I'm not sure how to answer this question. I think to start, frame it as a discussion, not an arguement. Don't label anyone as a deathist. I think it's a confrontationally loaded word. Really, the fact of existance has always been, and is currently that people live for a length of time, then they die. People's sense of stability is framed around this, in dealing with it, and making the best of the one life they have. It is speculation that this can be different.
Exactly, kind of like I was saying earlier in this topic, you dont want to trigger the devils advocate reflex in people. Sometimes just by labeling people at the outset of an other wise nuetral conversation you turn them into what you label them.
I do like the concept of deathist though and I think its a worthwhile concept to extrapolate on. For example b0gger is looking for people to help work out a deathist wiki page. You dont want to call people deathists directly in most situations, but when people go digging for the info, or stumble upon it, then if youve planted the seeds of indefinite life extension in their head, or its been planted through some other means, then deathist info like that can help them grow that seed.
Another current fact of existance, is that people have more immediate concerns about addressing the diseases that currently do take them out. They want to see research and progress in treating diseases, so that they may have some extra, perhaps healthy years of incrementally lengthened life.
Nah, well, sure, they do, but thats not a problem. To phrase it in an analogy; thats like were the civil rights people were walking before the civil rights march leaders came and got them to march on the most important path.
It just is difficult to get mainstream science diverted from fighting immediate diseases.
Its not difficult really, just more like a process, one foot in front of the other and we are going there, the more feet we can get involved the more ground we can cover and faster.
Its not difficult in the same way that we wouldnt say that building a sky scraper is difficult. Its just a process. People build sky scrapers all the time. That reminds of a quote, to paraphrase, "Any project no matter how complex, is rendered simple if you divided it up into a lot of small parts and divide it up amongst enough people."
I'm not sure what the ethics of this whole situation really is. Would you take away a certain number of people's chances at a somewhat lengthened life today, so that more may one day have a more lengthened life in the future? I really don't know. I'm not sure if I've even framed the question correctly.
This reminds me of the concept that if your being chased by a lion, you dont have to run faster than it, you just have to run faster than the other guy. Your first responsability is to yourself. Once youve got yourself settled and situated, no lions in your kitchen, no lions in your back yard, no lion in your neighborhood, then you can go out and help people in the other towns (diseases) shoot their lions. Im sure I speak for most of us when I say that we will gladly be helping others shoot their lions as well. We all do a little, or residually, but I mean much more directly.