358 replies to this topic

[bacopa]

good it's on three calendars now

[The Immortalist]

How long will it take for the open letter to VIP's be implemented?

[The Immortalist]

Why don't we get lower VIP's to contact higher up VIP's? We may stand a better chance of getting a response that way.

Mmm, sure once we get some lower level VIPs maybe, that might be interested in joining this team. Not to likely any time soon but I dont count it out. That reminds me of something I was thinking about. What do you guys think about designing an open letter for VIPs to consider signing? It seems like a good simple thing we can get them to do to not discourage those that are interested. This would help those that support this but couldnt be convinced to contribute more than 1 minute, but allow us to harness their VIP meme power.

Gordon Brown sounds great.

Senators are always great.

Im going with lunarsolarpower and cnorwoods suggestion of Randall Munroe this month.

By lower VIP's I mean people who aren't exactly world-wide famous but people who have more power than the average person, like for example: people working for a local city council, the mayor of a small town or a small city, ect,

I think we should start small then move our way up, get lower VIPs to sign an open letter and possibly help us personally by calling people of higher power they are in contact with.. We would stand a better chance that way if one of us did it (unless one of us is in a position of high power of course).

[bacopa]

I agree with this. And I think that there are lots of Reps and Senators who may think like we do, so I'm saying we might not have to go so low.

[The Immortalist]

I agree with this. And I think that there are lots of Reps and Senators who may think like we do, so I'm saying we might not have to go so low.

I'm not saying we have to go very low all the time, I meant send out a letter to every suitable VIP who may react positively and also send out letters to lower VIPs

[bacopa]

sure we can try a bunch of different methods.

[bacopa]

meetings on for tonight in ustream . 7:00 pm est. Ignore my memo, I got days confused since I went out for Mothers day dinner one day earlier.

[bacopa]

meeting will start in one hour.

[David Styles]

The election "result" in the UK a few days ago (we technically don't have a government at present, despite the Conservative party getting only slightly less than Labour-and-the-Liberal-Democrats-combined) complicates my pick slightly.

I can neither congratulate Mr. Brown on his win nor address him as though he is now taking more of a back seat in politics (as he and the other party leaders are now debating amongst themselves who should rule the country).

It seems likely that the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats will combine their seats to form a coalition government, pushing Labour to the sidelines. If Labour is actively included in a coalition government, it is likely that a condition of this will be Mr. Brown stepping down.

It is an unfortunate position to be in, endeavouring to cling on to a second term as Prime Minister without ever having been voted into the position (in other words, our country gave up pretending to have a democracy some time ago, it seems).

It is likely that this turn of events will still work out in our favour, that is to say giving Mr. Brown more time on his hands and an opportunity to turn his hand to the charity work to which he alluded previously.

Given Gordon Brown's personality, it is likely he really will engage in work "for the greater good" even if effectively thrust out of politics.

It may be best however to see how a Parliament is formed and what role (if any) Gordon Brown has in that, before continuing with him. This shouldn't take long, hopefully (as there is some pressure on to form some kind of government somehow sooner rather than later).

[bacopa]

For those who weren't able to attend the only thing we really went over was a possibly agreed upon change of book or books to send to VIP's. Agent and me realized Transcend, one of Kurzweil's latest books, was perfect for people who don't want to read the complexities of the aging process, which is dry if you're not really into it, or a scientist yourself.

Ending Aging, although not as hard core as a book geared towards academic research in biogerontology comes off still in a dry manner. My dad, who is an engineer and very science minded himself got bored reading it, and was much more into Age of Spiritual Machines.

Transcend seems to be especially appealing because it eases into the idea of living forever with what anyone can do now through nutrition, exercise, medicine, supplements, therapy, and things very accessible to most people, and would be ideal for the celebrity VIP's who are so obsessed with health and vanity, but may not have thought about indefinite life spans. This book, from the bits I've read, and knowing Kursweil's philosophies and vision, seems like it probably will include info on machine intelligence futures, the latest in biotechnology and biogerontology, and hopefully he mentions Aubrey and SENS.

During the meeting I asked if Aubrey and Kurzweil were aware and supportive of each others work, and no one seemed to know. If anyone knows if Kurzweil is a big supporter of SENS and if he mentions it at all in any of his books that could kill two birds with one stone, naturally, because our VIP team has been naturally supporting Aubrey's work, as the possible silver bullet. If Kurzweil doesn't know or partially support Mf and SENS we'll have to reconsider sending a Kurzweil book, or send both his and Aubrey's book, which gets expensive.

I'm still brainstorming my picks for this month, but have grown frustrated at letters that I send that keep coming back as undeliverable due to bad addresses.

Edited by dfowler, 10 May 2010 - 12:43 AM.

[bacopa]

In the meantime are there other liberal/progressive British politicians of a lesser caliber you may want to consider?

[bacopa]

Hopefully we'll set up another meeting soon and pick up where we left off which was doing things like mock scenarios, including what we'd say to the VIP agents, managers, and publicists. To my knowledge Brokenportal tried talking with I think Stephen SPielberg's agent or someone like that and he didn't achieve what he hoped for.

So in our next meeting we could do it via Skype and get a couple of us who could really shine at selling our mission and ideologies to these VIP's. People like David Styles has some PR/advertising experience and is looking to get into the marketing end of things.

He is at least one person who'me I'm confident could do an excellent job explaining our goals and mission to most anyone. But he can't do it all himself, and assuming this is a good way to go about selling life extension, we need to recruit other people who shine in a live telephone chat with agents and people with short time on their hands, and may have inflated ego's as Hollywood is filled with.

So that is that, and the rest is the usual choose at least one VIP, write a strong letter, edit it, have others potentially re-edit, and send it along with the book most likely to appeal to that VIP.

[David Styles]

In the meantime are there other liberal/progressive British politicians of a lesser caliber you may want to consider?

Darren Reynolds could be a good one. I don't know about "lesser caliber", but he is certainly less high profile.

Darren Reynolds is a pro-technology campaigner and local government councillor for the UK's Liberal Democrats. In his professional career he has helped many public and private sector organisations to introduce new technology and improve the way they work. Darren believes in putting choices in the hands of ordinary people and ensuring that tomorrow's technological developments flourish in a balanced regulatory framework.

Source: Darren Reynolds' weblog: http://darrenreynolds.blogspot.com/

He has spoken for such things before. I'm sure he'd be happy to do a slot on the SEU. He spoke last year at a UK Transhumanist Association event.

Certainly easy to find his contact details: http://www.burnley.g...ouncillorID=102

Gordon Brown's home address is also quite easy to find at present (10 Downing Street, Whitehall, London). In the likely event that he moves house quite soon, I'm sure his mail can be forwarded from what is currently his address.

Edited by David Styles, 10 May 2010 - 12:59 AM.

[bacopa]

great thanks for the update...

he sounds like the type of guy we are interested in, and I didn't mean lesser caliber I, of course, meant less high of a profile. Thanks for the correction.

[Agent]

Have you contacted Woody Allen?

Woody Allen admits he hates the idea of growing older, the theme of his latest film You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger.

"My relationship with death remains the same - I'm strongly against it," the director jokes.

"All I can do is wait for it," he says, raising a laugh with his attentive audience of journalists at a news conference at the Cannes Film Festival.

Suggested by:

• Vgamer1 Oct 20 2009
• and dfowler Dec 20 2009
  

  by the way Woody Allen has mentioned in interviews since the 70's how afraid of death he is plus so many of his movies focus on the subject. But not great publicity.

Edit: ...and here

Edited by Agent, 16 May 2010 - 01:18 AM.

[bacopa]

we though it might be deleterious to our cause in light of the terrible scandal he was involved in. However, we could do this to help him, as a person, and give him some hope, but as for representing our cause it would only hurt us.

[Agent]

we though it might be deleterious to our cause in light of the terrible scandal he was involved in. However, we could do this to help him, as a person, and give him some hope, but as for representing our cause it would only hurt us.

This one?

Q: What was the famous scandal that Woody Allen was involved in?

A: Allen left Mia Farrow for her adopted daughter then sued the actress for custody of their children and lost (1993).

I didn't even know. I would say it doesn't surprise me, in the sense that VIPs are expected to be eccentric. Scandals are rather designed for making them more famous.
And (at least here in PL) people react very well to mentioning or quoting him.

Well, your choice.

[brokenportal]

Heres a Randall Munroe draft. Please give your feedback, constructive criticism, adjustment suggestions, comments, snide remarks, etc...

Hello Mr. Munroe,

I work with the movement for indefinite life extension. We have a VIP Outreach team that we use to try to get a hold of people that might be able to lend the movement more clout, connections, etc… The membership is regularly asked by this team to request people to contact and they have recently requested your name.

The movement is working to help inform the world about indefinite life extension so that we may help create the social reform that is necessary to help facilitate the undertaking of every challenge that stands before us in removing obstacles to and creating indefinite life extension. We do this one step at a time, one person at a time, with sets of plants and objectives. For example the aging process is one such obstacle. Aging is not mysterious, or magical, or invisible, or something like that. It is a set of 7 (known) forms of damage that science already knows how to work with. We just have to continue to gain more support and do all those things that are necessary to overcome challenges like this now.

I’m sending you a complimentary copy of our book, the Scientific Conquest of Death. If it turns out that you support this movement then please register at imminst.org. This is all free. This is a peoples world movement. Its all non profit. We also want to invite you to do an interview on our small but growing web show called the Sunday Evening Update. We have had many medium to big name people on in the past including an AI researcher that helped inspire the Terminator movies, Ray Kurzweils personal doctor (who is also co-author with him on some of his books), Dr. Aubrey de Grey, Dr. Leon Klatz, etc… A larger list can be found at imminst.org/tv.

Thank you for your time. If you are interested then sign up and or call me at 1-715-344-4054 to schedule an interview, if not then thanks for your time and you can keep the book on us.



Eric Schulke
Director
Imminst

This team is now recruiting. Do you have what it takes to join it? Let us know and we can work on getting you signed up.

[bacopa]

I HAD to check myself into a hospital for sleep disorder, in that the insomnia was getting out of control. I am back now and had no access to the net, as those were the rules. I am going to make my pick, with letter in next day or so. My sleep is better, so far. I texted David Styles while in the unit.

[bacopa]

Heres a Randall Munroe draft. Please give your feedback, constructive criticism, adjustment suggestions, comments, snide remarks, etc...

Hello Mr. Munroe,

I work with the movement for indefinite life extension. We have a VIP Outreach team that we use to try to get a hold of people that might be able to lend the movement more clout, connections, etc… The membership is regularly asked by this team to request people to contact and they have recently requested your name.

The movement is working to help inform the world about indefinite life extension so that we may help create the social reform that is necessary to help facilitate the undertaking of every challenge that stands before us in removing obstacles to and creating indefinite life extension. We do this one step at a time, one person at a time, with sets of plants and objectives. For example the aging process is one such obstacle. Aging is not mysterious, or magical, or invisible, or something like that. It is a set of 7 (known) forms of damage that science already knows how to work with. We just have to continue to gain more support and do all those things that are necessary to overcome challenges like this now.

I’m sending you a complimentary copy of our book, the Scientific Conquest of Death. If it turns out that you support this movement then please register at imminst.org. This is all free. This is a peoples world movement. Its all non profit. We also want to invite you to do an interview on our small but growing web show called the Sunday Evening Update. We have had many medium to big name people on in the past including an AI researcher that helped inspire the Terminator movies, Ray Kurzweils personal doctor (who is also co-author with him on some of his books), Dr. Aubrey de Grey, Dr. Leon Klatz, etc… A larger list can be found at imminst.org/tv.

Thank you for your time. If you are interested then sign up and or call me at to schedule an interview, if not then thanks for your time and you can keep the book on us.



Eric Schulke
Director
Imminst

This team is now recruiting. Do you have what it takes to join it? Let us know and we can work on getting you signed up.

The movement is working to help inform the world about indefinite life extension so that we may help create the social reform that is necessary to help facilitate the undertaking of every challenge that stands before us in removing obstacles to and creating indefinite life extension.

this is a little long and awkward, maybe, "The movement is working to inform the world and create the social reform necessary to overcome all the obstacles that have gotten, or may get, in the way for out aspirations." Even that may be too wordy.

You spelled Plans as plants..."... one person at a time, with sets of plants and objectives."

"Aging is not mysterious, or magical, or invisible, or something like that" Instead you may want to word it, "aging is not something magical, mystical, or programmed like a clock, we're finding out..."

Again maybe sending out one of Kurzweil's book may be more, much more, impactful...I'm guessing you're aware of H + summit at Harvard Uni in Cambridge ma? Kurzweil is speaking, and in the hospital we spent hours talking about Singularity is Near, and it's a top seller and although it's not solely Life Extension per se, it does include it. And you and I have skyped about Fantastic Voyage that may be good, and I thought Transcendence seemed to be good, in that it focuses a lot on healthy life extension and what we can do.

You obviously are free to send SCOD, but in the farther future maybe transhumanism as a meme is even preferable to simple life extension, for our intended audience. Concepts like the Singularity, AI, nanomedicines, brain augmentations etc. really appeal to lots of people, I've found. The one's that are against it shouldn't have to be a problem, as long as we keep getting enough progressive minded people.

Imminst's mission is to conquer the blight of involuntary death, but bio-progressive/h + ideas don't have to be, or continue to be, mutually exclusive...but SCOD is a great book!

overall great letter.

Edited by dfowler, 30 May 2010 - 10:14 PM.

[brokenportal]

Alright, after more than an hour here of searching for his address, Ive been unable to find it. This is the first one I havent found, so I sent it to a press inquiry email for his web comic site.

I revised it a bit with your suggestions.

Hello Mr. Munroe,

I work with the movement for indefinite life extension. We have a VIP Outreach team that we use to try to get a hold of people that might be able to lend the movement more clout, connections, etc… The membership is regularly asked by this team to request people to contact and they have recently requested your name.

The movement is working to help inform the world about indefinite life extension so that we may help create the social reform that is necessary to help facilitate the undertaking of every challenge that stands before us. Together the world can remove the obstacles and create indefinite life extension. We do this one step at a time, one person at a time, with sets of plans and objectives. For example the aging process is one such obstacle. Aging is not mysterious, or magical, or invisible, or something like that. It is a set of 7 (known) forms of damage that science already knows how to work with. We just have to continue to gain more support and do all those things that are necessary to overcome challenges like this now.

I want to send you a free copy of the book, the Scientific Conquest of Death. If your interested then send me your address via email or call me and Ill get it sent out to you right away. If it turns out that you support this movement then please register at imminst.org. This is all free. This is a peoples world movement. Its all non profit. We also want to invite you to do an interview on our small but growing web show called the Sunday Evening Update. We have had many medium to big name people on in the past including an AI researcher that helped inspire the Terminator movies, Ray Kurzweils personal doctor (who is also co-author with him on some of his books), Dr. Aubrey de Grey, Dr. Leon Klatz, etc… A larger list can be found at imminst.org/tv.

Thank you for your time. If you are interested then sign up and or call me at 1-715-344-4054 to schedule an interview, if not then thanks for your time and you can keep the book on us.



Eric Schulke
Director
Imminst

[bacopa]

I don't care for these sentences

The membership is regularly asked by this team to request people to contact and they have recently requested your name.

We do this one step at a time, one person at a time, with sets of plans and objectives. For example the aging process is one such obstacle. Aging is not mysterious, or magical, or invisible, or something like that.

The first could be revised as something like..."This team works solely on contacting people who we think could endorse the movement..." or "have a profound impact on life extension ins some way."

ok, those aren't great either,

As for the second sentence I just don't like, "something like that." That sounds vague and un-professional. or like we don't know what we're really saying. Also invisible, is vague, as in, what's invisible, people know aging is a process. Maybe replace with mystical, or programmed like a clock, or predestined to happen no matter what.

[brokenportal]

I like the idea of sounding like your talking to the person, and less like stiff and forced words. I think it gets across better, but we can try all types. I already sent that. I would have thought about your suggestions more but youll want to suggest them much further ahead of time next time.

Ive sent a letter out each month right now but this was an email. In keeping with the monthly letter Ive now also written up this letter to Woody Allen which is now in the mail box.

Hello Mr. Allen,

I work with the Movement for Indefinite Life Extension. With the way the world is progressing these days, it should come as no surprise to you that research to end the aging process is underway. We are working, scrambling, marching, working as activists to do what we can to turn this into a world movement as soon as it can be, because a world that supports this makes it happen in our lifetimes. Who wants to be dead? Who wants Woody Allen to be dead? We keep losing our national treasures to 7 (known) preventable forms of damage that cause our cells to age us to death. Lets put an end to it. If you support this movement then call me and we’ll discuss how you might want to use your star power to help bolster this urgent, time sensitive cause. I'll send you a free book about this if you get a hold of me too.

Very Best of Regards,
Eric Schulke
Director
Imminst
1-715-344-4054

I included a pamphlet.

[bacopa]

That letter rocks! Very to the point and passionate, like Mr. Allen himself.

I know I'm late with things this month. I didn't work 8 days on my sleep for nothing.

I like how you mentioned how hard we are working on it, but obviously it's still a select few. I mean we don't want to give false hope, but I think you're fine.

Edited by dfowler, 31 May 2010 - 04:13 AM.

[bacopa]

I'll be here all next month, so I'll keep the letters pumping...I honestly don't know who to pick right now, but I'll figure it out. Yes Woody obsessively worries about death from many interviews and plots of his films.

[David Styles]

I regret due to a lot of things converging at once for me (mostly relating to cryonics PR issues), I did not this month (May) get out the letters to Messrs Brown and Reynolds.

I will however now make them my picks for this month (June), and share my drafts for them shortly.

[bacopa]

Any good suggestions? I'm at a loss as to who to randomly send a letter to, for this month. I feel like if I choose any celebrity in Hollywood my letter will not be read. I want to aim at people who would really be interested or I don't see the point. By really, I mean, the type of person who would jump with excitement at what is being done currently for life extension. However obviously most big name celebs don't have the time, so I am not sure who to focus on. Suggestions would be welcome.

[bacopa]

maybe Bruce Willis, or Harrison Ford for this round, or Daniel Dennet or Stephen Pinker.

[brokenportal]

Who did this? Before these were merged they were one of the best line ups demonstrating another bit of good solid action around here that we had.