont have to be able to see a tangible path to start, to commit our drive. We dont have to have an idea of where the solutions might be. We do though, have to do what we can to uncover such paths if they may be there. The drive to get there starts with the desire for life, to not freeze to death, to not age to death.

Thats all we need to start with. But then like you say, beyond being stuck in the blizzard, there is good news. We have snowmobiles. Granted they are slow right now, the gas levels are uncertain, and the visibility in the weather is low. Then also we have stories with us of people that have been in similar situations and made it out (diseases that are like the forms of damage that have already had successes in labs). We are all working together to get out of this blizzard, that makes a huge difference. Think one or two people trying to survive in the winters of the wilderness rather than a whole wagon train, city of people. We have a few mapped out ideas that might work in leading us out of here, (sens, evolutionary approach etc...) and other things. We are able to radio in intermittently to get the attention of people, granted the communication is broken, brief and crackled at this time, (appearing in the media). We also have sporadic supplies. We dont have a steady unlimited supply, but we are able to get lucky sporadic air drops from time to time. There are also other things.

Most of all though it starts with that will that comes with the reality that we dont have to know that we can get there to go there but that we do have to go there to get there.

[revenant]

We dont have to know that we can get there to go there, but we do have to go there to get there.

well said...go there we must

[brokenportal]

We dont have to know that we can get there to go there, but we do have to go there to get there.

well said...go there we must

Thats what I was thinking. Some people say the sentence may be a little too confusing, but I dont think that most people will have a hard time with it, especially philosophically orientated people, which most transhumanists and indefinite life extensionists are. I rattled it off pretty quickly to a history professor today and mentioned its potential confusing quality and he said he thought it made great sense. I like quotes that speak volumes. Its an easy way to advance important concepts, in quotes that pack a punch. This was designed to try to do that.

[brokenportal]

You see plenty of evidence and reports that people just don't think that indefinite life extension could happen in our lifetimes.

If people dont think they can, then why try? When people realize that the control of fate is in the hands of the world then it changes things. Promoting realities like that of this topic it seems, in this way, are of the essence, and promoting these notions is something that we can all do. Support this topic, or write your own. Spread the premise of this topic, or put it in your own words and start discussions with people about it. Its important that we keep moving forward.

"If you cant run, walk, if you cant walk, crawl, but by all means keep moving forward." - Martin Luther King Jr.

[Logan]

Unfortunately, the movement won't ever take hold with the majority of the population because they just won't ever care to live indefinitely. People want better longer lives, but they don't want to live forever. A better way to get everyone involved would be to send the message that we want to drastically improve the length and quality of life. You see, if we can do this, that will buy us some time to figure out how to lengthen our lives even further. This immortality thing is looked at like somehting only science fiction geeks think about. There is a reason why the name of this site was changed to Longecity was there not? Immortality or indefinite lifespan, whatever you want to call it, will not be taken seriously for a long time. How are we going to make major progress in extreme life extension in a fairly short period of time if we can't get the majority of the population wanting and contributing to it? I do not think pushing for immortality and indefinite lifespan-both of which just likely sound ridiculously unrealistic strange and distant to most people-is a good idea. If anything, putting a lot of time and energy into the movement to an indefinite lifespan will only slow down the progress to reaching the ultimate goal. There has to be a better strategy. Like I said in the other thread, one step at a time.

Edited by MorganM, 12 June 2011 - 04:08 AM.

[brokenportal]

We absolutely need to spread a clear, accurate message of what needs to get done here, and that is unlimited lifespans or indefinite life extension, whichever way you want to phrase it.

Spreading a message of curing diseases is nice and good too like your saying, but rest assured that the world is already covering that angle well. We have countless research labs around the world, many Institutes, the indefinite life extension cause itself has already thoroughly covered that angle too through Campaign for Aging Research, Max Life, Methuselah Foundation, etc.

In addition to this, the world also absolutely needs some people somewhere to stand up for the clear accurate picture of what we are after, and that is indefinite life extension. People get behind indefinite life extension. People fight for indefinite life extension. Indefinite life extension is monumental, fabric of reality changing, a major cause. Its a great unifier, its a great portal, it opens up the doors to the mysteries of existence. If the world doesnt all get behind it at once then that is fine, but we can not sell out on indefinite life extension because they might not.

The strategy is simple, inform the world about indefinite life extension. I would be willing to bet that a great part of not being sure, the trepidation to support indefinite life extension from people, like you express here, comes in part from the reality that the world isnt grasping this right now. That is to be expected though, we havent informed them yet. Youll see the attitudes change once the world is informed about indefinite life extension, how could it be otherwise? They cant know until they know. Lets let them know.

Thats a core plan, if you want to get hands on asap then you can do that via these options here.

[Logan]

I'm not talking about curing diseases per se(although, I'm talking about drastically extending youth, healthspan, and lifespan. I don't think you understand, most people are not ever going to go for your message, not anytime soon at least. Trying so hard right now for indefinite lifespan is simply not going to stick, it's just too damn far fetched at the moment, at least in the eyes of the masses. Don't take this the wrong way, but the way you talk sounds like your living in a science fiction novel. I think we need to get everyone to jump on the life extension bandwagon first, then when drastic life extension is achieved, people from old and new generations will be more likely to start to take the option and possibility of living indefinitely more seriously. I see wanting so badly to live forever as a sign of some kind of current inability to live and love fully day to day, in the moment. It could be manifestation of an inner angst resulting from not getting something much much needed in one's development. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of living forever, but I also know there is no such thing as forever or indefinite, a few thousand years would be nice.

[Logan]

You see plenty of evidence and reports that people just don't think that indefinite life extension could happen in our lifetimes.

If people dont think they can, then why try? When people realize that the control of fate is in the hands of the world then it changes things. Promoting realities like that of this topic it seems, in this way, are of the essence, and promoting these notions is something that we can all do. Support this topic, or write your own. Spread the premise of this topic, or put it in your own words and start discussions with people about it. Its important that we keep moving forward.

"If you cant run, walk, if you cant walk, crawl, but by all means keep moving forward." - Martin Luther King Jr.

I don't think you understand man, people just do not care,and it's not because of some faith in an afterlife and higher power. Sure they don't think it's possible, and this has some impact on how they feel about the subject, but the majority of people simply are not built in a way that they give two fucking shits about living forever. I don't think you are living in reality bro.

Edited by MorganM, 13 June 2011 - 01:27 AM.

[brokenportal]

I dont think you understand. People become convinced all the time. I see it happening, and I convince people myself. This is also what we are here for. We are here for unlimited lifespans. If we arent then why do we come to this website? People succumb to reason, the better the reasoning, the more likely they are to succumb to it. Hell, reasoning is so apt to get through to people that even fallacious reasoning gets through to people, for example religion.

Trust me, if billions of people are going to be convinced by reasoning that says there is an invisible friend in the sky that will whisk them away to a magical utopia when they die then people are also able to be convinced by the true reasoning that indefinite life extension is something that is desirable, something that it makes sense to pursue, and something that is actionable.

[Logan]

Living forever does not sound reasonable because it's not built into our DNA. Everyone I have talked to about Imminst thinks it is a mistake to be pushing for immortality. They all say it just sounds too strange, even if it is possible. They are all for staying young and living long, but immortality, indefinite lifespan, or unlimited lifespan are terms that people just can't warm up to. Maybe the people you have spoken to can, but I bet they are in the minority.

Have you convinced everyone you know to jump on the immortality movement? Estimate the percentage of people you have talked to that are all in now, but before did not care at all and/or did not believe it was possible.

[brokenportal]

Neither are bone marrow transplants or gene splicing or penicillin or other things. I would argue that of them all, longevity is one of the things that is most built into our DNA. DNA arranges itself to survive, it has built a robust cellular repair system, complex immune systems, thrifty and unique enzymes and barriers and carriers and all kinds of things in order to try to allow the organism to survive. It couldnt however, figure out how to fully overcome lions and the barrages of unique assaults by new innovative sorts of pathogens, accidents,etc. Therefore they say that it seems it never got the chance to evolve us past the typical cut off point of around 80. So I would say that sort of like the frame of a house has the potential for a full house built into its foundation,so does our DNA have indefinite life extension potential built into it. I couldbe wrong of course but I think we can make that case. That case is irrelevant though really, it doesnt matter if it is or isnt built into it, we will either find a way or make one.

I know what you mean, it used to be the same way for me and most everybody I knew for a long time, that we couldnt get through to people. I remember the years when it felt like getting through to people was like some sort of impenetrable wall. We kept at it, kept working on trying to figure out a way through. Low and behold we found one. I started to break through the wall, I started hearing more and more reports of people breaking through and now I think I can do it pretty much at whim. I would say I can probably convert 65 to 95 percent of non religious or non pagan people that I meet through the first stage, and then even amongst the religious and the pagans I convert around maybe, 25 to 60 percent of them. Of the people I know that I see on a weekly basis, that being around 30 people, I have converted around 15, and of the new 20 people or so that I meet on the internet each weekI convert maybe, 8 of them. Those are just people almost or already do fully accept it. Its important to remember that we arent converting them all in one go though, its important to help "stack".

We put a guide together that goes over most of these ways to go about persuading people to support this cause. I agree with you about Immortality, and that is one thing that we dont do. I dont do it, we don't call it immortality, most of the people I know dont,and I advise against it for most cases (It does work in some). We use indefinite life extension. Immortality goes too far, life extension doesnt go far enough, we arent here for Immortality or life extension, we are here for unlimited lifespans, for indefinite life extension.

[Logan]

We did not get to gene splicing, penicillin, and bone marrow transplants by dreaming of gene splicing, penicilliin, and bone marrow transplants. I appreciate your passion, really I do, but I think it is a bit misguided.

I don't see much of a difference between immortality and indefinite or unlimited lifespans. I just think that we would get more support much faster if we were promoting extending youthful productive lives, without any words to describe how long we want to extend lives. I'm actually fine with Longecity/Imminst pushing for indefinite lifespans, as long as there are other very influential groups pushing simply for extending youthful productive lives, this is what I think will get the most monetary contribution and the most support. Even life extension is a difficult movement to get people to rally around.

You say you can convert or convince 65 to 95 percent of people, that's a pretty large range. Which is it, 65 or 95? It has to be closer to one or the other.

Edited by MorganM, 14 June 2011 - 04:30 AM.

[The Immortalist]

We did not get to gene splicing, penicillin, and bone marrow transplants by dreaming of gene splicing, penicilliin, and bone marrow transplants. I appreciate your passion, really I do, but I think it is a bit misguided.

I don't see much of a difference between immortality and indefinite or unlimited lifespans. I just think that we would get more support much faster if we were promoting extending youthful productive lives, without any words to describe how long we want to extend lives. I'm actually fine with Longecity/Imminst pushing for indefinite lifespans, as long as there are other very influential groups pushing simply for extending youthful productive lives, this is what I think will get the most monetary contribution and the most support. Even life extension is a difficult movement to get people to rally around.

You say you can convert or convince 65 to 95 percent of people, that's a pretty large range. Which is it, 65 or 95? It has to be closer to one or the other.

There's already too many groups that promote extending youthful productive lives without any words to describe how long they want to extend them. We don't need more of them. We can't go beating around the bush when it comes to indefinite life extension. We have to be clear to people about what we are setting out to do(i.e., extending life as long as possible).

And BP, 65 to 95 is a really large range.

[brokenportal]

We did not get to gene splicing, penicillin, and bone marrow transplants by dreaming of gene splicing, penicilliin, and bone marrow transplants. I appreciate your passion, really I do, but I think it is a bit misguided.

I don't see much of a difference between immortality and indefinite or unlimited lifespans. I just think that we would get more support much faster if we were promoting extending youthful productive lives, without any words to describe how long we want to extend lives. I'm actually fine with Longecity/Imminst pushing for indefinite lifespans, as long as there are other very influential groups pushing simply for extending youthful productive lives, this is what I think will get the most monetary contribution and the most support. Even life extension is a difficult movement to get people to rally around.

You say you can convert or convince 65 to 95 percent of people, that's a pretty large range. Which is it, 65 or 95? It has to be closer to one or the other.

I like how you imply that I just dream but dont do anything and then equate what goes on to passion. I can assure you, and you can see if you look around the forum for 2 minutes that there is far more going on than passion.

There is a marketing and outreach committee that has been asking for people to step up to the plate for a while. Being the only one on it at this time Ive moved forward with part of an ads campaign anyways. There is a teams system that I head up where we recruit team members, team leaders (ie), guide them through tasks, help them, provide resources, incentivize them, I also review the whole thing once a month to provide and apply the incentives, look for places to adjust or improve, get a grasp on the state of things from which to design the messages of the monthly memos, and other things. We have directors meetings and a variety of director specific tasks divided up among us like bringing the new name on board. There is a new constitution, some pretty careful revenue oversight where we work to keep it coming and increase it, we all contribute to these things in one way or another, and those are just some of the Director tasks. We have fundraisers going on that we work with, two of them have succeeded so far. Another thing that I personally do is lead many of the teams, I participate in as many of them as I can to help lead the way. Im constantly networking and talking to people and seeing how they can help, what they know, who they know, what they do, what resources they can contribute, what things I can help them with etc. I work with other organizations with in the cause, a variety of us are working on putting some key plans together to inform a key number of people, we have articles, newletters, etc.. We have a key action system in being constructed and other things related to that. Longecity has also been busy constructing a crucial science initiative, we all work together on many of these things and I support it in every way I can. Ive joined a new fundraising organization to help bring in funds to Longecity and we are in the process of getting a contract rolling for that. Some key decisions we make are logged here. We have a to do list or keeping track of some of the key things we need to move along. I also have my own daily "to do list" that usually consists of 3 to 8 things that I work on for the cause for the day, most every day usually 6 or 7 days a week. We pushed a multi vitamin through in the last year. There is endless administrative work, email, glitches and bugs, moderation concerns, welcoming and talking to people, answering their questions. There are conferences of our own and others to promote and dispatch people and materials to. There are updates we read and keep up on from around the communities. Most of us are continuously learning about things that help us help the cause. Ive gone through about 5 books and lecture series recently and Im constantly reviewing either them or my notes on them. We have a new Take Action page, rwac and I put a fundraiser section together.

That is just some of the stuff going on. To equate this to passion is fallacious. This is action, planning, development, upkeep, adapting, liaising, updating, educating, learning, dedicated tireless work; this is perseverence in the face of adversity; this is the going when the going is tough; this is mentorship, setting the tempo, building the foundations; this is tireless thankless work for something that people of action are seeing through to fruition come hell or high water. This is something we believe in, that we are absolutely certain of, that your argument hasnt put a dent in, and that we need help with from people like you.

You remind me of my row boat partner from last week. When the wind would pick up he would get frustrated and talk about how we werent going anywhere, and he would paddle intermittently. The wind would blow for 30 minutes at a time, causing these 2 mile or so stretches to seem to go by at a snails pace. The entire time he was complaining and analyzing the situation I was in the back doing some hard constant rowing. I rowed non stop for 30 minutes through every episode of wind until we made it across the stretch we were in. I was determined to get to our destination, and we did. I dont give up, and if we all go at it in this way then we will get there a lot faster. If I would have done like him the wind would have pushed us into a pile of trees on one of the sandbars or islands and we would have been stuck there.

When it comes to life extension and indefinite life extension, again, we go all the way, we dont commit to going just part of the way, (<-- I urge you to read that.) or one piece of the way. The civil rights movement for instance didnt do something like, just try to get the "no coloreds" signs removed. 1960s NASA didnt commit to something like, just getting some more orbits around the earth. They set bold accurate inspiring goals and they lifted the worlds spirit to rise to the occasion. People like to have things of meaning to fight for. They crave it. We dont just go a part of the way, we dont just ask the world to get behind a piece of the puzzle. We set a course for the place that we need to be and we go to it.

You say you can convert or convince 65 to 95 percent of people, that's a pretty large range. Which is it, 65 or 95? It has to be closer to one or the other.

The guide I linked to would show you why. There are a few parts to this question and full answer so if you want we can continue this part of the discussion in that topic.