358 replies to this topic

[brokenportal]

Oh, dont worry about that of course. Just joining here shows support that helps a lot. Most people dont even consider helping. We knew it was just a consideration on your part.

What kind of research?

As this project develops and moves a long we will begin developing more and more comprehensive criteria for who to write, and how to approach them. If thats what you mean, then by all means do.

In the mean time we have a monthly goal of 3 outreaches that we stick to to keep the paddles in the water. Other wise what happens is the "official professional structure" has a way of never getting here. By doing it this way it kind of pushes people along to improve on it as we go.

Fowler is going to announce the next 3 targets some time this week. You can help us write to them, or make your own suggestion of your 3 researched people for the next month and get those ready. If you hurry, you may be able to convince Fowler to use your 3.

[bacopa]

I signed up for one of the paid contact a VIP sites because I think that will be more accurate, however I think the Maher address to his manger was accurate. I can front the Bill, but if anyone wants to help out with monthly payments it's like $9.00 per month. This is the site. http://www.contactvip.com/

I'm presently trying to get Maher's email address but with little luck. Hopefully this letter will find his manager and perhaps I'll be able to do the same with Dawkins. So I haven't sent the letters out, but will tonight.

The email address on Dawkins looks good; the one on his website. That's for media contacts and I think we are right up that alley.

We probably should address their managers' or publicists as their addresses are usually of the managers and publicists.

Edited by dfowler, 09 September 2009 - 09:39 PM.

[Anthony]

I signed up for one of the paid contact a VIP sites because I think that will be more accurate, however I think the Maher address to his manger was accurate. I can front the Bill, but if anyone wants to help out with monthly payments it's like $9.00 per month. This is the site. http://www.contactvip.com/

I'm presently trying to get Maher's email address but with little luck. Hopefully this letter will find his manager and perhaps I'll be able to do the same with Dawkins. So I haven't sent the letters out, but will tonight.

The email address on Dawkins looks good; the one on his website. That's for media contacts and I think we are right up that alley.

We probably should address their managers' or publicists as their addresses are usually of the managers and publicists.

Sorry it took me so long to reply--have been busy with graduate school work for the last week or two. I will try to take a look at the letter tomorrow.

[brokenportal]

I signed up for one of the paid contact a VIP sites because I think that will be more accurate, however I think the Maher address to his manger was accurate. I can front the Bill, but if anyone wants to help out with monthly payments it's like $9.00 per month. This is the site. http://www.contactvip.com/

I'm presently trying to get Maher's email address but with little luck. Hopefully this letter will find his manager and perhaps I'll be able to do the same with Dawkins. So I haven't sent the letters out, but will tonight.

The email address on Dawkins looks good; the one on his website. That's for media contacts and I think we are right up that alley.

We probably should address their managers' or publicists as their addresses are usually of the managers and publicists.

Sorry it took me so long to reply--have been busy with graduate school work for the last week or two. I will try to take a look at the letter tomorrow.

We are gearing up for three new letters now. They will follow the same general theme as the last ones, but can use editing. Please do keep in contact here if you find time to help with that. The team will flourish more and more with the help of more people.

[bacopa]

I'm having a tough time picking this months VIP's because I don't want to exclusively focus on just celebrities, and that is why Dawkins was one of our August goals. I was also forewarned not to focus exclusively on atheists and agnostics, although I personally believe these people would find radical life extension more appealing for many reasons that have been discussed. I'm going to try to get suggestions first before I commit to anyone just yet. Here are some of my suggestions and reasons why. Yes, these are just celebs, but I'm open to volunteers who can pick out famous scientists, or great thinkers as well. So this is just a start.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie: These people are at least agnostics from quotes I've heard them say in a few articles. Pitt said he's like 80% agnostic and 20% atheist. How you can put a percentage on that is beyond me, but it was bold of him to say it. Jolie is definitely at least an agnostic too. The main reason why these two are so appealing is 1) They are two of the biggest names out there and could generate a lot of pull, 2) they are young enough to have hope that extending life may be possible in their lifetimes, 3) they SEEM very open minded and are of course philanthropic and might be thus more receptive to our cause.

Here is a link to some other celeb non-believers. Again, I'm not exclusively limiting it to just this category, but it seems like a reasonable start for this project.

http://www.bowlofser...w-are-atheists/

Natalie Portman is an atheist, I believe, who is obviously very intelligent from listening to her in interviews and the fact she graduated Harvard with good grades is promising.

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck just seem like intelligent open minded people and thus I think they should be considered. Of course I'm going on gut instinct with most of these.

So that is a brief list of people I think we should consider trying. Sorry Portal, for this round I want more input from members before I commit to any three just yet. I am optimistic that by the end of this week we should have our 3 for the month.

[Cyberbrain]

Matt Damon is a good pick, he spoke greatly against conservatism during the elections which sort of made him look like a libertarian transhumanist, so definitely put him on the list. Plus everyone know he's a non-believer.

What news/progress has imminst made with the VIP project, did we get any replies yet?

[bacopa]

Matt Damon is a good pick, he spoke greatly against conservatism during the elections which sort of made him look like a libertarian transhumanist, so definitely put him on the list. Plus everyone know he's a non-believer.

What news/progress has imminst made with the VIP project, did we get any replies yet?

No replies thus far. I know Shannon emailed Larry King, but I don't think we sent a snail mail out to him; but I could be mistaken.

Dawkins and Maher probably haven't even received their letters yet. But I did send an email to Dawkins media contact, and so far no replies.

I agree with you on Damon. I think Affleck endorsed Mcain, but he has endorsed strictly democrats prior. I wonder what made him switch?

Cyberbrain, if you would like to help us brainstorm that would be most appreciated.

[Rational Madman]

Matt Damon is a good pick, he spoke greatly against conservatism during the elections which sort of made him look like a libertarian transhumanist, so definitely put him on the list. Plus everyone know he's a non-believer.

What news/progress has imminst made with the VIP project, did we get any replies yet?

No replies thus far. I know Shannon emailed Larry King, but I don't think we sent a snail mail out to him; but I could be mistaken.

Dawkins and Maher probably haven't even received their letters yet. But I did send an email to Dawkins media contact, and so far no replies.

I agree with you on Damon. I think Affleck endorsed Mcain, but he has endorsed strictly democrats prior. I wonder what made him switch?

Cyberbrain, if you would like to help us brainstorm that would be most appreciated.

I'm pretty sure Affleck endorsed Obama. Maybe you're thinking of Dean Cain's crossover?

Anyway, here's a good list of candidates:

http://www.foreignpo...p?story_id=3249

Edited by Rol82, 15 September 2009 - 05:26 AM.

[JLL]

I like Brad Pitt as an actor, but he doesn't strike me as the sharpest pencil in the box. He is popular, though. Maybe he's already given some thought to life extension, seeing as he played Benjamin Button.

[bacopa]

Matt Damon is a good pick, he spoke greatly against conservatism during the elections which sort of made him look like a libertarian transhumanist, so definitely put him on the list. Plus everyone know he's a non-believer.

What news/progress has imminst made with the VIP project, did we get any replies yet?

No replies thus far. I know Shannon emailed Larry King, but I don't think we sent a snail mail out to him; but I could be mistaken.

Dawkins and Maher probably haven't even received their letters yet. But I did send an email to Dawkins media contact, and so far no replies.

I agree with you on Damon. I think Affleck endorsed Mcain, but he has endorsed strictly democrats prior. I wonder what made him switch?

Cyberbrain, if you would like to help us brainstorm that would be most appreciated.

I'm pretty sure Affleck endorsed Obama. Maybe you're thinking of Dean Cain's crossover?

Anyway, here's a good list of candidates:

http://www.foreignpo...p?story_id=3249

If you want to pick say three candidates from that grouping that might be a good start. I saw Dennett and Pinker speak at a Harvard public speaking event about evolution, but it was a long time ago. I know Dennett and Pinker are great thinkers/scientists, and I wouldn't rule them out.

[lunarsolarpower]

I saw our friend Jason Silva on the front page of John Brockman's site. I'd be a little surprised if John hadn't at least heard of imminst though.

Edited by lunarsolarpower, 15 September 2009 - 07:54 PM.

[bacopa]

This is from the site Freedom from religion http://www.ffrf.org/...usfreethinkers/

It seems like Harrison Ford, Jody Foster, and George Clooney, could all be free thinkers. So maybe we could consider them...

Ron Reagen is definitely a free thinker, so we could consider him, he's spoke at a FFR conference once.

Let's not forget the famed celebrity atheist list, which includes agnostics and those questioning... http://www.celebathe...title=Main_Page

Edited by dfowler, 17 September 2009 - 06:52 AM.

[modelcadet]

Contact Anthony Robbins. He's awesome. His latest tweet: "a woman blind for a decade can now see after tooth is implanted in eye....amazing.. http://bit.ly/3iadl4"

He knows a bunch of singularitarians, if he isn't one himself.

[MMcdermott]

Devon,

This is thecat. I think this is a great idea for an e-mail.


Mike

Our goals for August is to contact at least 3 celebrities. We have already sent a package to Larry King, and now I think we should focus on Bill Maher, Richard Dawkins, and we need a third. I'm happy to accept any candidate, and we should NOT be focusing exclusively on atheists/agnostics.

Here are some letter ideas.

Here's one idea for the follow up email letter


This of course is too long, but I'm having problems knowing what and what not to take out of it. Shannon or Portal maybe you can help.
Dear celebs name,

We're with the human longevity organization imminst.org, which stands for the Immortality Institute for Research into Indefinite Lifespans. We are starting a campaign to get people, like yourself, interested in the very real prospect of achieving radically longer life spans in the next 20 to 50 years. Basically there is now alot of research into slowing down, halting or even reversing the human aging process. In order to do this we are focusing in on two key areas. One is the MPrize which is a prize given to whomever can keep a mouse alive the longest. And the second is SENS Foundation; which is a foundation setup to utilize an engineering approach to combat the aging process.

I should tell you we are NOT looking necessarily for charitable donations at this time. Our mission, really, is to inform people like yourself who might be a good representative for the human longevity cause. We really want to inform people that there is something currently being done about ending human aging in our lifetime. We really want to hear your opinions on human life extension whether positive or negative. How might you benefit from a much longer life? Aging really is a degenerative disease that should be fought and ultimately cured just like any other disease such as Cancer, Aids, Diabetes, and Heart Disease. 150 years ago people only lived an average of 40 years. This is because they died of diseases that we can easily cure today.

We've also included a copy of Dr. Degrey's book entitiled Ending Aging. It has all the information you'll need to better understand aging and the SENS approach to the human aging problem. We would also be very grateful if you could attend one of our Sunday Evening Chats on our website imminst.org. We feature prominent scientists, imminst members, and progressive thinkers who sometimes call themselves Transhumanists on our Sunday online chat forum every Sunday. We want to hear what you have to say about your thoughts on living longer and how you feel your life could be improved if we could extend our lives by a much longer time frame. (maybe we can mention our book here.)

We realize this is probably mostly new news for you as there is not that much press so far for radical life extension. However we have made some good strides. Aubrey De Grey author of the book we included and founder and creator of SENS, was featured on 20/20 with Barbra Walters in their special "How to live to 150." Dr. Degrey was also featured on a smaller segment of the Colbert Report. It is our belief here at imminst that we only need to spread the word about aging to get it to become more talked about and to see real results as soon as possible. And of course the next big step will be funding projects and seeing actual results.

We appreciate your time and we here at imminst believe whether we live to only 80 years or much much longer is up to people like yourselves and scientists getting on board and doing something about this problem! 100,000 people die of old age everyday and if we can do something about it we think that this is the ethical and right thing to do. Most people I've talked to say they would want to extend their lives by quite a large margin and maybe even live indefinitely. Just think of all the things we could be doing with extended lives that we simply don't have time for now! We believe that this is going to be the norm as death should not be so easily accepted in civilized society.

Thank your for your time!

Devon fowler
imminst.org

[brokenportal]

Fowler, lets go with 3 school boards, or whatever their university equivalent is, this month. Choose 3 others if you want, or go and look up the addresses for 3 school boards and put the info in here by tomorrow night. Whichever you choose make sure you get it in here by then other wise Ill put it in. We've got about 40,000 days of life time apeice and times a burnin. I know its work getting this stuff moving, but Ive seen you do it plenty before.

Also, send me those Amazon order forms by tomorrow night. Otherwise Ill do that myself too. I would do 1,000 more things per day, but Im only one person. Together we continue to reach the next level, and then the next level, and so on.

[bacopa]

The trick is figuring out which school boards to send them to, what schools eg. high schools or uni's, and what our intended goal is in trying to contact them.

Should we encourage professors in the sciences or philosophy major to talk to their students about our cause? Or is our intention something else?

I sent you a new PM, about these questions as well.

It's a great idea.

By the way, we should mention in our letters the numerous transvision, imminst and other conferences that we have put on for people, as it will make our cause seem more expansive and legit.

[bacopa]

I was thinking, that maybe we should start targeting high, mid, and low profile VIP's and this goes along with your school board idea.

My thinking now, is perhaps out of our monthly 3 we should hit one high profile and the other two should me mid to low profile, just a thought.

[brokenportal]

Well, if you want to leave it up to me then Ill do it, but the deadline is today so we have to come up with something that works. So, here is the proposal we are going with for this month.

Lets book mark this: http://www.directory...-schools/US.htm

Its a directory of high schools.

Ok now, the contacts for this month will be all the A's in the state of Alabama. Its about 20 addresses. So we arent doing 3 this month, but the good news is that you can use the same letter for them all. So theres the contacts for this month. Now lets get to work on a letter. Lets have that done by saturday. Get the envelopes ready too. We'll put C/O school board on them, and Im sure they will make their way to their destinations.

Heres some key points to consider putting in there. Tell them you want them to consider ways to work the unlimited lifespan cause in to their schools however they can. Tell them we are sending them one copy of LifeQuest and ask them to request more. Tell them we will send them up to 30 copies if they can tell us how they might use it and we agree. Invite them to the forum. Also invite them to a skype conference call meeting. Give them a good authorative crash course on the cause. Figure out the details and then let us know what youve come up with here. Of course, find assistance from whoever is willing to help if you want to. Remember though, saturday. The Grim Reaper is coming for us, and with the help of all the volunteers like you that have been putting in the work, we can make 2009 really count.

[bacopa]

Ok, so you want that I should use all 20 addresses? I mean I will, and think it's a good idea.

Not so keen on Lifequest books for these schools. We want to sound credible and that it's good sound science, not scifi B.S.

In the future I think maybe targeting colleges would be a much better idea, as they would be likely much more open to progressive science movements.

In fact Uni's and college's tend to have a liberal bent to them. And having said all of this, now I'm not sure if we should even go after highschools.

Send me a pm about your thoughts on this.

I think we should have a little bit of a longer snail male letter to our schools, and send an email as well, that explains that it's a follow up of course to the letter.

Again, I vote for college's and not high schools, and I'm not to crazy about Lifequest.

Devon

Well, if you want to leave it up to me then Ill do it, but the deadline is today so we have to come up with something that works. So, here is the proposal we are going with for this month.

Lets book mark this: http://www.directory...-schools/US.htm

Its a directory of high schools.

Ok now, the contacts for this month will be all the A's in the state of Alabama. Its about 20 addresses. So we arent doing 3 this month, but the good news is that you can use the same letter for them all. So theres the contacts for this month. Now lets get to work on a letter. Lets have that done by saturday. Get the envelopes ready too. We'll put C/O school board on them, and Im sure they will make their way to their destinations.

Heres some key points to consider putting in there. Tell them you want them to consider ways to work the unlimited lifespan cause in to their schools however they can. Tell them we are sending them one copy of LifeQuest and ask them to request more. Tell them we will send them up to 30 copies if they can tell us how they might use it and we agree. Invite them to the forum. Also invite them to a skype conference call meeting. Give them a good authorative crash course on the cause. Figure out the details and then let us know what youve come up with here. Of course, find assistance from whoever is willing to help if you want to. Remember though, saturday. The Grim Reaper is coming for us, and with the help of all the volunteers like you that have been putting in the work, we can make 2009 really count.

[brokenportal]

I know that we are mainly thinking get the hard science to them, but we have 100 generous free copies of LifeQuest. This is a freaking amazing tool. Its a tool. When you have a tool, especially a free tool, you use it in the space it works in. If we try to use these in the same way we did Dawkins and Maher and King then it wouldnt work as well, but this is a wrench, not a screw driver, it will fit on a bolt head just fine.

This is credible. Stories, especially ones that have side notes and inuendos and insinuations about the cause are credible. Just because they are sci fi doesnt mean they are going to be taken as a fairy tale. They are exemplifications meant to stir the mind. Thats an amazing tool. Also, not only are they for the cause, but think about how many people youve seen around here even that say things like, "I got in to the cause when I read Orwells this, or when I watched star trek that." Sci fi stirs the mind and it works great when you use the tool right. Sure, 100 copies of ending aging would be great, but these 100 books cant be taken lightly. They are great too.

We arent going to send these sci fi books to like, a kumudgony scientist, or somebody that doesnt read sci fi. We will be sending them to sci fi reading vips, school boards, university english professors, communications professors, arts professors etc... and other good outlets we can find.

High schools are an excellent target. Universities are good too, but we have highschools lined up to go now. Whats most important is getting these out, we dont have to worry to much about the finer details of who gets them first and what not. We can fine tune that as we go, but right now this A's high schools will do just fine. If you want a better example of who to send what to then please do by all means get the pick in for next month by the end of the first week.

High schoolers are kids that will be going to college. If we can spark their minds right now, if we can get them thinking more about how this stuff is normal now, then more of them will be likely to persue paths for this cause in college. They will also spread the word and talk about it more. If you want to influence the future of a society, one of the most powerful things you can do is inject their k through 12 with what you want them to think about.

[bacopa]

eegh...ok Portal, I'll go with your decision on this one, and it can't hurt I guess.

That is a lot of copies and we shouldn't see them go to waste, I just sincerely doubt Alabama schools would be very resecptive, or at all.

Ok so for this round we'll do the 20 high schools in Alabama, but I want to start on college's too.

I was a Comm major at UMass Amherst, and I remember the prof's being very progressive and liberal minded. I even know some of them well enough to contact them personally.

So I vote for this month we do the 20 random schools in AL, and also I'll contact a professor that I'm comfortable with and she even talked about nanotech somewhat.

Tell me what you think.

Devon

I know that we are mainly thinking get the hard science to them, but we have 100 generous free copies of LifeQuest. This is a freaking amazing tool. Its a tool. When you have a tool, especially a free tool, you use it in the space it works in. If we try to use these in the same way we did Dawkins and Maher and King then it wouldnt work as well, but this is a wrench, not a screw driver, it will fit on a bolt head just fine.

This is credible. Stories, especially ones that have side notes and inuendos and insinuations about the cause are credible. Just because they are sci fi doesnt mean they are going to be taken as a fairy tale. They are exemplifications meant to stir the mind. Thats an amazing tool. Also, not only are they for the cause, but think about how many people youve seen around here even that say things like, "I got in to the cause when I read Orwells this, or when I watched star trek that." Sci fi stirs the mind and it works great when you use the tool right. Sure, 100 copies of ending aging would be great, but these 100 books cant be taken lightly. They are great too.

We arent going to send these sci fi books to like, a kumudgony scientist, or somebody that doesnt read sci fi. We will be sending them to sci fi reading vips, school boards, university english professors, communications professors, arts professors etc... and other good outlets we can find.

High schools are an excellent target. Universities are good too, but we have highschools lined up to go now. Whats most important is getting these out, we dont have to worry to much about the finer details of who gets them first and what not. We can fine tune that as we go, but right now this A's high schools will do just fine. If you want a better example of who to send what to then please do by all means get the pick in for next month by the end of the first week.

High schoolers are kids that will be going to college. If we can spark their minds right now, if we can get them thinking more about how this stuff is normal now, then more of them will be likely to persue paths for this cause in college. They will also spread the word and talk about it more. If you want to influence the future of a society, one of the most powerful things you can do is inject their k through 12 with what you want them to think about.

[brokenportal]

Sorry but the deadline is today and we already picked it, the 20 A's in Alabama. I have to stand on this as a matter of principle. The principle being that the point of the deadline is to get it done. If we forgo the deadline then we will have thrown away our ability to keep deadlines for it in the future, "oh I know we picked these three on the deadline last week, but why dont we go with these better 3" we can always find a better 3 or 20 or whatever the number is. These will do just fine, I can assure you that we will find plenty of liberals in Alabama schools. Get the letter together, and then you can do as many more on top of those 20 that you want if you want. Its just a matter of printing off extra copies and getting more stamps. We dont have a person for the phone part of this right now so we dont have to take that in to consideration for this.

[bacopa]

Sorry but the deadline is today and we already picked it, the 20 A's in Alabama. I have to stand on this as a matter of principle. The principle being that the point of the deadline is to get it done. If we forgo the deadline then we will have thrown away our ability to keep deadlines for it in the future, "oh I know we picked these three on the deadline last week, but why dont we go with these better 3" we can always find a better 3 or 20 or whatever the number is. These will do just fine, I can assure you that we will find plenty of liberals in Alabama schools. Get the letter together, and then you can do as many more on top of those 20 that you want if you want. Its just a matter of printing off extra copies and getting more stamps. We dont have a person for the phone part of this right now so we dont have to take that in to consideration for this.

No you're right, deadline is key...I'll write a rough draft letter for the school boards tonight, and people can edit tomorrow. ARe you ok with this?

Obviously the letter will be a template that we can use for all 20 schools.

I will try to come at the angle of introducing new ideas to young minds kind of thing.

My question to you is, is life quest the only book we will distribute to these schools? I would imagine it would get plenty expensive to buy 20 copies of ending aging.

Tell me your thoughts on books for this round.

Edited by dfowler, 24 September 2009 - 03:36 AM.

[bacopa]

But there are some further questions I have for this high shool market.

Is our intention just to make principals, deans, and/or teachers aware of what we're doing? And if so don't we need many more copies of LifeQuest to be distrubuted to the students? I mean, is one copy per school enough?

Who would we ask to come on the Sunday Evening Update show? By sending one copy per school of LifeQuest doesn't seem to me to be a great way of attracting physics and chemistry, other science teachers.

I'm going to wait for your suggestions on key points to put into the letters, and your methodology for going about this idea.

edit: one more important thing. we don't want to come across as wing nut scientologist type of people! Do you sincerely think a sci fi book is a good idea? Won't they just laugh at us? I've discussed it with a few smart, online friends and they think it's a bit of a reach, to send sci fi books to schools.

However, one friend did recommend that maybe English teachers and professors might be more receptive.

I'm NOT trying to be argumentative...I'm thinking what's in the best interest of this cause!

Edited by dfowler, 24 September 2009 - 03:52 AM.

[bacopa]

I would like it if some other members here could give us their recommendations of high school vs. college markets, whether a scifi book, albeit a good one, is a good idea, and whether one copy per school could work, and also if your ideas on who to get on the Sunday Evening Updates.

[bacopa]

Ok here is a stab at a rough draft letter to a high school. Because this is a school, and not a VIP, I think a longer letter with more detail and explanation is much better at getting our point across. We want to sound like we have a lot to offer the world, and well we do. So, anyone, tell me what you think, and of course this will be edited before being sent out. We are also trying to interest high schools in Alabama, which is a very religious state, so I thought it was a good idea to mention quickly that this could appeal to religious and non-religous people, as well as emphsize the immense importance in living longer, and citing examples of how great it would be to live longer with loved ones, one's dreams; aspirations etc.

To such and such a high school,

We're with imminst.org, or the Immortality Institute. We are an online non profit who'se goals are advocacy, and research into unlimited life spans.

edit to just imminst: I STILL feel uncomfortable with saying unlimited life span and especially, immortality, because it sounds like we're "way out there" in sci fi land to most people..anyway I'll continue.

Research into unlimited lifespans is an umbrella term that really encompasses the idea of life extension, which is what we are really interested in and focus most of our energies on. You may not have heard about this burgeoning field of science and philosophy, but it's the idea that doing something to slow down, halt, or even reverse the aging process in people, is an ethical and necessary goal, if we wish to combat the myriad amount of age related diseases that presently kill over 100,000 people a day. This is also ethical in that we believe life has tremendous worth for everyone on this planet.

This might sound radical at first, but many people, including many polls of people, show that the majority of people in many countries, including the U.S., would at least like to live somewhat to much longer lives. Whether deeply religious, or not, we believe life is a wonderful thing that shouldn't go to waste. There is actually alot of talk, established online non-profits working for the cause, and research going on in labs right now, trying to do something about prolonging life. One of the things that is happening right now with life extension, is what Dr. Aubrey De Grey, (a British biogerentologist,) is doing with his SENS Foundation. His idea, and foundation, is work being done right now in labs throughout the country whereby they

(edit to imminst: does anyone know where these labs are located?)

are trying to combat the 7 causes of aging, as Aubrey calls it, using an engineering approach that will ultimately include stem cell rejuvenation type of therapies, which in short, could repair damaged cells in our bodies.

De Grey has been featured on several American and English tv shows, including 20/20, with Barbra Walters in a special called "How to live to 150." He has also been on a popular BBC documentary, the Colbert Report, and a recent documentary on the History Channel. There is much more going on in this field as well including a prize that is up in the multimillions that will be awarded to a scientist that can keep a mouse alive the longest. I will also send you an email with the links to these sites.

The reason I am contacting you, is because we want to get students and teachers more knowledgable about what could be the most important human rights cause ever imagined. We here at imminst, believe every life is precious and thus worth fighting for! We are interested in sending you a copy of LifeQuest, which is a fictional science fiction compilation of stories centered around this theme. It is our belief that high school students should be clued into the sciences of life extension as it is fascinating, as well as important to people's quality of life in general. If you are interested, we have many science books like Ending Aging, for instance, that take a more realistic look at what we're doing here. We will give them to you for free without hesitation.

We also want to get professors and students opinions on life extension, whether good or bad. So we would like to invite interested students and professors to attend an online chat forum called Sunday Evening Update. There have been many prominent scientists and enthusiasts who have hosted our show, including biologist Michael Rose, Ray Kurzweil's doctor, biologist Cynthia Kenyon, and many more.

The reason why we use the name "Immortality Institute," is because we don't think there should be a limit on how long people should be able to live once of course, it becomes a possibility. This is also part of the philosophy of Transhumanism which is a subset of humanism. It is the idea that each of us has tremendous worth as people, living on this planet, and that life right now is just too short; thus limiting our goals, dreams, and even the wonders of sharing the world with loved ones and friends. Many people, like me, would love to stay young longer, and believe it or not many great thinkers and scientists believe it is possible; the question is when.

My name is Devon Fowler and I would be happy to to speak with you over the phone, or email, anytime you feel comfortable. Below is my contact information.

Devon Fowler
fowlerdevon@gmail.com
cell: 617-504-7629

Edited by dfowler, 24 September 2009 - 08:09 AM.

[Shannon Vyff]

I'd love to help with editing that letter. I'll be able to help the first week of October when we have Internet set up at our UK home.

[Vgamer1]

I'm also willing to edit these letters. Devon, is your gtalk still not working? If not, how about skype?

I'd be happy to give my opinion. As we've talked about before, we could have skype conference call with whoever is interested to go over and perfect these letters.

I'd much rather have quality letters sent to these places than to rush to get them out by a deadline. PM me and let me know when you're available to chat.

[brokenportal]

If somebody can, vgamer if you want, Shannon wouldnt be able to help with this particular one in time, then please edit this letter and get the final version ready for today. Otherwise Im going to edit it and send the 20 letters out myself. I would rather that others get this done though.

The deadline is today, and the incentive to work on this now is that if we dont then a draft that isnt as good as it could be will get sent out.

However, whoever also wants to help for next month can help us get this all done ahead of time.

The monthly schedule is:
Pick at least 3 contacts by the end of the first week.
Have the first drafts, snail and email, written by the end of the second week.
Have the final version ready and sent out by the end of the third week.

[bacopa]

I'm also willing to edit these letters. Devon, is your gtalk still not working? If not, how about skype?

I'd be happy to give my opinion. As we've talked about before, we could have skype conference call with whoever is interested to go over and perfect these letters.

I'd much rather have quality letters sent to these places than to rush to get them out by a deadline. PM me and let me know when you're available to chat.

Well my pc is broken so gtalk it out on that one, but I may be on my dad's pc tonight, which has it.

I'll download Skype to this one and try to catch up with you soon.

I posed a bunch of questions as to whether sending one book per school is such a good idea, plus who should we send them too?

Vgamer1, maybe you can address these questions I wrote before the letter.