72 replies to this topic

[Cyberbrain]

There have been long and heated debates every year about changing the name. And none of them yielded any results. But this is the first time I believe we finally have a really great alternative name. Two years ago I started a thread about changing the name. Dozens of names came up, but no one could agree and so we kept the same name. But "MILE Institute" is not only a good symbolic name but would draw in even more crowds. No doubt the word "immortality" to most has a negative connotation. For instance I'm the admin of a group on Facebook called Immortality (it's about life extension) and many times I've gotten messages asking me to change the name because it sounds religious or silly or selfish or unrealistic.

Another HUGE reason that I support a name change to MILE is that we can finally get better publicity. For instance none of the directors, advisers or navigators would dare put on their CV about the work they do here (or at least not me) simply due to the name. If we were just a supplements community, the name immortality would be fine but we're a life extension community too and "immortality" gives new comers the wrong idea. I tried to invite four friends recently to join imminst but they all got turned off by the name. We need to be taken serious. And the world does not like the name immortality. We need to reach out and be more pragmatic.

I'm in full support for this name change and so should the rest of imminst current leadership.

[The Immortalist]

There have been long and heated debates every year about changing the name. And none of them yielded any results. But this is the first time I believe we finally have a really great alternative name. Two years ago I started a thread about changing the name. Dozens of names came up, but no one could agree and so we kept the same name. But "MILE Institute" is not only a good symbolic name but would draw in even more crowds. No doubt the word "immortality" to most has a negative connotation. For instance I'm the admin of a group on Facebook called Immortality (it's about life extension) and many times I've gotten messages asking me to change the name because it sounds religious or silly or selfish or unrealistic.

Another HUGE reason that I support a name change to MILE is that we can finally get better publicity. For instance none of the directors, advisers or navigators would dare put on their CV about the work they do here (or at least not me) simply due to the name. If we were just a supplements community, the name immortality would be fine but we're a life extension community too and "immortality" gives new comers the wrong idea. I tried to invite four friends recently to join imminst but they all got turned off by the name. We need to be taken serious. And the world does not like the name immortality. We need to reach out and be more pragmatic.

I'm in full support for this name change and so should the rest of imminst current leadership.

Could Immortality be like a nick name of the institute or something? Personally I like the word Immortality, but not many people in the world does. When they hear Immortality they think of religion, god, narcissism, vanity, fountain of youth scam, snake oil salesmen, video games, fantasy novels, science fiction novels, Harry potter, Twilight, Vampires, Edward cullen, cults, the list goes on with all sorts of negative things they think about.
Not many people think Immortality is cool like we do. When I found out about this place I was like "COOL IMMORTALITY COUNT ME IN!!!" but most people are like "WTF are these guys nuts? What are they gonna do if you join, send you a thank you card and say your now Immortal?" (A quote from my own father when I asked him to pay for my membership even after he read all the information on the site)

Edited by The Indefinite Lifespaner, 28 March 2010 - 07:22 AM.

[AgeVivo]

The fact is, you are here because of the name.

Again, no.
The main identified reason for people to come here is life extension. Or rather "to conquer the blight of involuntary death" as much as possible, if you wish, but not "immortality"

[AgeVivo]

The Institute's mission is "to conquer the blight of involuntary death".

For this reason, "The Immortality Institute" is a perfectly accurate name.

For this reason, names like "Pushing life extension" would be perfect too.

[AgeVivo]

Completely against changing the name... you can also form or join a group with a more down to earth name.. a good examples is the healthy life extension group heales. http://heales.org/english/

You mean restrict the immortality institute to one forum for "immortalists", and another forum for people promoting healthy life extension? Why not

Solution 1: Imminst.org redirects to AlwaysLongerLives.org for example. The name of the institute would change, not the mission. The existing subforum named "immortality institute" remains.

Solution 2 (if solution 1 is rejected by the board of directors, based on bureaucracy or other arguments): another forum is chosen (attached to Heales for example, or any other forum) and the board of imminst clearly warns that this website is restricted to immortalist and that people not feeling affiliated with immortality should post there.

Edited by AgeVivo, 28 March 2010 - 02:11 PM.

[AgeVivo]

I'm usually vehemently opposed to bureaucracy

Being blocked by bureaucracy isn't very shiny

[AgeVivo]

There have been long and heated debates every year about changing the name. (...) that we can finally get better publicity. For instance none of the directors, advisers or navigators would dare put on their CV about the work they do here (or at least not me) simply due to the name. If we were just a supplements community, the name immortality would be fine but we're a life extension community too and "immortality" gives new comers the wrong idea. I tried to invite four friends recently to join imminst but they all got turned off by the name. We need to be taken serious. And the world does not like the name immortality. We need to reach out and be more pragmatic.

We need to reach out and be more pragmatic

[AgeVivo]

I'm in full support for this name change and so should the rest of imminst current leadership.

Me too. In a way to conqueer the blight of involuntary death, as much as possible.

[AgeVivo]

When they hear Immortality they think of religion, god, narcissism, vanity, fountain of youth scam, snake oil salesmen, video games, fantasy novels, science fiction novels, Harry potter, Twilight, Vampires, Edward cullen, c u l t s

etc.

[David Styles]

What we could do is just switch the name of the Institute for a little while, get a lot of people in while we still call it the Immortality Institute amongst the hard core crowed of Imminsters (which includes me as well), then when we get thousands/millions of members we hold a referendum to see if we can change it back to the Immortality Institute. When the vote is positive then we will know the word Immortality is accepted by the majority of the public.

No, that's not how it works.

You have to change the constitution to change the name. Article I, section 1 clearly states "The name of this nonprofit organization shall be “The Immortality Institute” or “Immortality Institute”, abbreviated to “ImmInst” and heretofore referred to as such by this constituting instrument"

This isn't just a small aspect like the colourscheme or something that can be changed whimsically. This is Article 1, Section 1, from our Constitution.

[David Styles]

What gives is that I care for the concept of Immortality so much that I am willing to sacrifice me and the Institutes own vanity by giving the concept of Immortality a more "sugar coated" name. In fact I'm very frusterated that most people without our particular mind set don't see the concept of Immortality as a positive thing the way we do. If it was called the anti-death institute wouldn't it be the same as saying Immortality Institute? What I would like is for Imminst to have two names maybe:
1.Imminst
2. something like "MILE Institute" or "Anti Death Institute" "Longevity Institute" "Lifespans Unlimited" Something that means Immortality but isn't the word Immortal (which alot of people have illogical prejudices against it.

This has been proposed previously. What has been implemented is the Longevity Communities Network. Google it.

I don't know guy's but I think we have two things happening here
1. To keep the main name of Immortality is destructive for the Cause, when we could have a sugar coated name that means the same thing.

How seriously is the world likely to take an organisation that can't even publicly stand by its own core value, and feels it has to hide it?

2. Vanity is an issue here with the dabate for a name change.

You and I are clearly both image conscious people. The difference is that we disagree over what is the best image to project. I favour bold confidence, such as that found in Article 1, Section 1 of the Immortality Institute's Constitution. You favour trying to hide our main core value.

We don't have to ditch the word Immortality remember.

I'm quite aware of this, and for my part have no intention of ditching the word.

[AgeVivo]

Maybe Imminst could operate under two names?

I've just finished http://www.LifespanSociety.org

The visitor remains on http://lifespansociety.org until it logs in or registers: it then lands on imminst.org. If specific transition text between lifespansociety and imminst is needed I could add it. Of course other names than lifespansociety could be used

PS: I think that LongeCity, a longevity community network that is mainstream and does not belong to one specific community, is the ideal way to go. But right now, branching sens.org's forum to longeCity is not obvious: http://www.sens.org/forums/foundation/sens...e=4#comment-230

[David Styles]

There have been long and heated debates every year about changing the name. And none of them yielded any results. But this is the first time I believe we finally have a really great alternative name. Two years ago I started a thread about changing the name. Dozens of names came up, but no one could agree and so we kept the same name. But "MILE Institute" is not only a good symbolic name but would draw in even more crowds. No doubt the word "immortality" to most has a negative connotation.

Humanity has thousands of years of religious indoctrination telling them that life and pleasure are intrinsically sinful, and that death and suffering are somehow good.

It will take a long time to get them all over this stumbling block.

It will take even longer if we don't lead by example!

For instance I'm the admin of a group on Facebook called Immortality (it's about life extension) and many times I've gotten messages asking me to change the name because it sounds religious or silly or selfish or unrealistic.

Let's look at those one by one:

Religious: On the contrary, most religions preach that death is good.

Silly: If someone thinks that taking actions to continue life rather than embrace death is silly, then they have a suicidal mindset and I would not take their advice about what is good for the cause of immortality.

Selfish: I work around the clock for the ultimate betterment of humanity, not least of all to save their lives. What do they do? Did any of these people complaining that we are selfish come across to you as a sort of Mother Teresa figure or somesuch?

Unrealistic: Every scientific advance that has not been accidental has been preceded by people saying it is impossible. I myself operate by constantly setting goals that are specific, measureable, attainable, realistic, and time-oriented (SMART). Many times I have been told that my goals have been unrealistic, and this has only made me smile more broadly when I have invariably reached the goals despite their lack of confidence. The fact is, that just because they won't do it doesn't mean it can't be done.

Another HUGE reason that I support a name change to MILE is that we can finally get better publicity. For instance none of the directors, advisers or navigators would dare put on their CV about the work they do here (or at least not me) simply due to the name.

We are here to conquer the blight of involuntary death, not to pad your CV.

If we were just a supplements community, the name immortality would be fine

Why?

but we're a life extension community too and "immortality" gives new comers the wrong idea.

You mean, they might think we take the idea of immortality seriously?

I tried to invite four friends recently to join imminst but they all got turned off by the name.

Then they clearly weren't committed to the Institute's mission.

We need to be taken serious. And the world does not like the name immortality.

Perhaps the Roman Catholic Church should also change its name, because the rest of the world does not like the name "Catholic" or take Catholicism seriously.

I'm in full support for this name change and so should the rest of imminst current leadership.

Why should we? Rebelling against Article 1, Section 1, of the Constitution hardly seems like a likely activity for those who have been put in place to work harder than others to further the Institute's mission.

[David Styles]

Could Immortality be like a nick name of the institute or something?

No, no more than "David Styles" could be my nickname. It's already my name!

Personally I like the word Immortality, but not many people in the world does. When they hear Immortality they think of religion, god, narcissism, vanity, fountain of youth scam, snake oil salesmen, video games, fantasy novels, science fiction novels, Harry potter, Twilight, Vampires, Edward cullen, cults, the list goes on with all sorts of negative things they think about.

You don't seem to have taken on board what Justin said about the Immortality Institute having claimed the word "Immortality" for science. We are not going to throw in the towel now.

Not many people think Immortality is cool like we do. When I found out about this place I was like "COOL IMMORTALITY COUNT ME IN!!!" but most people are like "WTF are these guys nuts? What are they gonna do if you join, send you a thank you card and say your now Immortal?" (A quote from my own father when I asked him to pay for my membership even after he read all the information on the site)

Then it needs to be made incredibly clear, in an idiotproof fashion, what exactly we do and why we are called the Immortality Institute.

This is the real image issue that needs to be addressed here.

[David Styles]

The fact is, you are here because of the name.

Again, no.
The main identified reason for people to come here is life extension. Or rather "to conquer the blight of involuntary death" as much as possible, if you wish, but not "immortality"

The Immortality Institute's mission is not to conquer the blight of involuntary death as much as possible if you wish. It is to conquer the blight of involuntary death.

That is immortality, and that is our aim, no matter how controversial it may be. It is why the Immortality Institute was founded.

Edited by David Styles, 28 March 2010 - 03:07 PM.

[AgeVivo]

A. David,

I took a lot of time to propose alternate solutions such as http://lifespanSociety.org and http://longeCity.org and you simply keep negating everything without listening to the fact that not everyone here is a pure immortalist like you and that all those objections about the name of the institute have a good reason and could be usefull.

So
1. Let me try to rephrase what you mean and see if what you are saying is already limpid:

the very name and very first article of the organization contain the world "Immortality". So if you are here you should not deny your interest in it, even if that name is generally badly perceived

2. The trouble (as I perceive it): most people are not here for immortality, and that is why there are so many objections about the name of the institute. I don't think that many people have even read the constitution once. They simply enjoy discussing about things related to life extension (being is biogerontology, supplements, cryonics, or other). And usually ignore threads such as this one. The trouble is that they discover their interest is in fact labelled with "immortality", which is, as you certainly know, very much tainted with religion, god, narcissism, vanity, snake oil, fantasy, science fiction, Vampiers, cults, etc. Another big trouble to me, that is very related, is that the name of the institute is blocking to convey the life extension cause in large.

3. The solutions. Pay attention to the objections about the name. Look at proposed mainstream names and proposed solutions. Choose a solution with the board of directors. What do you think you can you do for those who are not pure immortalists like you?



B. To those who are frustrated with the word "immortality"

I personally invite those people to
- join Heales (http://heales.org) if they don't live too far from Brussels
- join the Gerontology research group (http://www.grg.org/discus/) if they have a strong scientific background
- http://sens.org : the new website exists (beta version) and has a new forum... about SENS
- join http://groups.google....life-extension
- look at http://lifespanSociety.org and http://longeCity.org
- propose other
- say what you prefer, participate where you think you can put it in your resume, tell your friends and family, etc. Go where you can officially be proud of what you do.
- continue trying to solve the name issue with imminst, because imminst IS a great community.

Edited by AgeVivo, 28 March 2010 - 05:26 PM.

[David Styles]

A. David,

I took a lot of time to propose alternate solutions such as http://lifespanSociety.org and http://longeCity.org and you simply keep negating everything without listening to the fact that not everyone here is a pure immortalist like you and that all those objections about the name of the institute have a good reason and could be usefull.

Actually, I'm really glad that you took the trouble to create those sites, and think it useful that you did so.

So
1. Let me try to rephrase what you mean and see if what you are saying is already limpid:

the very name and very first article of the organization contain the world "Immortality". So if you are here you should not deny your interest in it, even if that name is generally badly perceived

You have tried unsuccessfully to rephrase what I said.

In fact, when I speak, I choose my words carefully and say what I mean. Most attempts to paraphrase will thus change the meaning. Here, you put words in my mouth suggesting that I think that if someone is here I think they are interested in immortality. That is not the case, and I have never said, suggested, implied, or inferred it.

What I am getting at is a little different. Since the very name and first article of the Constitution demonstrate explicitly that this is an Institution for Immortality, then if you come here (for whatever reason, be it for immortality, supplements, moderate life extension, or general fitness information), then you have no business complaining about the core value of the organisation that additionally brought you something that you like.

That would be like going to Manchester United Football matches because you really enjoy the pies and chanting and social atmosphere, and then complaining about the word "Football" in the name of the club, because it's not why you're there and you think (correctly or otherwise) that a lot of other people go for the same reasons as you.

2. The trouble (as I perceive it): most people are not here for immortality, and that is why there are so many objections about the name of the institute. I don't think that many people have even read the constitution once. They simply enjoy discussing about things related to life extension (being is biogerontology, supplements, cryonics, or other). And usually ignore threads such as this one. The trouble is that they discover their interest is in fact labelled with "immortality", which is, as you certainly know, very much tainted with religion, god, narcissism, vanity, snake oil, fantasy, science fiction, Vampiers, cults, etc.

So if I go to Manchester United Football matches, because I like the pies and chanting and social atmosphere, then discover the word "Football", I have good cause to ask for it to be changed, because "Football" has negative connotations, and is tainted with associations like "Football hooligans" and "Football gangs" and the like?

Another big trouble to me, that is very related, is that the name of the institute is blocking to convey the life extension cause in large.

That is an unsubstantiated subjective judgement on your part.

Frankly, I feel it is the other way around. Lack of commitment from people who want to appease the more conventional way of thinking (people get old and die) is blocking the life extension cause at large!

3. The solutions. Pay attention to the objections about the name. Look at proposed mainstream names and proposed solutions. Choose a solution with the board of directors. What do you think you can you do for those who are not pure immortalists like you?

I can direct them to other organisations that have been set up to accomplish their lesser goals. Such as:

[/u]
B. To those who are frustrated with the word "immortality"

I personally invite those people to
- join Heales (http://heales.org) if they don't live too far from Brussels
- join the Gerontology research group (http://www.grg.org/discus/) if they have a strong scientific background
- http://sens.org : the new website exists (beta version) and has a new forum... about SENS
- join http://groups.google....life-extension
- look at http://lifespanSociety.org and http://longeCity.org
- propose other
- say what you prefer, participate where you think you can put it in your resume, tell your friends and family, etc. Go where you can officially be proud of what you do.

These are all excellent suggestions, and I laud them most highly. Thank you.

Edited by David Styles, 28 March 2010 - 06:48 PM.

[Cyberbrain]

Let's look at those one by one:

Religious: On the contrary, most religions preach that death is good.

Silly: If someone thinks that taking actions to continue life rather than embrace death is silly, then they have a suicidal mindset and I would not take their advice about what is good for the cause of immortality.

Selfish: I work around the clock for the ultimate betterment of humanity, not least of all to save their lives. What do they do? Did any of these people complaining that we are selfish come across to you as a sort of Mother Teresa figure or somesuch?

Unrealistic: Every scientific advance that has not been accidental has been preceded by people saying it is impossible. I myself operate by constantly setting goals that are specific, measureable, attainable, realistic, and time-oriented (SMART). Many times I have been told that my goals have been unrealistic, and this has only made me smile more broadly when I have invariably reached the goals despite their lack of confidence. The fact is, that just because they won't do it doesn't mean it can't be done.

It doesn't matter what YOU think, it matters what the world thinks.

David, try to put you're self in the shoes of everyone who is not a transhumanist and has never heard of the ideas and research that we know about. They hear about the "immortality institute", what do you expect would go through their mind?

First off, based on my experiences of interviewing people (friends, family, etc) - most would accept life extension (to a degree). None of them however want to live forever. I brought up the word immortality and immediately I started hearing accusations. It doesn't matter if you don't find the word silly David, it matters if the rest of the world does. We're here to advocate research for indefinite life extension, not physical immortality as most would perceive when hearing about imminst.

Currently we reach out to very few, primarily people that already think like us. We have to think more like a marketing department, to think more about psychology and public relations: How do we reach out to more people?

In order to make the world a better place, we'll need the support of the world!

You mean, they might think we take the idea of immortality seriously?

YES

Let's be frank. Imminst does a couple projects here and there, holds a conference maybe every few years. But ultimately we do actually very little to advance the cause and that's for two reasons: we need more supporters and money.

Last year we what, donated several thousand dollars for a worm experiment. Professors at my biology department get 100,000's of dollars in grants and other funding every year to do insignificant research that is nothing compared to what we're trying to accomplish.

Currently we are small and weak. Besides the small projects we did the past few years, at most we're nothing more than an online forum about supplements; at least that's what more than half of the registered users are here for. And if you don't see that than you have to wake up.

We need to expand.

[David Styles]

First off, based on my experiences of interviewing people (friends, family, etc) - most would accept life extension (to a degree). None of them however want to live forever. I brought up the word immortality and immediately I started hearing accusations.

Then they're really not the sort of people we want to attract.

It doesn't matter if you don't find the word silly David, it matters if the rest of the world does.

As Chris Norwood pointed out in the other thread on this same topic currently in Active Topics, the Immortality Institute uses the word "immortality" exactly the same way as the rest of the scientific world does.

If the rest of the non-scientific world finds a scientific word silly, then that is a problem that does need to be addressed, but by education, not by avoiding the word.

We're here to advocate research for indefinite life extension, not physical immortality as most would perceive when hearing about imminst.

To whom are you referring when you say "we", here? If you are referring to the Immortality Institute, then we are here to perform advocacy and research for unlimited lifespans. That is to say, as the mission statement goes, to conquer the blight of involuntary death.

Not to merely delay it, to conquer it.

That is what we are here for (by "we", I'm referring to the Immortality Institute).

Currently we reach out to very few, primarily people that already think like us. We have to think more like a marketing department, to think more about psychology and public relations: How do we reach out to more people?

More people, yes. But they have to be the right sort of people!

Do you think that the company "Hoover" want to reach out to more people? Of course they do. But they try to sell to people who have carpets that want hoovering and who know what a hoover is. They don't try to sell to people living in igloos, tents, etc, by re-branding their product "a brush", because that's not what it is, and it's not what they're about.

In order to make the world a better place, we'll need the support of the world!

We will be more likely to get people in genuine alignment with the cause if we can be clear about what the cause is.

You mean, they might think we take the idea of immortality seriously?

YES

Let's be frank. Imminst does a couple projects here and there, holds a conference maybe every few years. But ultimately we do actually very little to advance the cause and that's for two reasons: we need more supporters and money.

Last year we what, donated several thousand dollars for a worm experiment. Professors at my biology department get 100,000's of dollars in grants and other funding every year to do insignificant research that is nothing compared to what we're trying to accomplish.

Currently we are small and weak. Besides the small projects we did the past few years, at most we're nothing more than an online forum about supplements; at least that's what more than half of the registered users are here for. And if you don't see that than you have to wake up.

I see it, and I do what I can to correct it.

We need to expand.

If we abandoned the concept of immortality, there would be no "us" to expand. It would not be the Immortality Institute anymore, and it wouldn't be working for immortality any more. That is not expansion. That is collapse!

[Mind]

What it boils down to is that Imminst fills its niche well. Less idealistic, less radical names are for other organizations, of which there are thousands.

[David Styles]

What it boils down to is that Imminst fills its niche well. Less idealistic, less radical names are for other organizations, of which there are thousands.

Agreed. Well said.

[Shannon Vyff]

Honestly, the word Immortality Institute did intrigue me back in '03. Over time I became opposed to the name because of other people's reactions--but then I adopted it as my own and for the past few years proudly tell anyone I meet about my involvement with the Immortality Institute. It is a great segue into a myriad of transhumanist and future tech topics

[s123]

The name is a good description of our goal. We should change the way people are thinking instead of changing our name.

Edited by s123, 28 March 2010 - 08:55 PM.

[AgeVivo]

Cyberbrain is right. I've worked in various labs and I call second him on the fact that mainstream projects are taken more seriously, even if it is only a question of using maisntream words. The way to grow is to go mainstream. Plus anti-aging is typically THE place that is already full of snake-oil salesmen; how could you then convince people that if you come with words such as "immortality"?!?

I don't see the Bill Gate Foundation or the National Science Foundation or the Obama administration supporting official projects from the "immortality institute". Projects with mainstream descriptions get a lot more attention for grants, donations and serious decisions. The Lifespan Society (http://lifespanSociety.org ) or HEALES (Healthy Life Extension Society http://heales.org ) or a longevity community network (http://longeCity.com ,or [imminst redirected to] http://longevity.cn whose ImmInst subforum is maintained) or the SuperCentenarian Foundation would be much more trusted.


To ImmInst members who are uncomfortable with the word immortality, you propose to go elsewhere. If you believe that Imminst has reached its limits and that the only way to grow now is to go to a more mainstream place, then that's wise Look at lifespanSociety and longeCity because you say you think it is usefull, but this alone doesn't convince me that you know what you are talking about.

[David Styles]

The name is a good description of our goal. We should change the way people are thinking instead of changing our name.

Right, agreed.

[blackbox]

inextinguishable.com
live_all_that_you_can_live.com (liveallthatyoucanlive.com liveallthatucanlive.com)
uneclipsed.com
switched_on.com (switchedon.com)
relived.com (re_lived.com)
youth_relived.com (youthrelived.com)
live_on.com (liveon.com)
aeon_at_hand.com (aeonathand.com eon_at_hand.com eonathand.com)
live_an_aeon.com (liveanaeon.com live_an_eon.com liveaneon.com)
aeon_and_me.com (aeonandme.com eon_and_me.com eonandme.com
life_squared.com (lifesquared.com

Edited by blackbox, 28 March 2010 - 10:10 PM.

[David Styles]

Cyberbrain is right. I've worked in various labs and I call second him on the fact that mainstream projects are taken more seriously, even if it is only a question of using maisntream words. The way to grow is to go mainstream. Plus anti-aging is typically THE place that is already full of snake-oil salesmen; how could you then convince people that if you come with words such as "immortality"?!?

I don't see the Bill Gate Foundation or the National Science Foundation or the Obama administration supporting official projects from the "immortality institute". Projects with mainstream descriptions get a lot more attention for grants, donations and serious decisions. The Lifespan Society (http://lifespanSociety.org ) or HEALES (Healthy Life Extension Society http://heales.org ) or a longevity community network (http://longeCity.com ,or [imminst redirected to] http://longevity.cn whose ImmInst subforum is maintained) or the SuperCentenarian Foundation would be much more trusted.

You are just going around in circles now; I have already addressed your concerns, as have a number of other people.

To ImmInst members who are uncomfortable with the word immortality, you propose to go elsewhere. If you believe that Imminst has reached its limits and that the only way to grow now is to go to a more mainstream place, then that's wise Look at lifespanSociety and longeCity because you say you think it is usefull, but this alone doesn't convince me that you know what you are talking about.

I've been speaking in logical reason; it is self-evident.

[Cyberbrain]

First off, based on my experiences of interviewing people (friends, family, etc) - most would accept life extension. None of them however want to live forever. I brought up the word immortality and immediately I started hearing accusations.

Then they're really not the sort of people we want to attract.

Are you telling me you only want to attract individuals who instead of being interested in genuine science to live hundreds of years like Aubrey is advocating, we should instead only accept those that want to live literally forever? That is highly foolish and unrealistic.

I joined this institute under the pretense that it advocates pragmatic life extension as a scientific endeavor; supporting research in SENS, cryonics, nanotechnology, etc. I didn't join a cult obsessed with invulnerable physical immortality.

As Chris Norwood pointed out in the other thread on this same topic currently in Active Topics, the Immortality Institute uses the word "immortality" exactly the same way as the rest of the scientific world does.

If the rest of the non-scientific world finds a scientific word silly, then that is a problem that does need to be addressed, but by education, not by avoiding the word.

No one in the scientific community uses the term immortality, especially not when it comes to longevity research. I have never read any papers or publications that use the term immortality as applied to humans.

o whom are you referring when you say "we", here? If you are referring to the Immortality Institute, then we are here to perform advocacy and research for unlimited lifespans. That is to say, as the mission statement goes, to conquer the blight of involuntary death.

Not to merely delay it, to conquer it.

I am all for that. And I would also be willing to keep the same name if "physical immortality" in the constitution were defined. I myself want to live forever, but work needs to be done in order to make that dream possible.

But beyond that, I believe it serves a better purpose if this institute put it's limited resources toward expanding in order to aid in actual research for longevity by publicly declaring it.

If we had a better name, the actually scientific community might take us more serious and we might get a chance to get actual funding for anti-aging research.

We will be more likely to get people in genuine alignment with the cause if we can be clear about what the cause is.

The name for most implies other ideas. And over the years very few have joined imminst cause of the name. Most have joined because of our supplements community. Delete the supplement threads and you'll only have left a few hundred core members.

If we abandoned the concept of immortality, there would be no "us" to expand. It would not be the Immortality Institute anymore, and it wouldn't be working for immortality any more.

I'll say it one last time. This institute needs to present itself to the world in a different light: in a more approachable fashion.

If you want to become a physically immortal god, that's fine ... but if you want to accomplish that you'll need the help, support and resources of those who may not support immortality like you do.

You can't go into a research convention for instance and say I want to be immortal please help me. It's a different story however if say you want to find ways to defeat aging like Aubrey. He doesn't go around telling to-be supporters "come and invest in immortality" ... plain and simple it sounds like snake oil.

[Cyberbrain]

I'm perfectly contempt with this being a small tight community of dedicated immortalists and transhumanists. I just thought we could do more to advance the cause than just chat in a forum.

[brokenportal]

We have developed a solution as Agevivo and Mind have pointed out.


To break it down in this way, the word Immortality has memed us in a lot of the people that have this concept in their blood. Most of us indefinite life extension people were out looking for it, with our eyes and ears open, and building components of it, ready to mesh them with others like imminst, and we found it. But this name will work for the mainstream too because the name Immortality is brandable, we just haven’t branded it yet, we just haven’t had the chance to brand it yet. We want to keep it because as others say too, it is a hell of a name. It is thee name, it is thee corner on the market, we are thee Immortality Institute, it does tower over most, maybe all of the others, the originals, the spin offs, the copy cats. In the future, we will have the ability to drop big dollars on things like tv ads and tell the world what the Immortality Institute is. We will be able to tell them that we are for indefinite life extension, that we are a cause growing into a world movement for advocacy & research for unlimited lifespans , that immortality is just a good name in the same way that Amazon.com is not about a river, or that Monster.com is not about the boogey man, that we are not fairy tale sci fi nerd dreams and things like that they think we might be.

In this transition period here though, between the time when we have a ton of our hard core people here having found us, and that time when we are mainstream in the world, we have to figure out a way to convey the message with out being shut out by the current mainstream. To do that, agevivo (and whoever knows programming and wants to help him) has the secondary name in development through lifespansociety.org. We will be able to use Lifespan Society to break that stalemate and start bringing in more people. With more people we’ll have more money, and we’ll then be able to start taking out more and more ads to more pro actively start branding the name Immortality Institute in the media. In the mean time then, and maybe forever, we’ll want to do something, probably like syndicate the two names. I think that’s what its called, like when Time and Warner Brothers got together. Our legal name can be something like, “Immortality Institute, and Lifespan Society Syndicate” People can then be free to use whichever name they want when working to get people to come here. If somebody notices the other name, we can direct them to "about" pages that show them that it’s because it’s a syndicate. Sure, some people might come here because of lifespansociety.org, and leave because they see its also imminst.org, but not all of them are going to, probably few will.

Imminst works well for key word search, shock value, stickiness factor, and remarkability in media, like billboards, magazine ads, etc… “Look at that, Immortality Institute? Come on… what is that, lets check it out on google.” Lifespan Society is going to work great for the thousands of us who want to be more free to tell this to our family, friends, doctors, acquaintances, friends friends, mention as anecdotes in other speeches and interviews, to give more direct speeches and interviews on it ourselves, etc… If 10,000 of us would otherwise tell ten more people a year about this place, give speeches, reference it more in our publications, web sites, etc... if we just had a name like Lifespan Society, then that would be 100,000+ more people potentially coming here per year. Lets say then, in 4 years we have 540,000 registered users and members, we have a few local tv ads going around the world, we have dozens of magazine ads and billboards and things, then we would have more money so we could really start turning up the branding of “Immortality Institute” to a significantly greater degree.