70 replies to this topic

[jaydfox]

When Aubrey de Grey writes above that he need only a handfull of senior colleagues to support him and the money would flow that means the other way round that the main problem has much more to do with the paradigms in the field of biogerontology, the innerscientific discussions or the self-esteem of the discipline. But even with billions of Dollars you can't change the paradigms of a scientific discipline or force the results you want to have, and any investor would be very stupid to finance high expensive projects without asking for independent opinions from different experts.

This is one reason that I'm focussing less on getting a few extremely large donations, and focussing more on getting a lot of small donations. I've finally found the analogy needed to put this in the proper perspective. To keep things on topic, I'll point you to where I'm going to make this point. If that link doesn't work, try this one.

The bottom line? I think we need to focus, at least for another year or two, on getting a heck of a lot more donations in the $10 to $100,000 range, and more specifically in the $100 to $10,000 range. Build our base, and try to break $1 million as far as possible, the "old fashioned" way: donations, donations, donations. Lots of 'em. No donation is too small.

Well, I'm sure there is a reasonable lower limit, based on two factors: the cost of processing a single donation. Probably at least a few cents, or perhaps even a small percentage. I don't know. At any rate, a second factor is the number of potential donors. Assuming there are less than a million of them, and we want a million dollars, I think a dollar is the absolute lowest reasonable donation.

So, we need lots and lots and lots of donations. Almost no donation is too small: just donate at least $1.00. (If the Methuselah Foundation has a more precise lower limit, like $0.50 or $2.50, I'd like to hear it.)

Get a few thousand donors, and a million dollars, and then we should start dedicating lots of "man-hours" and technical resources to attracting million-dollar or multi-million-dollar donations. Once we get a few of those, then we start dedicating resources to getting a billion-dollar donation.

That's my opinion, anyway. I'd just hate to see us spend precious limited resources pursuing in vain a billion-dollar donation, and lose the momentum we've already been building.

[Lothar]

Thanks for you interesting reply, Jaydfox.

Your comparison between the deathly risks of the tsunami and of aging is clever but - in my opinion - not quite right, because we could already prevent or minimize the tsunami risks/consequences but we cannot hinder aging today or guarantee that we can do it in the next twenty or thirty years. The collective motivation or our chances to influence the collective mind seems in a way connected with the perceived chances of success and may be this is the deeper reason why the wishability and the makeability of life extension are always mixed up. Perhaps this is also the deeper reason - besides common religious traditions and educations and so on - why there is so much fatalism in the older generation because your arguments seem logical but PSYCHO-logy does function very different. I'm now wondering for years why there are so less older people in this field and - far instance - what is the average age of the members of the Immortality Institute: is it below 40 or even below 30!?? (I'm 44, by the way.) So the older generation of today is NOT driven by the nearing death automatically but may be your argument becomes stronger in the future with the dramatic demographic shift all experts are seeing and with new older generations. It's sad or tragic but we have to face it. Another more rational reason lies in the fact that it is probably much more difficult, more expensive and will last longer to rejuvenate an old body than just to avoid aging of a young one. The arguments for life extension will then always look much weaker for an older person above 60, above 75 etc.

You also cannot let die hundreds of thousand of people because in 25 years - perhaps! - you could save many more lifes. May be this is not barbaric but shows at least little compassion and you will not make a lot of friends in the outside world besides the small scene of immortalists with such a proposal. In general, these naked statistical kinds of views every bioethic could disprove very easily, it refers far instance to the continuing debate in medicine about the allocation of limited ressources of time and money.

In a more general perspective I don't see such a strong link between aging and disease like you because there will always remain dispositions for mortal diseases which have something to do with external factors, bad living conditions, pollution, wrong lifestyles, stress, bad social relations and so on and not with internal, build-in and probably genetic factors and similar elements. That means they result from the time lasting accumulation of all kind of external pathologies which only simulate an internal aging-like process but are in fact just statistical phenomenons. One could just demonstrate all that especially with heart diseases as there is a fundamental gap between your 'direct' and 'indirect' tie of aging to disease. On a deeper level this refers to the question of paradigms in biogerontology itself because as aging is not a simple genetic programm as the old paradigm of programm theory had described it but a complex decay of the living matter there can't be just a single or some few cause(s) for aging or 'age-related' diseases. Already Aubrey de Grey speaks of seven fundamental problems which have to be solved through very big efforts and his critics are saying that there are even more etc. May be you have already read this excellent essay of Another God (Shane Greenup) in the articles section 'Why do we age?' ?? (See the following link.) He summarizes the main points of the multifactorial nature of aging in the perspective of evolutionary theory in a profound but also short way, but may be this all belongs to another thread.

http://imminst.org/f...6&t=1891&hl=&s=

I agree on your topic of donation although I can see a certain kind of logic behind the search for billionaires. (Interesting distinction between the 'energy' and the 'momentum' of a donation, I have to think about.) You need just one(!) very rich single person - 'the one and only', I sometimes say ironically - and a big project could start! Compare it with the problem of finding thousands and thousands of supporters... In the view of biogerontologists like Aubrey de Grey or upcoming researchers like John Schloendorn this option is far more rational because overnight they could start their work, especially as a sum of about one billion(!) Dollar is beyond the possibility of normal donation processes (without a fundamental change of the collective mind or the public opinion etc.). But for the 'rest of the world' - or the rest of Imminst - this topic of big funding has more an idealistic quality and cannot mobilize stronger motivations.

Last point: Death and Aging are in general, as logical categories, different, and we should not turn around the existential priorities. In my opinion it would be much easier to gain support even for the research for the overcoming of aging, if every 'immortalist' would realize this fundamental distinction very clearly, especially in the continuing conflicts with various religious or spiritual traditions. If aging has only a soft link to mortal diseases as I have said above we have to focus on other and more near by strategies for surviving, especially as long as most of the people die long before the aging process is manifesting fully and as long as there is such a wide range of life expectations which are dealing not with biological but social differences. And if people don't WANT to live or even to live very long but are in fact producing a lot of destructiveness in all kinds of ways it's very useless to talk constantly only about biomedicine, aging research, genetherapy, telomers and so on. Just think about all the money in the world which is spent for the military - only in Germany about 25 Billion Euro every year - and compare it with the spending for aging research! Science can alter the way we are dealing with nature but it cannot alter the way we treat each other or ourselves. Therefore - in my personal view of the whole immortality topic - the focus on the individual and collective consciousness should always be the first one and this leads then to all kind of deeper psychological, political, economical, religious etc. conditions. Of course this would be another discussion in a different thread again.

[jaydfox]

Your comparison between the deathly risks of the tsunami and of aging is clever but - in my opinion - not quite right, because we could already prevent or minimize the tsunami risks/consequences but we cannot hinder aging today or guarantee that we can do it in the next twenty or thirty years. ...

You also cannot let die hundreds of thousand of people because in 25 years - perhaps! - you could save many more lifes. May be this is not barbaric but shows at least little compassion and you will not make a lot of friends in the outside world besides the small scene of immortalists with such a proposal. In general, these naked statistical kinds of views every bioethic could disprove very easily, it refers far instance to the continuing debate in medicine about the allocation of limited ressources of time and money.

My point was not to belittle the donations to the tsunami relief, but to belittle the lack of donations and support to curing aging. It's the same as the argument one makes when he says: "Why would someone spend thousands of dollars on health supplements, and eat a healthy diet rich in vegetables and low calorie fruits and no red meat, and exercise 45 minutes a day, and then take 25 years off their life by smoking?"

This argument is not attempting to cast an unfavorable light on supplements, healthy eating, or exercise. It's pointing out the inherent irrational irony of someone who supports these causes and yet smokes.

I have no problem with people who support tsunami relief. I have a problem with people who support tsunami relief and yet would consign countless hundreds of millions of future people to suffering and death because they refuse to get involved in the anti-aging movement, or worse, actively oppose the movement.

In a more general perspective I don't see such a strong link between aging and disease like you because there will always remain dispositions for mortal diseases which have something to do with external factors, bad living conditions, pollution, wrong lifestyles, stress, bad social relations and so on and not with internal, build-in and probably genetic factors and similar elements. That means they result from the time lasting accumulation of all kind of external pathologies which only simulate an internal aging-like process but are in fact just statistical phenomenons. One could just demonstrate all that especially with heart diseases as there is a fundamental gap between your 'direct' and 'indirect' tie of aging to disease. On a deeper level this refers to the question of paradigms in biogerontology itself because as aging is not a simple genetic programm as the old paradigm of programm theory had described it but a complex decay of the living matter there can't be just a single or some few cause(s) for aging or 'age-related' diseases.

Yes, but whether we choose the "seven deadly things", or the DNA damage/repair theory of aging, or the mitochondrial free radical theory of aging, or the reliability theory of aging, we have one very important thing to look at: The exponential rate of increase of mortality with age implies feedback. A process that feeds back on itself. Damage leads to damage. The only caveat is the late-life mortality plateau, which could alternatively mean a maximal degradation of (DNA-) damage repair rates has been reached, or that we've run out of parts that can fail. Maybe both. But the point is, the causes of the diseases of aging, even if twice as numerous as those outlined by Dr. de Grey, even if thrice as numerous, are still many dozens of times less numerous than the diseases (or "symptoms") of aging. Cure a disease, and another disease lurks in the shadows. Cure a fundamental metabolic decay process, and you've bought yourself a lot of time.

In any case, it's probably a moot issue. Time will tell. Too bad we won't have enough time to tell if we don't at least try.

I agree on your topic of donation although I can see a certain kind of logic behind the search for billionaires. (Interesting distinction between the 'energy' and the 'momentum' of a donation, I have to think about.) You need just one(!) very rich single person - 'the one and only', I sometimes say ironically - and a big project could start! Compare it with the problem of finding thousands and thousands of supporters... In the view of biogerontologists like Aubrey de Grey or upcoming researchers like John Schloendorn this option is far more rational because overnight they could start their work, especially as a sum of about one billion(!) Dollar is beyond the possibility of normal donation processes (without a fundamental change of the collective mind or the public opinion etc.). But for the 'rest of the world' - or the rest of Imminst - this topic of big funding has more an idealistic quality and cannot mobilize stronger motivations.

And like I said, it's my opinion. Unless I am given a reason to believe there's a good likelihood of success, I won't be putting much of my own energy into getting a billion-dollar donation this year. I'd be content to see the MMP break a quarter of a million dollars this year, and a million dollars by some time in 2007, and $10 million by the end of the decade. It's five years lost, which means the cure for aging might be set back about two years or so, depending on the rate of technological advancement. That's a lot of dead people, so no doubt there's a strong emotional pull to try to get that billion dollar donation as soon as possible. But to me, if we can maintain aggressive growth and momentum in the prize, not just of the monetary sum, but of the number and diversity of donors, then we may be able to attract a billion dollar donor in the next few years. Maybe not this year, but certainly before the end of the decade if we play our cards right. That means focussing on what we can do now: Improve the Methuselah Foundation's visibility and presense, improve the web content to a more professional look (sorry Kevin et al.), etc. I'm not a fundraising expert, nor have I ever successfully run a company, so my opinions should be taken with a grain of salt. I offer them nonetheless.

On a sidenote, given enough personell, the MMP can focus on growing its foundation (its momentum as well as energy, as I outlined), and at the same time have a "task force" with the explicit purpose of researching what it would take to attract large donors (large being $10 million or more in my opinion) for the MMP or very large donors (very large being $100 million or more in my opinion) for the IBG. I suppose I would fall into the "growing the foundation" side, since I have no idea how to get through to a billionaire (though I do have my opinions!).

[jaydfox]

One final thought I had.

We don't need to get $1 billion to start the IBG. I figure we only need a couple hundred million. That would fund four years at $50 million a year, enough to lay the ground work and work on perhaps two to five of the seven deadly things, or all of them if we proceed on a scaled-back basis. Just the media attention would be enough to help solicit further $100 million donations, which would be used to keep the IBG operational. If enough money can be collected to get five or six years ahead, or if pledges seem likely, we can go to the full $100 million (full throttle!!).

[Lothar]

Just three short notes from me, Jaydfox:

1. As you have said further above it all depends of how we interprate 'aging'. I don't agree to your view because I don't see the general weakness of the body and his disposition for mortal disease just reduced to the aging process or a few central internal causes but here's in fact not the right place to discuss it.

2. As far as the money for funding is involved... Every day people always have limited financial ressources und they can spend every dollar only once. If they give their money to the tsunami victims and not to something else, that means that this is their first priority.

3. In general, there would be really enough money in the world and as Aubrey de Grey has already said above: if the scientific community would share his theories and main arguments he would get the money at once. With the costs of the war in Iraq alone far instance we could finance a hundred projects like the one of Aubrey and probably more.

[jaydfox]

2. As far as the money for funding is involved... Every day people always have limited financial ressources und they can spend every dollar only once. If they give their money to the tsunami victims and not to something else, that means that this is their first priority.

I hate to say this, because I don't want to get too argumentative, but...

Wrong! Where would that $4 billion have gone if the tsunamis had not happened? Did funding for cancer research, or heart disease research, or diabetes, or any of many other charities involving medical research, diminish by $4 billion? I seriously doubt it. People were going to spend that money on beer, or bread, or renting movies, or buying cigarettes, etc. For the governments involved, that money's going to come out of general funds for the most part, which would spread the deficit around to many parts of the bidget, not just health and welfare services.

Just among donating individuals, there are tens and tens of billlions of dollars to go around, and the MMP hasn't even gotten half a million yet, even if you include donations towards expenses. I'm sorry, but the limited financial resources argument only applies to people who have already spread themselves too thin donating to charities—a small minority of people.

Your third point is well-taken, especially the part about the war in Iraq. If the world were committed to the problem, the money is there. The $350,000,000 in funding the U.S. pledged to help Tsunami victims was about what we spent in the last two days in Iraq. Ironic, given that the death toll of the tsunamis is currently little more than two days' worth of the deaths that correlate well with aging.

Which brings me to your first point. If you prefer, rather than speaking of the diseases attributable to aging, we should at least be able to agree that those diseases correlate very well with aging. From there, we can discuss in another forum why you think that diseases that correlate well are not indicative of a fundamental set of aging processes.

[Lothar]

Surely they would spent the money for beer and so on if their had been no tsunami - although there are of course a lot of other organisations/problems who want continuous donations and are demanding them - but then BEER, cinema etc. would be their 'first priority'! I just wanted to express that it is not very helpful to blame other people for the simple fact that they don't share our own goals. If WE want donations for life extension research or similar projects it's OUR task to convince them to make this a major goal for them too.

The connection between aging and disease is very difficult and I cannot have a final answer to this because as far as I know medicine research itself has not a complete view. This is one major reason why we need more research on it. WHAT I know from various studies, insights and experiences from the last twenty years is that there is a big amount of diseases which has to do with external factors, external conditions or wrong behaviour of the individual and which is NOT connected with the aging process on principle. Just think of all kind of injuries on the micro and macro level, poisons, virusses, bad nutrition, microbes, gamma and other rays, psychosomatic stress, chronicle sufferings in different ways... And it's even more complex because in addition we have to suggest deep und not fully understood interactions between those negative external factors, internal repair systems and the process of aging, sometimes more, sometimes less, sometimes none. Otherwise you would say that every disease is a form of aging what would be absurd. If I have understood him rightly even Aubrey de Grey is not claiming this because in fact he is speaking of seven main factors only for AGING and not for disease in general.

The rise of disease in older age could just reflect a statistical 'correlation' because of accumulations of disease inducing external pathologies of all kinds which need only more time to manifest than other diseases. But of course it is more likely that aging itself is a disease-like pathology which gives - additional - disposition for all kind of other diseases... As I've said above: the REAL connection between aging and disease is very unclear and we would not need projects like the one of Aubrey if this wouldn't be true.

So, aging research in general and the project of Aubrey de Grey make sense, of course, I'm just warning before exaggerated hopes about the possible results of such projects even if they are successful. As I'm always saying: with stern cell research you cannot prevent war and the example with the war in Iraq should just demonstrate that there are complete(!!) other priorities in the world which deal with life and death! And this reality does not motivate me very strong to think just always only or in the first place about the topics of aging, biomedicine and so on if the more practical and near by options of life extension are concerned.

Regard your well done comparison on the money level with the costs of the war in Iraq just symbolic for the underlying forces of mass psychology! As I've said already further above: if people don't WANT to live you cannot heal this wrong attitude with aging research, biomedicine, the natural sciences etc. They will always find new ways to shorten their lifes and - if we are unlucky because only a small minority - they will shorten our lifes too. And this has also to do something with the problems of donating, because the people who spend their money for beer instead of life extension are normally accepting death in the frames of given ideologies. Change THEM and you can not only finance a lot of anti aging-research but also transform this planet into a place where 'immortals' could live. Otherwise, in a world of death believers, it will always be very difficult to become just 85, what is already today not a BIOLOGICAL problem in the first place but a mental, political, economical and a social one.

[jaydfox]

As I've said already further above: if people don't WANT to live you cannot heal this wrong attitude with aging research, biomedicine, the natural sciences etc. They will always find new ways to shorten their lifes and - if we are unlucky because only a small minority - they will shorten our lifes too.

I both agree and disagree. In many ways, I believe part of the current problem isn't that people don't want to live longer, but that they don't believe it's possible, and thus convince themselves that they don't want to live longer. Psychologically, it's easier to desire something that seems inevitable than to fight against it.

Even if a majority of people still would prefer death over radical life extension, I suspect that the minority that would favor it would grow from less than 1% to perhaps a double-digit percentage, e.g. 10% or 35%, etc. And that's more than enough support to get this done. It may not be enough support to win an election, but it's more than enough support to swing a close election.

Surely they would spent the money for beer and so on if their had been no tsunami - although there are of course a lot of other organisations/problems who want continuous donations and are demanding them - but then BEER, cinema etc. would be their 'first priority'! I just wanted to express that it is not very helpful to blame other people for the simple fact that they don't share our own goals. If WE want donations for life extension research or similar projects it's OUR task to convince them to make this a major goal for them too.

This speaks of a general ill of society, one that is often criticized and subsequently defended. There are those who would say that it is the duty of the citizens to care for each other, to have charity and compassion. There are those who would say that people should be allowed to think and feel about others however they want.

I agree with both. I shouldn't be able to force or coerce people into being compassionate. However, that doesn't mean that I shouldn't at least try to convince them that doing so is a good thing, a goal they should have. Should I be content to let someone be a racist, or sexist, or simply a bitter, cynical person? Would I be wrong to try to convince them otherwise, through non-coercive means?

Yes, I feel that people in this country have a right to give buying-a-beer a higher priority than saving-a-life. But, I still have the right to condemn that person for that choice. I don't mean condemn in the sense that I would write that person off forever, and refuse to help them, or imagine them consigned to damnation and hellfire. I condemn them in the sense that I want them to feel guilty—not with the guilt that leads to a downward spiral of depression or, even worse, apathy, but the guilt that inspires one to action to fix a long-ignored problem.

Which brings me back to the topic of this thread, a topic that I am guilty of losing sight of.

How do we pursue a billion-dollar donation? Well, I don't know many billionaires, and I'm only familiar with the political leaders and system of one country, a country that is politically hostile to our cause at the moment. So I'm fresh out of good ideas. I've got plenty of bad ones, but I'll spare you the litany.

However, I do have this to say. I don't know what the odds are that, even if we were to approach every government and every multi-billionaire on earth, we would get someone to donate one billion dollars. First, we should be clear that, if we want a single billion dollar donation, we need to be looking for someone that has many billions of dollars. The first reason has to do with liquidity, as it's difficult for someone with 1.1 billion in stocks and capital assets to liquidate those funds in less than a few years. The second reason has to do with the fact that a person with 1.1 billion dollars is not likely to donate 91% of his wealth to a single cause, especially one that may end requiring more money and thus may not even be completed with that donation.

So if we're looking for people with, let's say $3 billion or more, then we've got a much shorter list now. Many of them are business people of the most efficient and ruthless kind, and will not be approachable directly. The others—the ones who inherited their money—will probably be equally as inaccessible, although for different reasons.

Even if we can approach them, we've got a credibility issue. We're a small volunteer-run organization, immature in both years and talent, with little history of financial discipline—not for lack of trying, but for lack of experience—and no formal auditing procedures that I'm aware of. To our credit, we do have some experienced business people, even some big names like Diamandis. But we need more.

The credibility issue can be fixed very quickly, though. The MMP can be built up to over $250,000 by the end of 2005, with over 300 individual donors. But that's just the status quo. I want to see us reach as close to half a million dollars as possible, and if we stretch, even exceed that amount this year. I want to see over 500 individual donors by the end of this year.

Three months ago, I was convinced the prize wouldn't reach a million dollars until late 2007 at the earliest, and probably not until 2008 or 2009. And mind you, that's with my projection of cubic growth, whereas we hadn't broken free of linear growth until this last month. Now I'm convinced that, with proper marketing and outreach, especially with a strong set of challenges and public events, we can reach a million dollars before the end of 2006, perhaps even well before that time.

I know, it's small. We need tens of millions for the MMP, and hundreds of millions for the IBG to even get started, let alone get the job done. My goal may not be as aggressive as some would like, but it's still aggressive. It's more than double what the current "trends" predict we'll have. And it's sufficiently short term to allow bigger dreams for tomorrow.

While we're at it, we need to get an auditing process in place by the end of the year, and implement it in 2006, if not in 2005. Let's show we have financial discipline, and let's show that we have broad popular support, even if only within the relatively small Transhumanist and life extension communities. Another year goes by, a year for scientific research to continue building de Grey's case for him. Then, in 2006, we make our move to win over the billionaires.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't try in 2005. But I think it is unwise to make billionaires our primary effort this year. Perhaps the primary effort of one or two or five individuals, but not of the Foundation or of ImmInst as a whole. I commend John Schloendorn for his efforts in this regard, and I see that Elrond is on board as well. Keep up the good work. And if you should begin to make headway, I may yet come around. But for now, I think that as a whole, we need to remain focused on growing our base and demonstrating our financial discipline.

[Da55id]

As the MF donor population grows and begins to curve up via meme propogation (publicity/education/word of mouth), million and billionaires will precipitate out naturally. The items which induce such positive transactions are:

They hear about/read about it and are moved to investigate
it resonates to their enlightened self interest
they have faith that positive good will result and money not squandered
the probability of positive (not negative) press accruing to the donor
support and encouragement of their peers and counsellors
inciting their powerful competitive spirit and "drive to win"
modest to no time involvement required on their part

This coming year as we institutionalize internationally we will accomplish the beginnings of the next most important step to that end...inciting the competitive juices of nations and their favorite sons.

[Lothar]

@ Jaydfox:

People who don't want to live (very) long shorten their lifes already or even 'condemn' themselves to death in a way. That's (more than) enough, I think.

Of course there are lot of rationalizations about the possibilities of life extension but I can see them on every side. As far as the donation topic is concerned the continuous competition between various goals is not only between near by and long term goals but also one between goals which are seen as realistic and practicable, like helping the tsunami victims and so on, and those which are only speculative, controversial and just a promise or an idealistic vision, like the potential fruits of aging research. In this situation I see only a chance in rising the general attention and credibility for the life extension movement - what would be always the general disposition for the chance of getting donations - if we are able to connect and combine the short term realistic goals with the long term unsure ones in a deep, profound and self evident way. Otherwise all kind of critics from different sides will always blame us not only for ethical deficits but also for fundamental contradictories on our own field, far instance in the way: 'What?? You're giving your money to some strange kind of far away mouse research while millions of human beings are suffering and dying here and now!?? Are you nuts!!??' It's the resulting and even rising resistance that will determinate whether our support will really climb from below 1% to 10% to 35% to 'etc.%', as you suspected, or whether it will just stagnate on the given level. (By the way: the differences between these numbers represent each time fundamental gaps or would demand total new qualities in the collective consciousness.)

Finally this all depends of how we define 'life extension'. If we reduce it to the extending of life only at the far end in higher age - what means to identify it completely with aging research - then we would in fact turn the existential priorities upside down, as I have already pointed out a little further above. But no one cares about surviving the day (after the day after the day...) after tomorrow if he does not know how to survive today! This would also turn upside down the collective existential experience, because dying in old age for masses is - historically seen - a very very young phenomenon of less than one hundred years, what seems to be the deepest reason why the collective mind pays so less attention to the dangers and threats of aging until now.

PS: May be this all explains also this permanent search for billionaires, because they don't only have enough money to finance high expensive projects at once but are also so much privileged that the arguments above don't have much (personal) meaning for them. For 'the rest of the world' and every day people this situation is completely different and therefore especially the general probability of getting a lot of very small donations will stay very low. That is to say, because the claimed 'limitations' of ressources further above are not on a material level, in the first place, but they constitutes themselves on the very subjective and anticipated level of perceived chances to realize goals of different importance/urgency in this complex field of crossing arguments. Otherwise we would already have more than enough money to spend for all kind of projects, because both the goal of life extension and the fields of aging research are not new ones but in fact in various public discussions at least since several decades now.

Of course you will have a staying chance of getting small donations by special kind of individuals or various groups but this would not be the rule but the exception from the rule which is always dominated by the deeper factors of general identifications, ideologies, credibility and other central factors in judging the life extension topic we have mentioned already above. Would be also an interesting example for economic decision making or modern game theory, I think, but I'm not an expert on this.

[jaydfox]

If y'all are intent on seeking billionaires (still a waste of time at this point, in my opinion), then take heart:

http://news.yahoo.co...20334&printer=1

Gates foundation injects 750 million dollars for infant vaccination

Mon Jan 24, 9:03 PM ET

GENEVA (AFP) - The foundation run by American computer software multi-billionaire Bill Gates (news - web sites) is to donate 750 million dollars (575 million euros) over 10 years for worldwide infant vaccination.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (news - web sites) said the money would go to the Geneva-based Global Alliance for Vaccination and Immunisation (GAVI), a partner of the World Health Organisation.

"In just five years, GAVIs efforts have saved hundreds of thousands of childrens lives, and its work in the coming years will save millions more," said Bill Gates, founder and president of the software giant Microsoft.

"GAVI will use the funds announced today to support national immunization programs in 72 of the worlds poorest countries," he said in a statement. "Supporting childrens immunization is undoubtedly the best investment weve ever made."

"These large contributions will help save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and prevent immense suffering and disability over the coming years," said Dr Jong-wook Lee, WHO Director-General and GAVI chairman.

In its less than five years of existence GAVI has been responsible for the vaccination of some 54 million children against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B, influenza type B, and yellow fever.

GAVI was set up in 2000 in response to stagnation in the rate of worldwide vaccination and the growing gap between industrialised and developing countries in access to vaccines.

"Despite remarkable progress in the past three decades in immunization coverage world-wide, it is unacceptable that in the 21st century, about two million people still die each year of infectious diseases that could have been entirely prevented through basic vaccinations," said Lee.

"Our goal is to provide every child with life-saving immunizations," said Julian Lob-Levyt, GAVI's executive secretary.

The Gates Foundation said every year some 27 million children in developing countries were still not receiving vaccinations. This had caused some 2.1 million deaths in 2002.

Gates also appealed to other donors to plug the gap in financing vaccination programmes for children in developing countries.

The WHO says that between 2005 and 2015 donors and developing countries will have to find between eight and 12 billion dollars to protect children in the poorest countries, using currently available vaccines.

Norway's parliament has announced a donation to GAVI of 290 million dollars between 2006 and 2010.

Last year, the United States, Sweden, Denmark and Luxembourg all announced donations to GAVI.

The Gates Foundation made an initial donation in 1999 of 750 million dollars to the Vaccine Fund, GAVI's financial wing.

Since it was set up, GAVI has mobilised more than 2.3 billion dollars from public and private donors.

[jaydfox]

The lesson isn't that we should drop everything and seek billionaires. The lesson is that we need to figure out how to turn the ImmInst or Methuselah Foundation, or at a minimum the M Prize, into an organization that resonates not just philosophically with a billionaire, but financially and organizationally. A strong foundation must accompany what is essentially a very good idea.

I'm of the opinion that we're not there yet. Feel free to prove me wrong.

[Da55id]

We already have some very very wealthy donors. They just haven't opened up their pocketbooks yet. We experience waiting with the impatience of a Father to be in the waiting room. Every second's delay burns into our nervous system like pepper spray...it'll wear us out if we're not careful.

Why should billionaires donate when many in the L.E. community have not? Just because we want them to? Just because they have money?

The best way to secure donations and financial support is to be the right home for it...and to discover more and more methods to convince free riders that it is not in their interest to do so.

[jaydfox]

I would add that we also need to show that we're not taking their donations for granted, but that we are willing to donate ourselves. Hence the need I see for a lot of the fence-sitters to ante up and put in their $10 or $50 or $200. There's got to be hundreds, if not thousands of them.

It's not about whether you can single-handedly cure aging, or even make a noticeable difference to the prize sum. It's about showing that you are just as willing to support the prize as the person that you expect to put in $10 million. Why should the rich person put in his $10 million if you don't even believe in the prize enough to put in ten bucks? When we can get through to the hundreds who don't donate because they don't think they can make a difference, then we can get through to the ones who don't donate in spite of the fact that they can make a difference.

[Da55id]

Without a viable plan - in this case there is no plan at all - astute donors that expect a certain bang for their buck will not participate. Thus the donor pool will tend to remain in the realm of those with extravagant imaginations - not always in alignment with the inevitable grit that becomes inherent in the extremely wealthy.

I am often confounded by Dave's view that all one has to do to solve a problem is align it with a prize, set up a non-profit and sit back and wait for the solution to materialize. But I am sure that my opinion is representative of only a small fraction of the population - at least part of me hopes so - the part that is delighted each time I hear of a prize increase or a mention of it in the news. The other part of me - the scientist, the businessman and the solution seeker remains unimpressed.

Hi Prometheus - I totally understand your point of view. It makes total sense...except that real donors are giving. We already have a very major anonymous billionaire and several millionaires on board - along with our very important cohort of the less financially endowed - so, something indeed is "going on".

You have sometimes noted that I'm not educated on the science of biogerontology. That is totally true. What you may not know is that I'm very highly educated on the science/art of human motivation - and after years of investigation, ended up chosing prizes as the modality for getting the totally impossible and unknown accomplished - simply because prizes work - always. See "Longitude" by Dava Sobel.

The impossible gets accomplished by competing and cooperating humans aligned to a singular mission where the reward is never lost sight of and the deadline is not fixed, but is always "hurrying" in that "someone else will win if I don't get my rear in gear". Prizes and their halo spark maximum and very long lasting penetration into human creativity potentials precisely because there is no apriori requirement other than "do it - and you'll win."

The art, science and practice of human motivation captures the vast majority of dollars in the western economy. Think about how much the wheat in a box of cereal costs...and then think about the advertising, shelf management, product positioning payments to Hollywood -etc etc. Amazingly, hardly anyone percieves this...and it isn't considered to be a science. Funny eh?

Nice cover on TR for Aubrey - eh [lol] . As you see, it is working, and the fund is pathetically small - and yet it's working. Thanks to many on this board. FYI we have another two generous 300 members that haven't been added to the total, which puts our cash/pledge figure at over $900,000.

L'Chaim (to LIFE)
Dave

[John Schloendorn]

Why should billionaires donate when many in the L.E. community have not?

Hence the need I see for a lot of the fence-sitters to ante up and put in their $10 or $50 or $200.

These are very good points. Have you considered advertising this in the community? I think by putting these statements on banners on our web pages you should be able to get a number of such people around. I'm confident the web masters would agree to do this for free for a limited time.

But:

There's got to be hundreds, if not thousands of them.

What makes you think there are that many? How many active posters have we got at imminst (discounting nootropics)? Thousands? Even hundreds? I think less. I made a similar experience with the IBG survey thing. It's been running for a month under heavy advertisement throughout the community and still there are well below 100 responses at this time.

[John Schloendorn]

As for venture capital, I came across an example that would deserve to be mentioned here: Does anyone have contacts to the ISOA?
These guys managed to mobilize some $20 million for Alzheimer's research with a concept they call Biomedical Venture Philanthropy. They should have made one or two experiences that may be useful for our own future projects.

[John Schloendorn]

We already have a very major anonymous billionaire and several millionaires on board - along with our very important cohort of the less financially endowed

All I can say to this is a heartfelt "good work!!!"

[Lothar]

How many active posters have we got at imminst (discounting nootropics)? Thousands? Even hundreds? I think less.

Yes, this is perfectly right, but it's not only about the ACTIVE posters on Imminst but also about the passive readers! I'm studying now the average click rates of the Imminst forums since summer 2003 and there is only a little progress in it. It lies about 30 clicks per thread and you will find very few exceptions with more than 50 different participants but a lot ones with below 30 or even below 20, especially if you regard a shorter period of time of less than 4 weeks. In general one has to consider the main effect that with every new answer the same people which take part in a debate click on a topic again. (The exact rate depends on the form and frequency of answers etc. and is of course a little bit more complicated to estimate.) Therefore you see this high absolute numbers far instance in 'Billionaires' of more than 900 clicks until today which only suggest high numbers of different readers which are in fact very far lower.

I don't know what's the general number of participants in all threads together in the moment, this is very difficult to estimate, but I don't think that there are more than a few hundred, in an optimistic view. This would be at least connected with a big split of attention as not everyone is clicking on every topic or at least on the majority of topics. The resulting strong difference between the abstract number of Imminst members (of about 2000) and the general activities in the forum is not reduced to this community because you can study this phenomenon all over the internet with all kinds of topics and discussions. In fact Imminst is even a very strong community in this relation - but only in this relation - as more than 100 full members show a basic motivation a lot of other sites and big forums do not generate. Despite this advantage many debates and proposals here are - in my opinion - at least a little bit 'too early'.

The virtuality of the net is in general connected with various attitudes of minor responsibility, determination etc. This is one of the main reasons, why I'm constantly saying that the movement for life extension must build up real communities in the outside world because everything what has real strength and meaning in social life needs face to face-communication, every day life and so on. Of course, the scientific discussion functions different, but the fundamental difference between science and the 'rest of life' should also be clear.

[jaydfox]

Hi Prometheus - I totally understand your point of view. It makes total sense...except that real donors are giving. We already have a very major anonymous billionaire and several millionaires on board - along with our very important cohort of the less financially endowed - so, something indeed is "going on".

(my emphasis)

Well, I just saw this linked to by Reason over at the Longevity Meme:

http://www.rednova.c...play/?id=131454

We could dismiss De Grey as a hopeless optimist, a bonkers theorist and a self-publicising egomaniac, were it not for the fact that he's already attracting some interesting sponsors. One is HMX, a secretive company that develops and tests rocket engines, and the other is the Ellison Medical Foundation's Ageing Programme, funded by none other than Larry Ellison, billionaire chairman of the Oracle Corporation. He's the subject of a bitchy bestseller in America entitled The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison (punchline: God doesn't think he's Larry Ellison). Larry Ellison was born in 1944, so he's a boomer. De Grey's partner in the Methuselah Foundation is another rich technocrat, David Gobel, who started out working for Steven Spielberg and now is employed on national security for the Bush administration.

(my emphasis)

Hmm, could it be? Is he now choosing no longer to remain anonymous? Or did you have another billionaire up your sleeve?

[kevin]

Ellison is supporting Aubrey's SENSII conference. We hope that he will extend this to the Mouse Prize in the future.

[Da55id]

mmmm - mum


's the word
:-)

[jaguar]

By pass every defence and present your case in an untouchable manner. The by passing will earn you respect.

[John Schloendorn]

Hmm, if I may try to summarize what I've learned from this thread so far:

Billionaires can't be expected to donate their fortune to life-extension research today, and they shouldn't. Today's technology does not enable for-profit ventures seeking to develop and sell effective rejuvenation treatments. Suitability for such for-profit ventures is what defines the likelyhood for success of a putative therapy.
There are some very rich people with the right philantropic mind set, which does not contradict their profit interest at all. Some such people are out there, well aware of all this and probably waiting for someone to come up with ideas that are good enough to be pursued and backed by preliminary results.

So it's basically people me and most of you who are supposed to get going, right?

[Da55id]

BINGO!

[jaguar]

That may be what they said, but it's a false idea. Death would result in these billionaires having no conceivable profit. The chance of their death before immortality is achieved would null any resistance to fulfilling the action of gaining immortality. Thus they would funnel all funds into it.

Of course, some may already have it and are unwilling to give it to others. Giving it out would deteriorate their profits as immortality has very powerful uses. Any supressing of it getting in the hands of the public would probably be too obvious and thus any who hypothetically have it would simply play dumb and pretend to gain it once the public has. Or of course they could be developing methods of selling immortality... though the public would most likely not stand for that and raise up to crush them. So the only possibility left with billionaires keeping it for themselves for the purpose of greed would be... a matrix-movie type control of humanity for their personal use.

[John Schloendorn]

That may be what they said, but it's a false idea (...) some may already have it and are unwilling to give it to others

Christ! I should never have trusted those greedy geezers! The mprize must be a plot to cover-up the fact that immortality is long real! And I would almost have fallen for it...