209 replies to this topic

[Bruce Klein]

The first project should be their endorsement of the Institute by becoming full members.

Sounds like a worthwhile project

[zoolander]

Here's an idea for a title

"Sudden Life"

"Life" is "sudden" only because it is not related to time (subject to a set duration). It is the re-intergration of intemporality.

"Re-intregration of intemporality"

Here is a less wordy phrase:

"Timeless existance"

or something comical and catchy,

"There are 2 sure things in Life: Taxes and Taxes"

[Bruce Klein]

Brandon: Has a new thread been set up to discuss fundraising activities for Imminst? I saw the memespace thread and I know one was called for in that thread, but has anyone started writing one?

Hi, Brandon. Here is the thread for the ImmInst 100 Pledge idea:
http://www.imminst.o...ST&f=142&t=8603

I hope to have more time to advance this project in the coming years.

[Bruce Klein]

Harold, just got a reply back from Peter Passaro where he said he's on track to get his PhD next year some time. He just got married last month and is doing good at Brighton.

[doug123]

Doing "WELL" Bruce! Mr. Grammar here.

I hope to one day finish college...it'd be sad if I "went down in the books" as a supplement salesman...I want to get married too!

[Bruce Klein]

Ah.. thanks. You are very good.

[doug123]

Come on, Bruce...you have to give me some leeway to be a smart ass now and then...I have to somehow convince myself I can keep up with the rest of the college and beyond educated membership...I'm not even a college graduate. I want to be...

Hey, I purchased the first Nas album again because it reminds me of my high school days...and it gave me a new idea for a shirt...check this..

Life's a bitch...on the front..on the back...

Why die?

Actually that sounds silly now...maybe duke can rework that for me...

[zoolander]

Whilst it is important to appeal to the general population I think we also need to taget some appeal to academia. This is what we base our knowledge on.

Maybe its just extra work but we may need to eventually split the institute.

Alot has been said about the eventual dissolution of the institute unless we market it towards the masses. I think the same applies if we neglect the scientific community. If we neglect academia we will fall even further into the realm of nerdy-gobbledegookness. Al least now we can justify some of the kookiness with strong science when asked

[Athanasios]

BruceKlein: Thanks for supporting ImmInst as a Full Member, cnorwood19.

My pleasure.

The two regrets I have for not taking jobs that could make me more money is being able to soley and fully support myself as well as loved ones (parents, wife, etc), and not being able to allocate more money to causes such as this one. There is potential here, as well as people capable of fulfilling it. As nootropikamil said, lets keep up the good work.

[Bruce Klein]

Alot has been said about the eventual dissolution of the institute unless we market it towards the masses. I think the same applies if we neglect the scientific community. If we neglect academia we will fall even further into the realm of nerdy-gobbledegookness. Al least now we can justify some of the kookiness with strong science when asked.

Zoolander, looking at forum participation and membership growth, the Institute is stronger than ever. I think this success is due in large part to our unique mission.

[zoolander]

I think this success is due in large part to our extreme focus on a clear mission.

I agree Bruce. But this mission has been titled by Duke Nukem as a 100% marketing failure as well as being labelled by others as embarressing and hard to digest. So attempts are being made to reword the mission into a language that it more appealing to the general population.

The point I made above was that we need to be careful not to reword or rebrand the institute in such a manner that it loses its appeal to the scientific/academic community.

[Athanasios]

I agree Bruce. But this mission has been titled by Duke Nukem as a 100% marketing failure as well as being labelled by others as embarressing and hard to digest. So attempts are being made to reword the mission into a language that it more appealing to the general population.

The point I made above was that we need to be careful not to reword or rebrand the institute in such a manner that it loses its appeal to the scientific/academic community.

did you think the one bruce made lost scientific appeal?

The Immortality Institute is a scientifically-minded community of people focused on advancing practical methods to achieve open-ended lifespans. Life extension may seem far-fetched to many, but it's not a fantasy. Driven by a convergence of numerous technological advancements, including Biotechnology, Nanotechnology and Artificial Intelligence, progress in life extension has already started. To accelerate this progress, the Institute hosts an online forum, publishes books, creates films, and sponsors conferences in order to advance global awareness.

[zoolander]

I'm confused. There seems to be 2 active topics for what we are discussing.

Here is the other

http://www.imminst.o...11305&st=40&hl=

Should we merge these?

[doug123]

I think the newer topic is more just about the front page...I think it's best to not merge the topics...

cnorwood19: I think Bruce's statement is pretty cool. Do you think it has lost scientific appeal?

zoolander: I think Duke is trying to tell you what most "normal dudes searching the web" see at first glance. If he was designing a video game, I would think he might make Immortality be what you achieve when you win the game...when you first play it, you should find the theme compelling enough to beat the first level, second level, etc.

just thoughts

[Athanasios]

  I think Bruce's statement is pretty cool. Do you think it has lost scientific appeal?

I like it, and dont think it loses appeal.

[zoolander]

I'm going to choke on my words. After re-reading the reworked statement I do not think it has lost scientific appeal.

Nice work Bruce and all involved.

My original point though still needs to be considering in our quest to move forward

[Bruce Klein]

Thanks for double checking me on this Harold!

Over the past 34 months, since Sept 03' when we first started collecting subscriptions, average monthly new Full Memberships has been about 6 (NOT 9!). I made a mistake in calculation earlier by leaving out a year. Thus, our year over growth rate is 50% (NOT 100%) from 140 (June 05') to 216 (June 06').

One event which increased our numbers late last year was the Nov 05' conference where many people joined to get the conf. discount. This past week, we've added 3 new Full Members, which I've failed to include in these discussions:

[Trias]

personally, i really like the new page.

it represents our goals from a more "sane" point of you (that is, to the common folk); so to speak, it puts more emphasis on our more short-term and realistic goals (agelessness, lack of systematic decline of our health) rather than shoving our core-desire to the surfers' face (deathlessness).

my molecular-biology lecturer visited the new page a few days ago and was quite impressed. she says that many genes are ought to be discovered prior to the realization of "the goal" (suddenly it had become her goal as well? -tsk tsk).

two thumbs up from israel!

-Daniel S.

[DukeNukem]

Alot has been said about the eventual dissolution of the institute unless we market it towards the masses. I think the same applies if we neglect the scientific community. If we neglect academia we will fall even further into the realm of nerdy-gobbledegookness.

It boggles my mind as to why people think that being layman friendly is also being anti-scientific community. Eleven o'clock news alert: It's not! At least not if it's written well.

Seriously, these are not mutually exclusive. Everyone now knows that, right?

[DukeNukem]

looking at forum participation and membership growth, the Institute is stronger than ever. I think this success is due in large part to our unique mission.

Bruce, someone posted a graph recently that showed the supplements/health forums as the key draw to this place. It's certainly the only thing that interests me for the most part, simply because Imminst, as far as I can tell, has nothing to do with open-ended lifespans other than to talk about it. Plus, there's all those off-topic forums like physics and whatnot, which totally dilute the focus of this place.

It's one thing to claim that Imminst wants to end involuntary death, but it's all talk! That's all this place is, is a discussion area. I mean, really, what else does it do that has anything to do with aiding the so-called mission statement? It really hurts this places image to make a claim that doesn't ring true. In my mind, Imminst is a health forum, and doesn't own the concept of immortality. Why should it, after all, it doesn't do anything to bury that concept into my mind.

So, among the many marketing failures of this place is that it's mission isn't backed up.

If this place were a business, it would be a bust. What, there are 200 full members? That's pretty stinky. Even 1000 members would have me worried for as long as this site has been active. Clearly, there's something not appealing about this place.

I strongly suspect nothing will change either, because it's very clear that the leaders in charge do not see the problems, do not comprehend them, and do not agree with them. If I owned stock in Imminst, I'd sell it, because the long-term outlook is dismal.

[Bruce Klein]

It's one thing to claim that Imminst wants to end involuntary death, but it's all talk!

Duke, I'm with you on the idea of continually improving ImmInst, but aren't you subject to your own criticism by simply chatting that ImmInst needs to change? And isn't the implicit idea behind all mission statements is that the goal has yet to reached?

[doug123]

Our disagreement is more about means than it is about ends. We all agree that given the tools we currently have on hand, we won't be able to accomplish our most important goal -- so far the best wording I've seen is "an open ended lifespan."

We still need to develop technologies to achieve this...and if you are depending on cryonics, you might consider that "hype" -- based on the fact we have not developed technologies to re-animate frozen bodies as of yet. If we want to increase the probability that we can possibly achieve Immortality, we should be as realistic as possible about our chances given what we have on hand. And if our goal is genuinely possible, we should be lifting our hind legs to achieve it in the shortest order. At this point in time, there are very few scientists trying to advance our objectives, and we should support their research.

Before we examine in detail each of our methods, we might consider establishing a set of criteria to implement to evaluate whether a particular procedure is proposed. We might also consider setting aside some time to produce alternatives that communicate new approaches.

[doug123]

It boggles my mind as to why people think that being layman friendly is also being anti-scientific community.  Eleven o'clock news alert:  It's not!  At least not if it's written well.

Seriously, these are not mutually exclusive.  Everyone now knows that, right?

I totally agree with you, Duke. Being scientific is cool, and even sexy. It needs to be projected that way.

[zoolander]

Duke you could probably be a little less negative and a little more proactive. Making statements like

I strongly suspect nothing will change either, because it's very clear that the leaders in charge do not see the problems, do not comprehend them, and do not agree with them. If I owned stock in Imminst, I'd sell it, because the long-term outlook is dismal.

without follow up advice is counter productive.

We are trying our best to move forward. One step at a time

[doug123]

We do no service to each other by encouraging anyone to repress their feelings or thoughts (even fear, anger, or malice); repressing Duke criticism, which I have found quite constructive -- might interfere with the search to find new ways to solve the problem at hand...

[zoolander]

We do no service to each other by encouraging anyone to repress their feelings or thoughts (even fear, anger, or malice); repressing Duke criticism, which I have found quite constructive -- might interfere with the search to find new ways to solve the problem at hand...

There has been some positive input from Duke but this is fair outweighted by his negative input. It seems as though alot of negatives have been pointed out without attempts to resolve the issue.

I have been in too many meetings that involve pointing out the problems with taking the appropriate action or making attempts to look at solving the problems.

Adam, did you at anytime see me tell Duke to shut up or make attempts to gag him? I merely asked that he provide some possible answers to the negatives the he pointed out.

We do no service to each other by encouraging anyone to repress their feelings or thoughts (even fear, anger, or malice);

Yes but expressing yourself in times of fear, anger, or malice is not often the rational thing to do. Especially if you are trying to have a constructive conversation.

[emerson]

Reaching new members that are interested solely in nootropics does not help the mission... it serves only the interests of nootropics as the statistics demonstrate.

It shouldn't be that shocking that people tend to cluster around what they came in search of. And, really, there's no way to tell from that chart how much crossover there's been at any particular point. I know, personally, that I've broadened by interests since coming here. Before I stumbled on this site, I couldn't stand philosophy. It's been a slow process, but in the end I've wound up with an appreciation for some aspects of it. I think many people might find themselves with a similar slow progression of interest. They may still cluster around the bait which lured them in, but with continued exposure at least occasionally venture out to sample foods with a different flavour. Even if that's only a small percentage, and an even smaller subset of those people actually delve more in depth within their new subject of interest, isn't that still a fantastic event?