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Billionaires


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#1 John Schloendorn

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Posted 01 January 2005 - 10:56 PM


From a couple of posts put together by Lightowl here, I think it can be read that we found it exceedingly difficult to address excentric billionaires personally, because they naturally surround themselves with elaborate defence systems and gatekeepers against people who want money from them. Yet if only one of them becomes convinced that his money in fact CAN by immortality, this might be the most beneficial thing that can happen to life extension research. Thus, the billionaire problem deserves much more attention than five forum posts.

If it is possible at all to address any billionaires personally at all, we will sure face a high rate of loss due to unopened letters. No billionaire is going to open such a letter, they simply get too many! What we need is a different strategy. We could, for example, find out where they live, and where they work, but rather than writing letters just put up huge advertisement posters near their doorstep. If they are well designed, the billionaires will not be able to help looking, just like any person on the street.

But are posters as persuasive as personal letters?
I think they are even more persuasive. Advertisement posters suggest the presence of a serious, and powerful organization that can afford such a thing, while personal lettes come from sources that include very dubious ones.

In an experiment that is currently under consideration for publication, I found some support for the idea that advertising immortalism is not so much a matter of persuasion, but rather one of informing those already predispoed to immortalism that it is possible. This may be due to the fact that immortalism reflects very deep characteristics of one's personality that are inaccessible to straightforward persuasion. Thus, my prediction would be that a billionaire who is presented with very little information and Imminst's web address on a poster would either take initiative and inquire by himself, or be inaccessible to even an arbitrarily sophisticated attempt of persuasion.

Does anyone already have a project in this direction going? Address lists or anything, or lists of promising neighborhoods? Contact me and I'd be happy to help where I can.

#2 susmariosep

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Posted 01 January 2005 - 11:59 PM

Embarrassing to say and even shameful, that's why also I come to this site, to find immortality for myself and get to sell it to acquire enormous wealth.

Honest, easy, quick (heq) money is what I have always been dreaming even every minute of every waking day. Shame? And why not; isn't that quaranteed in the Constitution of every modern society: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, I mean money. Otherwise you might have life and a lot of liberty to do and to be nothing. Hahahahaaaaaaa and hehehehheeeeeee!Moan and groan, woe is me.

What do you say, guys, can anyone get rich by honest and noble ways and means. Mabye legal in a formalistic way, but honest...? Maybe the appropriate word is this awkward one, un-ignoble. Do the rich make their money in un-ignoble ways and means. I can see many ways and means whereby Bill Gates has made his billions, some of them are for me ignoble.

But with the money of Bill Gates I can relax and enjoy the net; no, I am not going to build a mansion compound like Bill. What I will do is live in a good hotel. No more fixing leaking pipes, repainting the roof, attending to the electrical installations, and all the inconveniences and troubles and heartaches and loss of time in owning and maintaining a house.

Back to money from immortality marketing. I thought that maybe a more feasible product would be a kind of chatbot which is an exact but better you in a machine or machinized mode of existence. Invent such a machine which can do everything you do now, so that you can go on vacation with your wife and the kids, and he will attend to the dreary business of making a living.

Is that possible? of course. A machine can do everything that a human can do as specifically human or distinct from non-human. What is that in general? Think.

It does hot have to do any biological functions, and is not constrained and inhibited therefrom by any biology.

You get me? We can be human without biology, by turning ourselves into machines.

What about the emotions? Simple. There are only so many emotions and so many shades of emoitons. Inventory them and you can also get a machine to enact them all. Anger? You certainly can get a machine to work out the script of anger; so also with envy, jealousy, ambition, greed.

What about libido? Man, you don't need that when you are engrossed in such transcendental quests as for knowledge to satisfy that most distinctively human feature of intellectual curiosity.

My wife is calling me to breakfast; see? biology. If I were a machine I don't have to eat and will never get tired, just keep me plugged to the mains.

This is my outlook: seek immortality or rebounding existence in machines not in biology; ask the engineers not the biologists or doctors.

Susma

#3 dnamechanic

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Posted 02 January 2005 - 12:03 AM

John, your questions are good ones.

The subject brings to mind the broadcast by Paul Harvey on December 11.

Mind called our attention to the broadcast.

Paul Harvey talked about Aubrey de Grey's work in some detail.

http://www.imminst.o...09&hl=harvey&s=

He was not completely accurate, but what the hey? He spoke out!

Kevin cached it here:



Paul Harvey has influence.

It would be good if we, all, personally thanked him for the broadcast. I did.

http://www.paulharve...mail_form.shtml

A thousand or so emails, on a single topic, might impress Mr. Harvey.

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#4 reason

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Posted 02 January 2005 - 12:17 AM

From where I sit, the most important part of any fundraising process is not the contact process, but the backup you have behind it. It's just like asking venture capitalists for money - you have to have something to show when you're asking: good business plan, good people, backing from peers of the VC, reputation, some other hook. It all has to add up to enough to tip the scales. It's just the same for non-profit funding.

This is why a priority prior to running around the countryside harassing rich folk is to accumulate/create/develop a critical mass of:

a) great, well researched, detailed, peer-reviewed, openly published plans and proposals
b) a loud and well-spoken community
c) a variety of organizations and dedicated people working towards healthy life extension
d) prestige in some amount and distribution in the community

Success is attracted by success and little else - which is why the first 10% takes the most work.

Most of my time in this grand venture, as for Bruce et al, is invested in providing a tiny part of the social infrastructure needed to keep the community vaguely cohesive and growing. We need a lot more time invested in the other parts of the equation, especially parts (a) and ©.

Reason
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#5 thefirstimmortal

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Posted 02 January 2005 - 01:32 AM

From a couple of posts put together by Lightowl here, I think it can be read that we found it exceedingly difficult to address excentric billionaires personally, because they naturally surround themselves with elaborate defence systems and gatekeepers against people who want money from them.


While not a billionaire, I can perhaps shed some light on the subject for you John, when you have more wealth than others, someone is always sucking up your time and attention trying to convince you that they love your money more than you do. What is this all too human tendency of a sense of entitlement to money that someone else has?

I would like to be the world’s first sexy trillionaire, even if I fall short and hit a billion, I suspect I’ll need all those elaborate defense systems and gatekeepers, actually I want a big house with a moat and dragons and a fort to keep people out!

Right now, I have one eccentric defense, I never open my door unless I’m expecting someone, and that someone has to call my house and suffer through my 45 second phone answering machine that says.

R-i-n-g
R-i-n-g
R-i-n-g
R-i-n-g

You have reached ***-**** Home of William O'Rights. A notoriously famous life hardened individual.
If you’re a salesman, I'm not interested.
If you’re the IRS, I've taken a vow of poverty.
If you're the police, I didn't do it, and if you have proof that I did than I plead the fifth.
Due to new and recent lifestyle changes, you're message should begin in one of the following 3 ways.
Bill, I want to buy you dinner.
Bill, I want to give you some money
Or Bill, HAVE I GOT A GIRL FOR YOU.
With the exception of family, any message not beginning in one of the following 3 ways will probably not be returned. But if you think it's important you can leave a message. If I think it's important, I'll return your call.

Just imagine how eccentric and creative I could be with a trillion.

What we need is a different strategy. We could, for example, find out where they live, and where they work, but rather than writing letters just put up huge advertisement posters near their doorstep. If they are well designed, the billionaires will not be able to help looking, just like any person on the street.


From a billionaire’s perspective, that might seem to have a tone of stalking to it, the whole hunting them where they live thing, I dunno.

But are posters as persuasive as personal letters? I think they are even more persuasive. Advertisement posters suggest the presence of a serious, and powerful organization that can afford such a thing,


Why would a serious and powerful organization need a donation from a billionaire?

We are not entitled to the billionaires club’s money, and a great burden will be lifted from our shoulders the day that we realize that they don’t owe us anything. For so long as we think that we need their money, we will be wearing ourselves out physically and emotionally trying to collect from them.

At any rate, why should we believe will use a wealthy person's money in ways more beneficial to immortality than they would? Unfortunately, the best argument for leaving the rich alone are seldom made. It is that people who have all this money have demonstrated by their ability to earn the money in the first place, that they're far more competent to disburse it than we are.

#6 lightowl

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Posted 02 January 2005 - 02:34 AM

Getting wealthy people to see the potential impact of the longevity cause and then ultimately convincing them to contribute their resources ( money and influence ) is one of the most powerful tools we have to achieve longer and healthier lives for everybody. When influential people start contributing, many people will listen to what they have to say about why and how aging interventions can happen. This process is a landslide starter and will eventually ignite by itself when the meme has spread wide enough. We have the power to accelerate this process. The best example, as to my knowledge, is the Methuselah Mouse Prize (MMP). There are multiple wealthy donors to the MMP. Some of which have chosen to remain anonymous. I think one reason for this is that there is still a strong deathist meme that puts a negative spot on all contributors from a public perspective. This spot will weaken as the longevity notion becomes more main stream.

I think it is important to realize that wealthy people don't just give away money to something they don't know anything about. It is up to us to inform them to our best abilities. In addition to concrete unbiased information, a list of non-anonymous prominent supporters would greatly improve the chances of catching their attention. This "Reference List" is a common method for promoting a business. In such case the list would be composed of prominent customers.

I made a quick scan of ImmInst to find a few subjects with relevance to thread:

Why Doesn't Kurzweil Really Donate to the MMP?
http://www.imminst.o...t=ST&f=1&t=4832

ImmInst Contacting John Sperling
http://www.imminst.o...ST&f=142&t=3006

What would you do with three billion dollars?
http://www.imminst.o...ST&f=137&t=3077

Potential funding source for life extension
http://www.imminst.o...ST&f=161&t=4342

Aubrey's IBG
http://www.imminst.o...ST&f=142&t=4979

Imminst fundraising brainstorm
http://www.imminst.o...ST&f=137&t=3076

A prize that surges in value
http://www.imminst.o...ST&f=161&t=4817

NB: Sorry for reposting this. Feel free to moderate if its too much.

Edited by lightowl, 07 January 2005 - 06:00 AM.


#7 susmariosep

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Posted 02 January 2005 - 02:41 AM

Or Bill, HAVE I GOT A GIRL FOR YOU.

You just hit the best approach to marketing.

Things market themselves when people already have experienced of them, or and this is more the problem have seen a genuine demonstration of the merchandise.

Reports keep on coming out that surveys show more than 80% pf internet access is for sex in the form of pornography. Why? because every has had experienced of sex and want to have more of it and more exotic of it. That's why sex sells itself and sells everything, even -- apologies to Allah and Mohammad, Islam for its promise of houris in paradise.

Next a demonstration of anything you want to sell, that it is useful and specially crucially important, and convince people in the demonstration of its importance, and it works, in the demonstration, and outside as testified by already satisfied customers.

Rich guys don't get rich and stay rich spending money for things they have not seen a demonstration for in proof of its importance and that it works.

So, do not put so much labor into print and video and audio and even not in personal approach, unless to stage a foolproof demonstration.

You want to sell immortality to the rich to get their funding for further research, start with a very simple one cell organism, showing how you can make it last in life longer with your substances or your environmental engineering; that's the demonstration of your product. If you succeed here you will have billionaires lining up to fund your research and even already putting down orders for your immortality elixirs or resorts or exercises.

Susma

#8 John Schloendorn

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Posted 02 January 2005 - 04:34 AM

Reason:
Thanks, I could not agree more. Though from someone who is as good at achieving a,b,c and d as you are, your post has a pessimistic touch to me. One could refer such persons to a whole lot of info, such as

a) SENS web pages and rejuvenation research journal
b) Imminst, WTA, Aubrey
c) SENS proceedings volume, tripled life span in fly (Rose) and worm (Kenyon, Vanfleteren) I do not think many billionaires, or in fact any people at all are currently aware of these.
d) MPrize, Aubrey again

Though I focusing around one single person may seem suspicious. We need more people like him. Your point.

Susma: Leave it to worms and flies, since most unicellulars do not age at all. Which probably deserves to be emphasized in its own right in an advertisment campaign

Bill (I want to buy you dinner):
Now I don't think the rich owe me something or have some moral obligation to do some good or whatever. They are simply a potential resource, and a very promising one at that. If I we can mobilize that resource for our own selfish end, without thereby doing any harm to anyone, then we will of course do so, demonstrating our own competence.

Unfortunately, the best argument for leaving the rich alone are seldom made. It is that people who have all this money have demonstrated by their ability to earn the money in the first place, that they're far more competent to disburse it than we are.

That's exactly right. But it not an argument for leaving the rich alone. It is one to try harder, think of something to break through that mechanism and find the exceptions from the rule.

All these arguments basically support something as noncommittal as a "fight aging!" poster, which happens to be near someone's doorstep.

#9 reason

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Posted 02 January 2005 - 07:44 AM

John:

I should be a bit more specific; there is indeed a lot of good information out there, and we have a great community, but it doesn't yet rise to the level and coherency required for successfully inducing large gifts of money and other resources - although as the Methuselah Foundation is demonstrating, the community is capable of rising to the challenge. We have a way to go yet, however.

You can't just refer people to what's out there now in any way other than a passing note that you're not in a minority and your position has some support. You have to bring the presentation with you. You have to be able to answer "how will I spend this money effectively" in detail, perfectly tailored to the biases of the group or person you are presenting to. Etc. Think about the process that went on behind getting Paul Allen to back the Brain Atlas project - that was no doubt years of work.

This is not pessimism, but realism. With a realistic idea as to what we need to achieve, we can work towards it. The ideal achievable future I have in mind for the next couple of years is one in which a variety of professionally-run groups (like the Methuselah Foundation, like Imminst could become if it chose that funding path, like the potential Fly Prize, etc, etc) continue to publish plans, reinforce the community, gain respect and renown, and make attempts to gain serious funding. This helps to create a self-reinforcing effect, a positive feedback loop, a rising tide that lifts all boats, grows the community and makes future efforts more likely and more likely to succeed.

We can bootstrap a truly effective anti-aging research advocacy community for the 21st century and a variety of movements within it, but we are at the beginning of this process.

Reason
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#10 John Schloendorn

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Posted 02 January 2005 - 08:59 AM

Reason,
I'm glad to see that many of these projects are in good hands with you. Thanks for sharing your experience so eloquently.

#11 dnamechanic

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Posted 02 January 2005 - 03:40 PM

At any rate, why should we believe will use a wealthy person's money in ways more beneficial to immortality than they would?

This could also be said of a poor man's money.

Are you saying that we should not have confidence in what we are doing?

Unfortunately, the best argument for leaving the rich alone are seldom made. It is that people who have all this money have demonstrated by their ability to earn the money in the first place, that they're far more competent to disburse it than we are.


This could also be said of anyone.
It is likely that everyone with money, whether it be a little or a lot, has ideas on how it should be allocated.

It is one to try harder, think of something to break through that mechanism and find the exceptions from the rule.


Yes John. We can continue to try.

#12 thefirstimmortal

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Posted 02 January 2005 - 05:52 PM

Are you saying that we should not have confidence in what we are doing?


What I'm saying is this, we should look at the "Sual Kent" method of funding. Saul who wasn't very wealthy in his mid 30's decided that the stalled cryonics movement needed money, so he decided to become wealthy as opposed to going around begging for other people to fund research. I'm sure that's not the path of least resistence, but it's more rewarding.

#13 dnamechanic

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Posted 02 January 2005 - 07:16 PM

Yes TFI, Saul Kent is an excellent example.

“My objective is not to tell you what to do, but to provide you with sufficient evidence, both pro and con, to enable you to make up your own mind.”



#14 John Schloendorn

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Posted 03 January 2005 - 04:13 AM

Thanks to everyone for explaining themselves. I now have a clearer picture of what you guys are doing and how you're doing it.

#15 ag24

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Posted 03 January 2005 - 01:37 PM

Good points from everyone. The biggest problem we face is undoubtedly that I remain the only mainstream biogerontologist talking about concrete timescales, i.e. making public statements about particular degrees of progress in particular timeframes with particular probabilities. If even half a dozen of my senior colleagues were doing the same, we'd have our money tomorrow. This is why in so many of my talks (and increasingly in my papers) I describe the problem from the biogerontologist's point of view (the "triangular logjam" -- see http://www.gen.cam.ac.uk/silence.htm) and also castigate my colleagues for submitting to it (see e.g. http://www.gen.cam.a.../sens/duty.pdf). I don't see many of my colleagues becoming more outspoken any time soon -- they have a lot to lose in terms of grant funding (which I don't), plus they are instinctively cautious about timescales because they know progress is generally slower than one expects (in the short term -- they forget that it is generally faster than one expects in the long term...). So, I have been addressing the credibility issue in two main other ways: (a) making it easy for my colleagues to lend support in ways that won't be held against them, like speaking at my conferences and co-authoring my more scientifically outrageous papers, and (b) publicising why my colleagues tend to be so coy, so that potential philanthropists can discount that coyness in evaluating the scientific situation.

A third way to address the credibility issue is currently under discussion and I would welcome people's thoughts. When VC's are close to investing in something there is of course one thing they always do - a "due diligence" study. It occurred to me recently that there's no real reason why that study needs to occur at so late a stage in the investment decision process: in principle it could be done in advance. The only issue then is who pays for it and thus how objective the potential investor will subsequently consider it to be. In thinking this through a bit I came to the conclusion that a thorough study of the feasibility and likely efficacy of SENS could certainly be done, incorporating interviews with a wide (really wide, as SENS has so many parts) range of scientists within and outside what is conventionally called biogerontology, and that it would constitute a pretty decisive demolition of the hand-waving rejections of SENS as a whole and the more ambitious components of it in particular that some of my colleagues feel moved to express from time to time. But in order to be really useful in attracting serious funds, I suspect it would need to be performed by a really major "household name" in the due diligence business, a firm that everyone wealthy (or at least everyone who became wealthy by investing wisely in something commercial) will already know and respect.

Views please.

Cheers, Aubrey

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Posted 03 January 2005 - 02:36 PM

4 years ago I met Richard Branson at the Virgin Blue airlines opening party in Queensland, Australia. Only got to say a few sentences before he toddled off but I was introduced to his new business projects manager. As the opportunity was mediated by a friend with a chain of health clubs who wanted my assistance to prepare a business plan for getting a Virgin health club in Melbourne all I got to speak about was health club opportunities in Australia. But in the course of the dialogue that ensued with Virgin over the coming months I learned that one rarely ever deals with Richard alone. Instead, one has to deal with his business minders that actively insulate him from the torrent of business proposals that are sent to him on a daily basis. So approaching Richard was no different than dealing with a vast conglomerate. As fate would have it, I ran into him by accident during a Virgin Megastore opening 2 years later. He was kind enough to call me over and we had a little chat but when it comes to business the story is the same - one has to deal with the minders.

The moral of the story is, as Reason has already put, one must have a solid business plan. The business plan must stand the scrutiny of accountants, lawyers, technical experts, marketing strategists and business advisors. It must also resonate with the decision maker/s in a visceral way. Above all, irrespective of the brilliance of business plan, the management team must be experienced, proven and verifiable. Then you get a chance to present in person.

There is a certain arrogance, I feel, amongst scientists who think that the wealthy owe them funding. Particularly amongst some who feel very passionate about the importance of their work. Even Leonardo Da Vinci had to plead with his sponsors in order to obtain funding (in some cases for food). Discovery would be substantially accelerated if scientists allocated some of their considerable (one hopes) intellect towards understanding the psychology of the wealthy and of their minders.

BTW Bill, great message.

#17 thefirstimmortal

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Posted 03 January 2005 - 03:41 PM

BTW Bill, great message.


Thanks Prometheus. I appreciate that :)

#18 John Schloendorn

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Posted 04 January 2005 - 04:29 AM

Aubrey,
If your statements such as "duty" and "silence" did not have much of an effect on your fellow gerontologists, it may be because they are written from the perspective of a changer, philantrop, a rebel. That is not what these people are.

My guess is the following.

Do not forget that your colleagues did not choose the way you did. They drifted into this job because they happened to get good marks in biology at high school and someone told them that smart is synonymous with good and they should make a living out of it.
I am not experienced with how this peculiar kind of "drifter psychology" expresses itself in middle-aged scientists. All I can do is extrapolate from the process I observed close up in my friends from uni. I believe the one thing that such people most yearn for is the confirmation from outside that drifting the way they drifted was the right 'choice' and that they are well fullfilling the role they adopted. They fear nothing like the prospect of being the only one in their field who ridicules themselves by speaking out against the established consensus and being caught being wrong. On the other hand, if they say what most people say, and are caught being wrong, they have an excuse like "Look, it was really difficult to see, since nearly nobody saw it." Such people will not be the first, or even second, to speak out.
The only rigorous solution I can see is to get a whole bunch of motivated immortalists to do what you do. Be assured that I and a lot of other students here can't wait to join up with you and shake this old house at its foundations.

A quicker route would be beneficial.

So to persuade your colleagues to speak out, I suggest you try harder to tell them what's in for them from their own point of view, rather than from yours. Especially, they need a way to compensate for the tremendous personal risk inherent in speaking against the consensus. I can see that this is not at all easy. I'll think harder.

#19 John Schloendorn

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Posted 06 January 2005 - 01:50 PM

As for the due diligence study,
I will love to see what the IBGS survey has to say about it. Even though an invitation to researchers has not even been sent out yet, I currently have a trend of human resources way outplaying financial resources. (That is in terms of percentage of the requirements you estimate on the IBG pages) If that trend continues, using human resources to attract financial resources would seem a way to go. This is a good strategic background for a due diligence study. I will certainly keep an eye on promising individuals for such a project.
Given a few days of settling into the perspective Reason and Bill just opened up to me, I concur with you guys ever more. In the course of a due diligence study, the SENS initiative has to take much more of a concrete agenda. We should concentrate considerable efforts on writing individual project-focused research proposals, just like for normal grant applications. A priorized list of such proposals, endorsed by peer-review, embedded in the grand scheme of SENS by the study, should be among the things to be rubbed under an investor's nose.

#20 jaydfox

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Posted 06 January 2005 - 07:43 PM

One point worth mentioning: Why not get 10 people who can put in $100,000,000 each?

Obviously, a billion-dollar philanthropist would be the way to go. It's simpler.

However, we should consider a secondary proposal as well. All the research studies, pledged human resources, etc., would be the same. But, rather than ask for $1,000,000,000, we put forward a simple question:

"If we could find nine other people willing to pledge $100,000,000 into this project, would you be willing to pledge $100,000,000 in as well? If we could get nine other people to answer yes to the same question, would you be willing to meet them, in a round table discussion, in order to formalize your support of this plan?

Your responses to these questions will remain in complete confidence. We will only disclose the fact that an anonymous benefactor has pledged $100,000,000, assuming that an additional sum of $900,000,000 will also be pledged. If, for example, six people make such a pledge, we will only disclose that six anonymous benefactors have pledged $100,000,000 each, assuming that an additional sum of $400,000,000 will also be pledged."

Or something to that effect. I suck at PR.

I don't know, maybe it's a bad idea, but it seems to have merit to me. Three reasons: A) it softens the financial blow, B) increases the number of people who have that much money, and C) the person can be assured that they are not going out on a limb, but they are being supported by nine other people with an equal stake. By equal stake, I'm referring to the financial risks, as well as the publicity risks.

#21 John Schloendorn

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Posted 06 January 2005 - 09:52 PM

Jayd,
hmm indeed a similar scheme may be proposed to gerontologists to lure them into publicly advocating SENS and the IBG. Their participation in a due diligence study could be a platform to do this.

#22 brokenportal

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Posted 07 January 2005 - 06:06 AM

Why is the billion dollar amount significant? I missed that part.

One place to get money, Im not sure how much, but, a while ago, as somebody may remember, msn ran a contest called something like "ideas happen". You submit a short essay, which I did, people read them and vote on them, then the judges wade through them, taking notice of the most voted for first, and then they award prizes to these people to help them make their idea happen.

One of the judges, as I recall was a guy who runs a forums board called "craiglists". I want to put this idea out here as a brainstorm, and to remind myself to look more into it when I stumble upon this thread again.

#23 brokenportal

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Posted 07 January 2005 - 06:22 PM

Attracting billionaires through google message on front page. If you notice today, when you go to google you see a link that talks about how you can contribute to tsunami releif.

I think its worth the effort to talk to google about how much more important extending life spans is.

Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View CA 94043
phone: (650) 623-4000
fax: (650) 618-1499

Heres one link of contacts to them. If any body cares to make an inquiry. I emailed them.

#24 jaydfox

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Posted 07 January 2005 - 07:52 PM

If we can't get Google to give us a prominent mention, then we should consider the problem of increasing our "presense". ImmInst is #1 for "immortality". A search for "aging" and "life extension" turn up different types of sites.

"Aging" turns up several government sites, and a few scientific ones (i.e. inaccessible to the public).

A search for "life extension" turns up a more favorable crowd, an even mix of sellers of supplements, etc., and life extension information sites, including a link to Ben Best's excellent essay. Also included is the Life Extension Society, which may or may not be active anymore, and it's not obvious from the website. They recently had a meeting to elect the leadership, but it was held at a person's home, so I'm assuming this means the organization is still small. At any rate, their website is blah, so it's probably not helping the movement.

However, neither the MMP nor ImmInst shows up under "life extension". Personally, I think if the MMP showed up in the top 3-5 positions (under the Life Extension Foundation, which, let's face it, we're not going to dethrone) of the first page for "life extension", traffic would go up quite a bit.

"Anti-aging" would be another good hit, if we could make the first page. Our society may not accept "real" anti-aging science yet, but they're sure willing to spend their dollars on vitamin supplements and exfoliant creams that promise "anti-aging" effects, so I certainly expect both of these terms to be searched for much more often than "immortality".

If we could get the MMP to show high on the front page for any of these three search expressions ("aging", "anti-aging", and "life extension"), site visitation is sure to rise. Whether the quality of visitors is high enough to ensure donations, that depends. The website content itself will be a big determinant, of course.

#25 Da55id

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Posted 08 January 2005 - 12:45 AM

good idea Jay - how do we get higher up on aging, anti aging and life extension?

And we will eventually top the charts. When Xprize started, nobody would dare predict that they'd dethrone the pulitzer and Nobel...but it did for a couple months at least...it's #2 for "prize" at the moment. We will grow and stay higher longer.

#26 treonsverdery

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Posted 08 January 2005 - 02:53 AM

if theres anyone here with a car near the boston NY LA Paris areas willing to talk to a billionaire live I might be able to think of a way to create communication Might verifying that communication is the right thing to do matters

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#27 treonsverdery

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Posted 08 January 2005 - 10:39 PM

If it is possible at all to address any billionaires personally at all

well advertising is cheap
my school paper has column inch rates that are nearly MITs rates My school papers online edition has these 40 usd ads like http://www.dailyevergreen.com/ an entire Mo of first page Ive just written to the MIT tech to find if theyll create a similar opportunity to MIT students then theres Caltech

Thats near million genius n near genius eye views per year per school


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Yarvard Hale Crinceton Pornell Bellesley Warnard yay

#28 Lothar

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Posted 11 January 2005 - 11:22 PM

Just two months ago I wrote an essay for my small - german - online-magazine 'for physical immortality' about the question, how much money is spent for aging research in Germany. The professor and expert I refered to compared the situation in my own country with the much more developed field in the United States. He said (in 2002 and 2003) that every year about three billion Dollars are spent for aging research in the US. About one billion comes from private sources and another two billions come from the government or other public institutions. The National Institute of Aging alone gets one billion Dollar every year from this enormous sum. So, there's already a lot of money in the field and every potential investor has a lot of opportunities to give his money to a wide range of well established institutions which normally have a higher reputation than Imminst, in an academic perspective. If you want money from billionaires despite these facts you have to sharpen your profile and your competences, because it's a very big difference whether you or Imminst, Imminst related instituts/scientists, want to get money or if you just want to rise the general attention on the topic of aging research. Far instance: What is the 'unique selling position' of the Immortality Institute!?

It's clear that you always can't have enough money for scientific research especially for such an ambitious project like the one of Aubrey de Grey but I myself don't think that's in the first place a matter of money. There are estimations that since US-President Richard Nixon has declared 'the war on cancer' more than 30 years ago over 500 billion dollars(!) have been spent for cancer research - and cancer is still one of the most dangerous diseases until today as disease in general is just ONE cause of death among a wide range of others! The threats of aging are in fact just far away threats in the individuals future and a lot of other existential problems are much more urgent like the catastrophe round the Indian Ocean has just demonstrated in a very terrible way. So, in my opinion physical immortality should be much more and at first hand something different than just a project to overcome aging, because if the old slogan 'first things first' is true people have a lot of nearer problems in managing their surviving or even leading a good life which is always one of the central points for the motivation to prolong it.

On the other hand as aging research itself is concerned I think it's more a problem of creativity in the innerscientific progress or the wishability of extreme life extension in general which is never a scientific question but a philosophical one (or a psychological, political, economical etc.). 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.

#29 eternaltraveler

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Posted 15 January 2005 - 04:05 AM

Why don't some of us just work on becoming billionares so we don't need to worry about all this funding nonsense ;)

#30 jaydfox

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Posted 18 January 2005 - 09:20 PM

Lothar, good points. I have a few disagreements, but they are more a matter of perspective than a matter of "fact".

The threats of aging are in fact just far away threats in the individuals future and a lot of other existential problems are much more urgent like the catastrophe round the Indian Ocean has just demonstrated in a very terrible way. So, in my opinion physical immortality should be much more and at first hand something different than just a project to overcome aging, because if the old slogan 'first things first' is true people have a lot of nearer problems in managing their surviving or even leading a good life which is always one of the central points for the motivation to prolong it.

Well, I somewhat disagree. If you look at the ages at which people die, the majority of people die over the age of 75. The odds of dying at age 80 are more than twice as high as dying at age 70, which are again more than twice as high as your odds of dying at age 60, which are again more than twice as high as your odds of dying at age 50. This trend continues all the way down to your mid-20's or so.

Now this is all-cause mortality, including things like car accidents, etc. That's probably one reason it levels off in your 20's, because accidents become more common causes of death than diseases.

But for a 60-year-old, any one of the major diseases is a bigger cause for concern than all forms of accidental and homocidal death combined. And all of those major diseases is directly or indirectly tied to aging. Aging is still a big threat. Cure aging, and you've cured heart disease for the most part. I wish the same were inherently true about cancer, although cancer seems to be tied to aging in intricate genetic ways, so curing "aging" may not cure cancer, depending on your definition of "aging".

Granted, aging is not a big immediate threat for 20-year-olds. But it is the leading cause of death for the majority of people. 60-year-olds count as much as 20-year-olds, regardless of how 20-year-olds might feel about that statement. The fact that 60-year-olds don't count as much to my generation (the 20-somethings) is due in part to the fact that aging is viewed as inevitable, so we've already written them off.

We may not be able to convince 20-year-olds to be worried about aging, but there are lots of middle-class people in their 50's and up who are all too aware of their impending mortality.


While 150,000+ deaths from those tsunamis may sound very scary, it was less than the death toll caused by aging in two days. Admittedly impressive, as very few tragedies can outpace aging for causing death and suffering. But nonetheless, two days' worth of aging-related deaths still exceeds the death toll from the tsunamis. So while disasters like the tsunami may seem like a tragedy, we need to keep some perspective: if Aubrey de Grey is right, the $4 billion (or more) that has been pledged and donated so far to tsunami disaster relief could save many many many more lives, and alleviate many many times more suffering, if it were spent instead on properly focussed anti-aging research. I'm not trying to sound barbaric, I'm just trying to put things in perspective. If people could wake up to the reality that aging is a barbaric and cruel process that is imminently curable, then we should expect the same outpouring of compassion that we've seen for tsunami disaster relief. Alas, that realization has not hit the world yet.




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