105 replies to this topic

[Shepard]

I just don't think he is someone who can make things happen on a grand scale that's all.

Celebrity rarely coincides with real power in the industry.

[bacopa]

Well if not cold call celebrities than at least we should get someone who is influential to properly contact someone famous who is also influential for our cause.

[Live Forever]

actually does anyone here have skype

Sure. We have had imminst skypcasts in the past. Zoolander and I were doing lots of skyping and skypecasting there for awhile. One was scheduled that got canceled.

We need to do another voice chat, though, it was pretty fun.

[Live Forever]

how do you feel about multidialing these famous people then hectoring them to eternal life, or being frozen, or taking lots of pills, or just being photographed with a copy of lifeextension

Me? I feel very opposed to it. For one thing, I don't think you can just call up a celebrity, and for another thing such requests would come across as very strange if you didn't know the individual. (the point Dr. Wowk was trying to make)

[modelcadet]

http://thinkprogress...inton-interview

"I don't know how cold this call would actually be, with statements like that.
That is, I have had a wonderful life. I got to be president. I got to live the life of my dreams. I dodged a bullet with that heart problem. And I really think I should — I think I owe it to my fellow countrymen and people throughout the world to spend time saving lives, solving problems, helping people see the future.
But as it happens, I love it. I mean, I feel it’s a great gift. So, it’s a rewarding way to spend my life."

"I mean, because tomorrow when I get up, if there’s a bad headline in the paper, it’s President Bush’s responsibility, not mine. That’s the joy of being a former president. And it is true that if you live long enough and you really have great discipline in the way you do this, like this CGI, you might be able to affect as many lives, or more, for the good as you did as president."



Watch the beginning, especially around 2 minutes. Really... I don't think this is too cold a call. After all, he got a lot of publicity behind the Human Genome Project. While he's focused on a lot of conservative humanitarian projects, he might be willing to do 'consulting' for an AGI group like the SIAI.

[Shepard]

With tolerance and compassion anything is possible.....................

I thought it was competence and science.

[Shannon Vyff]

As a Unitarian Universalist I'll have to go with tolerance and compassion.

We must respect the vast amounts of people who do not live by 'science' but instead by faith. We have to respect the vast amounts of people who are not competent... it is our job in fact to care for the young and very old. Not to mention our responsibility to set up education in the parts of the world that have no access to it...

[Mark A]

d on May 12 2007-08:57
The dynamics of why this is such a popular thread is perplexing to me. We have an amazing advocate on this site Aubrey de Grey. I would much rather to listen to what he has to say rather than William Shatner or Steven Spielberg. You want quality not quanity. How many people have come to this forum that wanted to support Life Extension, only to be ridiculed or bullied because their ideals did not fit into the "realm of conformity". The lack of respect that some individuals have for people is what is the problem and it can not be "fixed" by celebrity participation. Open up your minds and your hearts. With tolerance and compassion anything is possible

You're absolutely right. I'm just so sick of this idea that we need to "convert" people to our "cause". It makes it seem like we're a bunch of cultish crackpots desperately trying to get anyone influential to listen to us.

Celebrities do not represent mainstream society, anyway, and often times their bizarre, self-centered behavior will give whatever cause they're advocating a bad reputation (take Tom Cruise and Scientology, for example.)

Edited by Mark A, 13 May 2007 - 06:27 AM.

[bacopa]

So maybe we should put this to a vote. Does anyone want to poll imminst as to whether contacting celebs is a good idea? I agree some people even at imminst should open their minds to new ideas and should be more compassionate to new ideas as well. Bruce, do you think this is a good idea?

[bacopa]

I tried making a poll but it said I only had once choice written down. I know I had three choices can anyone help me?

[gkokm21]

Why are there so many pessmistic comments towards threadstarter idea.

isn't it common sense to use celebrity to spread the life extension message. of course the prequsities is that the celebrities himself believes in it.

all those worriers of what is the side effects of using celebrities are i think too paranoidal. The world works is a complex fashion and sometimes unconventional strategy can produce the best result. Anyway, using celebrity is a common strategy and credit to the threadstater for making the connection.

what matters most is that we get to market the existence of life extension research to the public. Its still a long way to go to raise public awareness because people cannot think in terms of long term. They are just interested in what are they going to do this week or the next holiday.

[gkokm21]

I quite amused by the fact that they are replies worrying and fearing how celebrities endorsements might cork up the whole thing.

It will not be a one off thing whereby if the outcome is not desirable, immortality institute will crumble. The success and progress of this institute is a varying function, its ok to make mistake or fail at times. If we have to worry about everything, life would be very troublesome. Many things i do, i just do without trying to think too much or plan too much because we cannot plan everything.

Just go ahead, hire a person who knows how to get celebrities who is fine with the idea of life extension and do it. Just do it. There is nothing treachrous about this idea.

[modelcadet]

Willy Nelson supports the mysticism surrounding the Mayan Calendar cycles... maybe we can convince him he's going to help bring about a positive singularity in 2012 ;-D

Regarding this thread... I feel cold-calling celebrities is a bad idea. However, if there are intelligent, influential people who might have a proclivity towards immortalism, we should as a community be mindful to how important their influence can be in increasing awareness. People like Ray Kurzweil, de Gray, Ben Goertzel, etc are really great for increasing awareness of this community (I found ImmInst though researching kurzweil and goertzel).

We should be trying to increase awareness of immortalism not because we're a cult or something, but because there's a lot of valuable scientific work to be done. Is Al Gore creating an environmentalist cult? Maybe... but people are now choosing green options, pressuring politicians, and supporting related science. Think of Immortalism as a social movement.

Anyway, as far as getting celeb attention, the scientific stars we have already are doing a great job. Why not get more? Does Dawkins know about this community? Or Hawking? A space tourism company gave hawking a free ride to increase public attention on their industry...

When I think about contacting celebrities, I'd much rather us pick credible people, and not Captain Kirk. Although Ensign Wesley Crusher played Warhammer 40,000...

[Grail]

I just read a TIME "10 questions" interview from the 03/03/2008 issue. They interviewed Sean Combs, aka pop mogul/producer/entrepreneur P Diddy (along with many other aliases). This is a direct quote:

Question: "What name will be on your headstone?"
S. Combs: " I have a plan to live to 500, so that's not going to come anytime soon."

Another potential source of publicity/funding?

[bacopa]

Well I heard you guys are trying to get celebriteies like Chris Walken for the upcoming conference I say more power to you. I still agree with that other guy who said we should be focusing on intellignet and pollitcally oriented figures in society that might have an interest in extending life. If anyone has any suggestion for getting a letter together I'll be more than glad to put in my input.

[Grail]

Now this one is interesting as well. Also from TIME magazine's 10 questions segment. May 19th 2008:pg 13: Pulitzer and Nobel prize winning author Toni Morrison (the lady who once said Clinton was America's first black president).

Q: "Are there any dreams or goals that you have yet to fulfill?"
A: "I have two. Well, three really. Two involve novels that I'm going to write and haven't written. The third is immortality. I don't mean my work, I mean me."

Edited by Grail, 14 May 2008 - 02:45 AM.

[Grail]

Sylvester Stallone also.

[Cyberbrain]

How about Seth Green?

[Ben Simon]

How about Seth Green?

Why him?

And guys, you don't need to 'cold call' anyone. ...That could be disastrous.

Doesn't the institute have a publicist? The Methuselah Foundation must as well right?

In addition to getting press they should be scouting out these sorts of opportunities. If for example the MPrize were to do a fundraiser event, celebrities could be invited (via their management) to attend or provide endorsement.

[Matt]

I just read a TIME "10 questions" interview from the 03/03/2008 issue. They interviewed Sean Combs, aka pop mogul/producer/entrepreneur P Diddy (along with many other aliases). This is a direct quote:

Question: "What name will be on your headstone?"
S. Combs: " I have a plan to live to 500, so that's not going to come anytime soon."

Another potential source of publicity/funding?

I've seen countless celebs and business people say stuff like this... a lot are probably quite serious about it don't think they'll die, or at least not in the within the normal human lifespan.

Edited by Matt, 14 May 2008 - 12:45 PM.

[Mind]

Celebrities are quite extreme with their diet and exercise routines (plus supps and HGH) and I would expect them to be the first to jump on anti-aging breakthroughs. Their careers depend on "looking good" and youthful. It is worth millions and millions of dollars to them. Their very existence depends on it.

[Shannon Vyff]

Publicists cost a lot, CI and ImmInst both don't to my knowledge, have any--beyond the occasional person who volunteers their skills. Alcor does have PR, I can pass on the P. Diddy quote to them

[Ben Simon]

Publicists cost a lot, CI and ImmInst both don't to my knowledge, have any--beyond the occasional person who volunteers their skills. Alcor does have PR, I can pass on the P. Diddy quote to them

Great! A volunteer publicist on occasion should be able to do wonders if they concentrate their efforts. It's a good example of how contributing one's professional services can be helpful to the cause, even potentially more than donating.

Having said that, and knowing absolutely nothing about the financial state of the institute, it seems pretty important to have a means of generating interest and publicity longterm. Obviously Imminst does a great job under pressure and the film is a good example of this, but at a certain point without access to a wider market you're banging your head against a brick wall preaching to the converted. If there's no money to bring on a real marketing team, then how do we go about securing the money? And if that's really not an option, which other orginisations dedicated to life extensio do have those resources and what are they doing with them?

[bacopa]

I remember Brad Pitt saying in an interview that he 'doesn't want to overstay his welcome.' to me this is a man who wishes he could live longer. So is the idea to get a publicist to contact these people? Am I right? We should get someont to contact Brad and get him interested in imminst's mission. Come on people we can defeat death only if we work as a team!

[Heliotrope]

I remember Brad Pitt saying in an interview that he 'doesn't want to overstay his welcome.' to me this is a man who wishes he could live longer. So is the idea to get a publicist to contact these people? Am I right? We should get someont to contact Brad and get him interested in imminst's mission. Come on people we can defeat death only if we work as a team!

yeah with Brad Pitt just showing up in africa , the press follows and focus on the starving children and people who haven't even heard of half of the countries' names in africa get noticed and donate money to feed africa, adopt starving children etc

Edited by HYP86, 20 May 2008 - 09:45 PM.

[bacopa]

So what are we waiting for why don't we just start contacting celebrities?

[bacopa]

So what are we waiting for why don't we just start contacting celebrities?

What about the ultra rich like Bill Gates and Donald Trump. The way I see it they have so much money I'm sure they don't want to die anytime soon, because their quality of life must be so high. Wouldn't they be interested in radical life extension even immortality? Why don't we compile a list of the ultra rich who might back our cause...any opinions?

Devon