69 replies to this topic

[Shoe]

I sent it through a translator but I still cant understand it. It came out as this:


Själv är self nots rädd för that grow old , the är nature gång , the måste göras. Indeed shall self nots that they ska compel me up clock åtta på morning på one ålderdomshem and compel in me in spray , and I will nots äta breakfast så early and with second , I will sits själv på morning in midst room and enjoy mine breakfast , and Almighty nåde the as constrains me på a gudstjänst! Self är nots rädd för that be a prey to deny , self är nots rädd för that få stiffness administrator , become was feeding nor kunna röra me. I have ändå levt clearly midst life and had only mine ultimate väg kvar that fullfölja. Self är nots rädd för that nots film with the self ska göra så fast husband är clear with the så shall husband test på more sån är människan , wes får never enough. Därför försöker self enjoy så very of midst life as möjligt , I see the paternal gåva , but in midst life find inga måsten ", ors inga stress. Något as I have lärt me wonder that höst. Moreover am not grasping life ends för that husband am becoming stale , has seen it all många evidence på the. Somliga had återfunnit kärleken t.ex. and somliga as had krämpor and elände but am seeing ändå the light alive , and the är wholly wondrous that watch! "

I think Google translator does a much better job:

I myself am not afraid of growing old, it is nature's way, it must be done. Although I do not want them to force me up eight o'clock in the morning in an old people's homes and forcing me into the shower, and I would not eat breakfast so early and with others, I would sit myself in the morning in my room and enjoy my breakfast , And woe betide the person who forces me to a church service!

I am not afraid of suffering from dementia, I am not afraid to get stiff joints, be fed and not be able to touch me. I have lived my life well and have only my last way to completion.

I am not afraid to not catch up with what I should do, once you are finished with it so wants to try more, like the man, we must never enough. Therefore, I try to enjoy as much of my life as possible, I see it as a gift, but in my life are no "essentials", or no stress. Something that I have learned during this autumn.

Furthermore, not the end of life that we get old, has seen plenty of evidence of it. Some have re-found love for example and some people who have ailments and misery, but sees the light of life, and it is quite wonderful to see!

[brokenportal]

Now Im a little confused. At first Victor, I thought you were saying that those were comments that you used to write but that you were removing them, but now Im thinking I misunderstood that and that what you mean is that you are removing comments that other people left in comments to your pro life extension blogs.

[StrangeAeons]

I think part of why people accept death is that they get tired. As our minds are currently designed and socially trained, we are led to believe that spend so much time being productive, and after that we retire and rest. Simply put, most people feel they lack the ambition and creativity to spend dozens, much less hundreds, more years on this Earth doing what they do.
Perhaps it's a dark view brought on by my own rather difficult condition, but I think this life is a harsh one; and that even if people claim to enjoy it, and cling to it, they gladly accept that at some point they will find release. This is especially interesting, because I have encountered similar anger and visceral reactions when discussing the idea of altering people's psyches, somewhere along the lines of The Hedonistic Imperative. People believe that there is a necessary duality, they try to rationalize the hostility of the Universe, and they have a spectrum of suffering in their minds wherein a certain amount is considered "tolerable" and a certain amount "obligatory". I think they underestimate what exactly the suffering of our condition translates to in the end though.
People who work in the medical profession see patients waste away, have their insides rot, people trapped in their own bodies, people gasping for air every minute of the day for years on end, people's minds get hollowed out leaving them as demented shells, people lose continence of their bowels and robbed of all dignity. I think if Dante Alleghieri saw a modern nursing home he would rewrite some of the cantos of the Inferno. Of course, we all throw up guards and make gallows humor, but we see it as an inevitability. The idea of curing these maladies symptomatically makes sense, but once you introduce the notion that you can target the true etiology of these things, you elicit that same dogma.
I think the most persuasive argument against pro-agists, etc, is that you are targeting a pathophysiology; you are simply an advocate of inhibiting the degenerative processes that lead to a host of diseases. To try and convince people that they should shift their paradigms of what kinds of suffering are and are not acceptable is difficult to impossible; but to simply rephrase the war on aging as far-sighted medicine allows the public to pursue the same ends, but to discover their ramifications one myopic step at a time.

[Mind]

I think part of why people accept death is that they get tired.

I think this mental "tiredness" is a function of physical aging itself. When we are young our brains are sharp and our hormones are driving us. As the process of aging takes hold, we lose our youthful exuberance/drive (lose our hormones) and our brains slow down. If we reverse some of the symptoms of aging related to hormones and brain function, I don't think we will get "tired". I think we will get the attitude of youth back and death will become a revolting thought once again.

[brokenportal]

I think part of why people accept death is that they get tired.

I think this mental "tiredness" is a function of physical aging itself. When we are young our brains are sharp and our hormones are driving us. As the process of aging takes hold, we lose our youthful exuberance/drive (lose our hormones) and our brains slow down. If we reverse some of the symptoms of aging related to hormones and brain function, I don't think we will get "tired". I think we will get the attitude of youth back and death will become a revolting thought once again.

I agree with that, I would also say to petakiaroses response there that it seems you are talking about people that have different ailments like arthritis, diabetes, bipolar, that painful affliction I hear about all the time, what is it again, ocd? and stuff like that. Thats a good point, people may get tired of that and few of us would blame them. but if we can fix it then they should try to hold out for that. I mean, like if we had a car that didnt always operate optimally, like say, it didnt like to stay in its temerature range, it liked to freeze up and over heat. well we wouldnt have to go scrap that car, we could fix it. and like mind says, as long as its running optimally there would be no reason to get tired.

[rwac]

I would think that many people don't dare to hope for life extension.

They're afraid to hope and to then be disappointed.

What we really need is concrete evidence that this can work.
The Mprize will go a long way, I think.

[brokenportal]

I would think that many people don't dare to hope for life extension.

They're afraid to hope and to then be disappointed.

What we really need is concrete evidence that this can work.
The Mprize will go a long way, I think.

Good, and they shouldnt dare hope, they should dare help. Whether it gets done depends on whether people do it or not. They say that one person can do one years worth of work in one year, but one million people can do one million years worth of work in one year. They can and will help once we life extension organizations fully get the rally call out, once Paul Revere finally arrives and alerts the generals. Once the militia fully arm themselves and head to the front lines with determination and conviction coursing through their vains. We can do this, we will do this, the speed at which we do it depends only on our speed to get going with it. We have "concrete evidence," we can manipulate our biology. We can splice genes, we can make nanobots, we can cure diseases. We didnt need concrete reason to go to the moon before we did that. We just had to realize that it of course can be done and then set our minds to it.

That rally call now, how do we get that rally call out most effectively... any ideas? There are a bunch of them floating around here, can you name any more, what do you think is an effective way to get life extension exposure going so we can get the world in on this?

Edited by brokenportal, 22 December 2008 - 06:05 AM.

[rwac]

I would think that many people don't dare to hope for life extension.

They're afraid to hope and to then be disappointed.

What we really need is concrete evidence that this can work.
The Mprize will go a long way, I think.

Good, and they shouldnt dare hope, they should dare help. Whether it gets done depends on whether people do it or not. They say that one person can do one years worth of work in one year, but one million people can do one million years worth of work in one year. They can and will help once we life extension organizations fully get the rally call out, once Paul Revere finally arrives and alerts the generals. Once the militia fully arm themselves and head to the front lines with determination and conviction coursing through their vains. We can do this, we will do this, the speed at which we do it depends only on our speed to get going with it. We have "concrete evidence," we can manipulate our biology. We can splice genes, we can make nanobots, we can cure diseases. We didnt need concrete reason to go to the moon before we did that. We just had to realize that it of course can be done and then set our minds to it.

That rally call now, how do we get that rally call out most effectively... any ideas? There are a bunch of them floating around here, can you name any more, what do you think is an effective way to get life extension exposure going so we can get the world in on this?

There needs to be hope before people dare help.
Would anybody contribute to a hopeless cause ? perhaps not.

[Ghostrider]

I've been working at 4 nursing homes during my summer holidays, it's sufficient to say aging IS torture, yes some old people are healthy like some people point out -wow she is 95 and still walks around with a walker. . Most people eventually have to move to nursing homes where they do not die in peace but experience involuntary death in excruciating horror and agony.

Yes, my grandfather on my mom's side of the family certainly did not go peacefully. Of course, at the funeral, everyone tries to remember the good times of his life and good stories about him, but that's really just to help forget the awful event that occurred which was his death. He had trouble swallowing due to a stroke and they basically stopped feeding him. I agree that his quality of life would not have been very good, but I don't ever recall him saying, "Hey guys, I am ready to die now, party's over." I feel sorry for my grandmother because she had to care for him for the last 3 years of his life -- feeding him baby food, helping him through strokes, washing him...it was horrible I am sure and it did cause her strain. However, I lost some respect for her when she asked me to type up his obituary while he was in the same room (he was sleeping and probably not aware, but maybe something in his subconscious might have picked that up). Given that my grandmother and rest of my family are strong Catholics, I don't see how they can oppose physician-assisted suicide because that's basically what hospice was -- just a more painful and longer procedure.

Edited by Ghostrider, 22 December 2008 - 07:34 AM.

[brokenportal]

I would think that many people don't dare to hope for life extension.

They're afraid to hope and to then be disappointed.

What we really need is concrete evidence that this can work.
The Mprize will go a long way, I think.

Good, and they shouldnt dare hope, they should dare help. Whether it gets done depends on whether people do it or not. They say that one person can do one years worth of work in one year, but one million people can do one million years worth of work in one year. They can and will help once we life extension organizations fully get the rally call out, once Paul Revere finally arrives and alerts the generals. Once the militia fully arm themselves and head to the front lines with determination and conviction coursing through their vains. We can do this, we will do this, the speed at which we do it depends only on our speed to get going with it. We have "concrete evidence," we can manipulate our biology. We can splice genes, we can make nanobots, we can cure diseases. We didnt need concrete reason to go to the moon before we did that. We just had to realize that it of course can be done and then set our minds to it.

That rally call now, how do we get that rally call out most effectively... any ideas? There are a bunch of them floating around here, can you name any more, what do you think is an effective way to get life extension exposure going so we can get the world in on this?

There needs to be hope before people dare help.
Would anybody contribute to a hopeless cause ? perhaps not.

For a lot of people they need hope before they dare help, but they get that hope from the people who dare help first. Those courageous enough to step out on limbs and put it all out on the line in the first place are the ones that take the risk and get the fruit faster, and when they come back with the baskets then the other people start to dare hope. But it would be nice if we could get more of them to help now, and we can, a handful of us could get a lot of MFURI students for example. A few courageous people might bring back that fruit, but the more the better. The more we get out there the better the odds. We should all be out there, but like you say, a lot of people dont do anything until other people pave the way. Mind has a link to a web site talking about things that people said couldnt be done, that they did do, a lot of quotes off that page would fit right in here.

Another thing is, I sometimes even use the word hope, mostly because everybody else does and its not to bad of a word, but I always thought that what we should be doing, (and many of us do) is expect results. I dont really hope, I more like expect, and when you do that you work in a different way, you push a little bit harder, if the people around you are expecting instead of hoping it kind of pushes more people along. Its kind of like if your roof is sagging from the heavy snow, you can hope that it doesnt crash in, and you can hope that maybe somebody else will come and push some of it off when they come over or that hopefully the wind will blow a lot of it away, but if you dare help and call up your buddies and get a ladder out and go up there, then you can expect that your roof probably wont cave in.

So in short I guess I would say, you can probably even just throw the hope away and just dare help, because then you can expect results, and the more helpers the more you can expect. I could be wrong but thats how it occurs to me.