41 replies to this topic

[ergosum]

Shortly one of our main leadership deliberations will be published for full member viewing and then you will be astonished at just how much depth there is in our 'perspective'.

But that is a drop in the ocean compared with the depth of depravity I witnessed today.

Don, Jay and myself over the course of a few hours had to defend the Institute from a spam attack that included necrophiliac pornography, and some of the most disgusting statements about leadership and their families that it has ever been my misfortune to encounter. I felt sick to my stomach, Ergosum. I felt violated. We are dealing with a very sick person.


This is the same person uses the accounts "lifemirage" and "unique nutrition".

OK, I appreciate that I'm not privy to everything that's gone on. Believe me, I'm in complete support of the way leadership handled the situation up to and including LM's initial suspension. I just would like to see a quicker, cleaner wrap up of the whole situation, including leadership accepting some responsibility for granting LM an authorative position in the first place. I believe it was that stamp of approval which dissolved people's natural skepticism about anonymous self-proclaimed experts. And I doubt LM would have established such a profile without it.

I don't condone the pathetic manner in which LM responded to the initial accusations, let alone these latest revelations. But I'm still inclined to the opinion that he/they should be quietly exiled rather than hung, drawn and quartered in a display that is turning this forum into a house of petty squabbling -- instead of allowing it to move on from this fiasco and become a better place for the lessons learned.

If LM continues to harass ImmInst as an organisation or leaders personally, surely there are appropriate ways of dealing with that without having to challenge the perpetrator(s) to a public fist-fight. Can you honestly say that the way this is being handled isn't being emotively affected by the fact that LM was seen to have represented ImmInst in an official capacity? If an ordinary member had behaved in a similarly offensive manner wouldn't they have simply been warned, then suspended, then banned without all the brouhaha? The LifeMirage situation is only different because leadership slipped up in approving his advisor status. You have to admit that members have been pretty understanding on that issue. I haven't seen a lot of angry accusations of gross negligence, mainly I'm sure because there is an appreciation of leadership's integrity, and an acceptance that any organisation will make a few mistakes as it grows.

Obviously membership deserves the full revelations that I believe leadership are preparing -- including the publication of those deliberations you mention. I'm sure they will make for fascinating reading, and I just feel that you might be better of focussing on preparing such revelations and the official statements that will help put this whole unfortunate business to bed, rather than the constant mud-slinging and bating/challenging of Edward/Steve/Unique that doesn't seem to be achieving anything.

[Brainbox]

But I'm still inclined to the opinion that he/they should be quietly exiled rather than hung, drawn and quartered in a display that is turning this forum into a house of petty squabbling -- instead of allowing it to move on from this fiasco and become a better place for the lessons learned.

What are your thoughts regarding the possible but very likely intention of the "LifeMirage connection"? This intention being viral marketing?

The insight that has been revealed here has a much wider scope than imminst alone. My opinion on the matter is that legal actions are in place to handle this highly unethical issue.

I agree with you that things here became quite unpleasant. But my opinion is that this is only partly caused by the handling of the situation by leadership. It’s the unethical and anti-social behaviour of the “LifeMirage Connection” that caused the severe disruptions around here.

[ergosum]

Ergosum, in order to help in the process of dealing with this situation, you should take a look here (nootropes future) and make some suggestions.

Thanks for that. I will take up your suggestion to post there. It's a vital thread imho and I think the shame is that the first post to it was made on March 2, and there have been some 800 views and 50 replies, whereas Jaydfox's "challenge" to Steve was posted yesterday and has receveived 2300 views and 800 replies. I understand leadership have a mess to clean up, but I just wonder if all the public mud-slinging is helping everyone focus in the right direction.

Looking back on the situtation, I am not sure that LifeMirage's posts in the nootropic forums were all that great.

Great? No, but...

They mostly were 1 or 2 sentences and/or a link to some positive studies on noos. He never really demonstrated a knowledge of physiology/neurology outside of "this doesn't work with that" or "this one needs to be taken with/without food". Even though he made a lot of posts, there was very little substance. The message was always take more, take more, take more. The only time he would reccomend a smaller dosage was when people reported bad side effects.

I agree that he never demonstrated a really a serious knowledge of neurology. And as I'm just as lacking in qualifications in that regard, I can't draw any definite conclusions as to the quality (or otherwise) of his advice. But there were certain indicators that it wasn't worthless. He tended to be consistent with what he recommended for specific goals, and my personal feeling (just a feeling, no hard evidence) is that it was consistent with what I would expect from someone without genuine neuro-science qualifications but a large degree of experience dispensing neutropics and maybe some kind of medical background. It fitted with what I would expect from someone in Lee Crost's position -- and I suspect that he had a lot to do with the information supplied (whether directly, or indirectly as a consultant to "LifeMirage").

I don't agree that the message "was always take more, take more, take more". Sure LM would sometimes recommend upping a dose of a racetam, or would recommend an attack dose over a very short period for self-assessing effects. But mostly he didn't encourage large, complex stacks. The ulterior motives led to some pretty feeble responses to anyone wanting to debate the efficacy of noot's per se, but I don't believe it's correct to accuse LM's posts of being outlandish in terms of doseage recommendations.

As to how he became advisor. I voted for him "out of ignorance". I didn't spend much time in the noos forum. I didn't research his qualifications. I just knew he was popular in the forums and "seemed" to know a lot about noos. The whole viral marketing campaign had worked like a charm. Call it the snowball affect. I was just one of the snowflakes. LifeMirage made only a few statements in the very beginning of his advisorship that alluded to the fact that he was a doctor (which he is not). This caused a couple members to go to other boards and claim Imminst had a noos guru and/or doctor (I do not blame them). It just kept building from there. I also do not blame Bruce in the very very beginning for bringing LifeMirage on board. Bruce was trying to build a community and everyone interested in life extension was welcome. Because LM came into the picture very early, I am sure a lot of people thought that someone had met or seen him before.

Totally understandable, but this lack of stringency turned out to be a hell of oversight didn't it? I don't think anyone wants to berate leadership over this; it's just that it was the approval of LM's advisor status that set the "snowball" in motion. If you leave a door wide open sooner or later someone undesirable is going to walk in. The best response imho is to clean up whatever damage they do as quickly as possible, accept a certain amount of responsibility, and turn attentions to improving security for the future. (I appreciate that that is being discussed on the thread you linked to earlier in your post.)

I am glad you are trying to put some perspective into this ergosum.

Thank you. I deliberated over whether yet another thread was a good idea or likely to be counter-productive. In the end I just felt that we really needed some balanced discussion of the whole situation rather than getting caught up in exchanging insults with various suspects.

My perspective is that we should try to wrap this up. The offenders will be banned for a short period of time.

Now that does sound sensible.

We are trying to decide what to do with the noos forum (this is the second time the noos forum has majorly disupted things).

I truly hope that doesn't lead to it being excised from ImmInst. Again, remember, it was leadership's lack of vigilance in allowing LM to become an advisor that was a major cause of the problem. It's natural for those interested in extending their lives to be equally interested in bettering their lives -- especially their cognitive abilities. "Nootropics" can seem like a bit of a fringe area, but that is often due to bickering over semantics (ie. what constitutes a true "nootropic"). I think that what we're really interested in here is cognitive enhancement. Just as it's foolish to believe that there are substances available at this stage that can spectacularly improve a healthy person's qualitative intelligence, it is just as silly to dismiss the fact that cognition can't be stimulated a little. Most would agree that caffeine improves vigilance and immidiate learning capacity, glucose improves memory. Anticholinesterase inhibitors, vasodilators and newer substances like modafinil clearly have short-term affects on brain chemistry even if the extent of their affect on "cognition" isn't fully established. And the very fact that cognitive enhancement techniques -- spiking glucose levels for instance -- sometimes conflict with good life extension practices make this forum a seminal area for debate and discussion within the wider goals of the ImmInst community.

[xanadu]

When did LM tell the members that he was a doctor or held an MD? I never saw him say that. If he did, someone would have posted a link to it by now. Since no one has, I assume he never made those statements publicly. How do you know the one that was called at Sherwyn's was Lee Crost? He said he was and denied being LM but it was just a voice on the phone. So LM is convicted of being a fraud based on a voice on the phone? The documents he faxed are passed off as being fake based on that phone call. What documents did the voice on the phone show you?

Now Steve is being subjected to the same abuse based on the fact he stood up for LM and was his friend. LM also was a consultant to UN. If LM does not have a MD (not proven either way) then take away his advisor status. How is that grounds to ban him when he never told people he was a doctor? You have no grounds or reason at all to attack Steve let alone to ban him.

If there is proof, lets see it. All I've seen are prejudicial statements and insults by certain members of leadership and not a speck of proof of any of it. I'm old fashioned, I want to see the proof.

[Brainbox]

There have been several links that prove the fraud. Know your facts please.

[DJS]

To "Steve Sliwa":

Who is Edward Younan?

[stellar]

Shortly one of our main leadership deliberations will be published for full member

So when will this be posted for everyone? [thumb]

[ergosum]

I agree with you that things here became quite unpleasant. But my opinion is that this is only partly caused by the handling of the situation by leadership. It’s the unethical and anti-social behaviour of the “LifeMirage Connection” that caused the severe disruptions around here.

I agree. I'm just wondering whether it's wise of leadership to be making some posts that seem to be exacerbating the nastiness. I don't see how all the bating, challenging and jeering is helping. I understand why members of leadership are upset and exasperated -- especially in light of some of the above revelations by Prometheus -- but strong leadership involves dealing with difficult issues in as clinical a fashion as possible and moving on.

[jaydfox]

Okay, for the Full Members who have been waiting for this:
LifeMirage = Misrepresenting?

[losty]

Oh man, thats a crack up.

I was really looking forward to his book and wondering if his lazy writing style (I always put down the bizarro grammar/spelling to him being really busy) would be cleaned up.

"I have massive amounts of mental energy yet I can't be fucked posting proper sentences"

Cognitive Awareness

Whens it coming out LM ??

oh man..... tahts foonE!

What the hells going on here???

Im laughing....Im freaked out

Im glad I quit nootropics ages ago

[uniquenutrition]

He replied alot on his Blackberry when he was at work.

I think he was aiming more for content than perfect sentences.

Steve