X-Message-Number: 29767 From: Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 08:17:13 EDT Subject: Cryonics and life extension progress, STILL a worthwihile top... In a message dated 8/23/2007 5:00:44 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, writes: A lot of these speakers have died by now: http://www.box.net/shared/static/vtksoi8t4t.jpg And whatever happened to all the progress in"life extension sciences" these disco-era Aubrey de Greys felt the need to report nearly 30 years ago? "There was a time before reason and science when my ancestors believed in all manner of nonsense." (Narim on "Stargate SG-1") Mark Plus (End Mark Plus quote above, Rudi writing.) Thanks to Mark Plus for this interesting bit of history. Similar to the reference to the U-tube video of 70s era cryonicists I posted some time ago, it is movingly nostalgic, in part because a significant fraction of these folks are dead. (Not temporarily, but permanently.) Bummer. But some are not, and are still working, doing the "heavy lifting" on antiaging and cryonics while some of the rest of us kibitz and second guess from the sidelines. I am reminded of a quote by a neuroscientist asked when their research would have practical applications. "After 10 or 15 years of finding, "It's more complicated than we thought, one begins to see a pattern emerge. It's ALWAYS more complicated than we thought!" I don't always agree with Mark Plus about the tardiness of progress, but in the area of serious and demonstrable youth extension and reversible cryonics he has a point. No one ever claimed physical immortality would be easy. As to how the 30 or 40 years of glacial and stuttering progress can inform our current path, remains to be seen. I doubt that extensive hand waving and dwelling on the seeming slowness of progress...or at least widespread applications of youthspan research...is enormously helpful. It is, as always, a glass half empty or half full issue. Some of us, while not truly naive as to the challenges of significant progress, still see that life IS (arguably) better...and indeed demonstrably a bit longer...now than it was even 30 years ago. And, for the record, (and to create a bit of worthwhile controversy) I stick to my timeline prediction of 2018 for a small multicelluar animal and 2035 for a laboratory conditions cryonics human resuscitation. Only the future will tell if the above paragraph looks as silly as the "immanent breakthroughs around the corner" verbiage on the 1970s cryonics video. Or makes the naysayers look as silly as the experts quoting "man will never fly heavier than air machines" observations still extant in the early 1900s, (some of them, I understand, made concurrently while the Wrights and others were actually doing exactly what the experts said could never be done.) So, may I respectfully suggest we the faithless "keep the faith" (defining faith here not as belief without evidence, but instead as it's other definition of "maintaining an optimistic, upbeat, attitude.") Let's find a way to prevail, and let's be happy while were here. Rudi Rudi Richard Hoffman CFP CLU ChFC Board Member Financial Planning Association fpafla.org Board Member Salvation Army salvationarmy.org Member Alcor Life Extension Foundation alcor.org Certified Financial Planner(TM) CFP Board of Standards Member Libertarian Party libertarianparty.org Member National Rifle Association nra.org Member World Transhumanist Association http://transhumanism.org/ World's Leading Cryonics Insurance Provider rudihoffman.com ************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=29767