X-Message-Number: 24336
From: 
Date: Mon, 5 Jul 2004 13:24:11 EDT
Subject: "Independence Day" from the Tyranny of Death, Written July 4, 2004

In a message dated 7/5/2004 5:04:46 AM Eastern Daylight Time,  
 writes:
 
Dave Pizer is talking about a day to celebrate and promulgate physical  
immortality, etc.  The final paragraph or two of his posting follows:

A day  that we get together each year and all declare publicly that we want 
to  achieve physical immortality and we want to be independent from death.   
From that day forward we would publicly act as if we were in a battle against  
death and for immortality for all.  For some of us we have been acting  

informally this way for some time, but perhaps now is a time for all of us to  
band 

together and state it formally for the whole world to know of our  intentions.
????  We could call a press conference and have a big  party.  

Any thoughts on  this?

David



Hello, David and fellow Cryonauts,
 
David Pizer has an interesting idea.  Freedom from slavery begins in  the 
mind of visionary leaders, and is promulgated by promotions, celebrations,  
literature, songs, poems, and culture. 
 
In a like manner, the memes of freedom from the tyranny of death and aging  
also have their beginning in the minds of visionary leaders.  Believe it or  
not, gentle reader, we, this means people looking like YOU and ME,  may be 
looked upon as the "Founding Fathers" of the ultimate  revolution.  
 
This "Revolution" is against the ultimate tyranny.  As you read these  words, 
free radicals are damaging your mitochondria by the millions.  Your  cellular 
repair mechanisms are being eroded by time and multiple aging  processes.  
Lipofuscin is coagulating in your skin and in your  brain.  You and I are 
suffering from "The death of a thousand cuts"  that is the aging process.  
 
The memetic engineering that underlies changing the tragedy that is aging  
and death involves nothing less than a cultural sea change.  
 
The odds of you dying in a terrorist attack are minuscule.  The odds  of you 
dying as a result of the standard aging process are close to 100%.
 
Yet governments around the world (not just ours) are willing to spend  

billions...tens and hundreds of billions...to do whatever it takes in their  
perhaps 
misguided minds to "combat terror."  
 
The discrepancy here lies in the CONCEPT of what is DOABLE.  
 
Have you lost a loved one to cancer?  To Cardiovascular disease?   To the 

wasting process of mental aging and Alzheimer's?  Do you feel that  this loss is
any less than the loss of the families of 9/11?  

Yet  we can point fingers at (alleged) culprits and conspirators of a 

terrorist  attack, and mobilize huge public support for "preemptive" strikes 
against 
folks  whose connection with 9/11 is tenuous at best, and perhaps nonexistent. 
 I  am not trying to be overly political here about the Iraq war.  I am 

looking  for an obvious disconnect between the national will to make war against
terrorists but refuse to fight the ULTIMATE terrorists:  Death and  Aging.
 
To these evil and hated foes, we as a society still believe in appeasement,  
surrender, and acceptance. 
 
And this is function of public attitude and will.  Most people,  including 

many influential scientists and "ethicists" have the public's ear,  believe that
aging and death are inevitable.  Bush and his cronies,  including our 

favorite and justifiably vilified Leon Kass, think that it is a  GRAND thing 
that we 
become infirm, lose our strength, have our muscles, internal  organs, and 
brain become increasingly malfunctioning.  And that we  eventually die.  
 
The huge and growing body of research showing that we can and do combat  
aging is still not widely known or accepted.  The very CONCEPT of trying to  

defeat aging and eventually death is viewed by many as "not accepting god's  
will" 
and "unnatural."
 
Yes, to these people, life without the timeline imposed by death would be  
meaningless.  
 
And this is JUST why ideas like Pizer's are so important.  Why we need  to 
"rant" to each other about the beauty of and potential of both NON aging and  
eventually YOUTHENING as we add years and wisdom.
Why we need to become compelling proponents of and living examples of  
mental, physical, and attitudinal youthening.
 
Is there anyone reading this who feels that a "Manhattan Project" against  

the basic mechanisms of aging would not yield LIFE SAVING benefits for millions
of individuals?  

Yes, David, I will sign on for your "Independence  Day."  And I will sign on 
to help draft the "Declaration of Independence"  against our common enemies.  
We need to demonize and vilify DEATH and his  handmaiden AGING.  We need to 
personify them, to make this struggle to  defeat them a HEROIC and EPIC one.
 
Too corny?  Too fuzzy brained?  Too vague and nonscientific you  say? 
 
Well, just grow up.  Look around.  Most folks are NOT motivated  by our most 
rational arguments.  There are less people signed up for  cryonics than people 
who believe the pyramids were made by aliens.  Pick a  lunatic fringe cultish 
idea, and you will find more adherents ready to lay down  their lives and 
fortunes for it than we can muster.
 
So, the rock stars and the sports heroes of my world are the scientists who  
daily struggle with the astonishingly difficult but not intractable mechanisms 
 of aging. 
 
Let's have a day to celebrate and canonize these people.  Let's make  it a 
day to celebrate the progress that humanity has made against aging and  death 
already, and consider the progress to be made in our glorious  future.  Let's 
start to see ourselves as the Patrick Henrys, the Thomas  Jeffersons, of a 
memetic revolution of consciousness.  
 
Count me in on the NEW Independence Day!

Rudi Hoffman
Port Orange, FL


 Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII"

[ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] 

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=24336