News and commentary by h+ Chapter members.

There are not enough beers in the world...

The Minx Update: Episode 003: Anti aging but pro Aubrey De Gray

On Friday, June 27, 2008 from 4:00 PM through 8:00 PM PDT at UCLA, scientists and other anti-aging luminaries will discuss "Aging: the Disease, the Cure, the Implications," a Methuselah Foundation co-sponsored event. The ADCI event is open to the public and presents an opportunity for you to hear about the current state of radical life extension research. How close are we? What obstacles remain? What particular approaches are being taken?

While the event is free, registration is required. Simply click on the image above to register on the ADCI website. For $30.00, you can also attend a dinner that begins at 8:00 PM.

Why exactly should you attend? One of the goals of h+ Solutions is to show that transhumanism is not just about a far future of robots, nanotechnology, AI, and physical immortality. Instead, it is about what we do today, what breakthroughs are being made today, and what foundations are being built today that are expected to lead to some of these future predictions. One of the best things you can do today is attend these events and learn about what is going on around you.

Attending events like ADCI will give you a valuable perspective that separates you from most other people. I am astonished how many people do not know that several species healthy lifespans have been extended up to 10 times, and that this is actually old news. While the jump to human radical life extension is radically gigantic, the work in other animal models implies that it is not impossible. In fact, the research literature today suggests something incredibly profound about our every day lives in the near future.

Even critics of modern technological progress, transhumanism, and radical life extension have stopped treating these subjects as pie in the sky jokes and are instead treating them as real threats. Whatever your own opinion, you owe it to yourself to pay attention. There is no better way to start doing so than attending public events like ADCI.

This event is followed on Saturday, June 28 and Sunday, June 29 by a technically focused Understanding Aging conference. Whether you are local with your own accommodations or traveling and in need of accommodations, there are a variety of registration options. However, the Friday event promises to be the public unveiling of a field of research undergoing rapid and promising progress.

And I will also add a big I TOLD YOU SO, TOO (see the list below of my Frontier Channel articles since 2005 about this very subject)!

From Mashable: "TV Viewers Go Online: See, I Told You So"

According to the article and another at TVWeek, television viewing is down 10% since last year and 17% among 18-49 year olds. Sure, there was a strike, but the Internet is looming like a big black hole. And the network that understands that the most?

CBS.

Yes, CBS. They just purchased one of my longtime favorite online technology properties, CNET (which actually started as a syndicated TV show before turning itself into an online technology news website and other properties.) CBS is also pimping their shows, classics and new, everywhere online, including their own websites, Joost, Amazon Unbox, Apple iTunes, etc.

They are smart to do this, because there is an URGENCY now to survive in this massive video upheaval. In a year or less everyone will be pushing high definition, forcing the broadband providers to increase their capacities and speeds more quickly or face the wrath of their subscribers. If the existing old media content providers do not get their video properties online soon, they will have to compete with increasingly sophisticated online productions.

More signs of the "old media" apocalypse: advertisers are heading to the Web in droves, iTunes is the number one music seller (digital OR physical!), Blockbuster is trying to survive by becoming an electronics store (bad idea!), Walmart and Target are no longer getting the lucrative DVD deals, short video (like YouTube clips) are being uploaded with increasing fervor, and people are watching longer and longer format videos online.

I remember well all the old arguments, repeated time after time in silly commentary as each new digital media announcement was made over the past few years:

Who wants to watch TV on their computers?

More and more people do. However, many more are beginning to realize they no longer need computers to watch online content. Apple TV, media centers, Xbox 360, bigger computer monitors, HDTVs, cellphones, refrigerators...these are just a few of the ways digital content is spreading, and rapidly.

Who wants to pay to watch TV online?

More and more people do. However, much of that video, including premium content, is becoming available for free, with advertisements, or at lower price points (because distributing video digitally is rapidly falling in price compared to physical media.)

There is not enough content.

More and more content is showing up online. Video rental places might have carried several hundred or even a thousand titles; digital stores can carry many times more. iTunes already has 1300 movies available for rent or purchase (Amazon has closer to 6000) and that number will increase rapidly. As for television shows, you can catch most of the latest shows streaming online from the networks themselves, and they are rapidly adding their older titles while keeping their content around for longer periods. The popular 1960's English-dubbed Speed Racer series conveniently showed up on NBC's Hulu.com prior to the live-action movie release. I predict the popular television series X-Files will show up on Amazon and iTunes prior to the theatrical release of X-Files 2: The Return of Mulder and Scully, or How I Have Missed You SO MUCH!

Add to this old media digital content all the amateur content you could possibly want (some of it surprisingly good and much of it getting better and better) as well as more opportunities for niche programming like religious, self-help, lessons, and obscure cult titles, and it becomes imminently clear why digital media will overwhelm...IS overwhelming...media distributed any other way.

Gaming is bigger than Hollywood.

Gaming is also increasingly distributed digitally. After the imminent release of iPhone 2.0, there will be no going back. When handheld devices deliver quality gaming as an afterthought, movie directors begin to dabble in game production, and people begin to demand more from their entertainment, the only distribution network that can handle these trends is the Internet.

Mainstream commentators (wow, do I really think of Mashable as mainstream now?) are beginning to see what some of us recognized in 2005 and earlier: the Internet is the ultimate distribution platform, and its effects arrive far sooner than most people predict. The Internet does not just replace previous distribution platforms, it devours them and sends them into an abyss of collapsing prices and increasing innovation. Just as the Internet does to every industry it reaches.

Well, that was all a bit breathless, if finally obvious to some in retrospect. Saying "I told you so!" is satisfying, but only briefly. Of course, I am also anticipating where these trends are heading. In just the next few years we will see:

• a truly global spanning 24-7-365 Digital Media Jukebox,
• the rapid collapse in pricing corresponding to rapid gains in infrastructure and capabilities,
• the demise of consumer electronics,
• media mashups in gaming and the virtual worlds,
• semantic and automated categorization, sorting, and data mining of digital media, and
• automated media production.

All of this before the middle of next decade, when digital media trends begin to get really interesting. Hint: "I have a song stuck in my head!" will have an entirely new meaning...

My Past Articles About Digital Media Trends

• April 20, 2005 - "What I Want - Automated Internet TV"
• October 12, 2005 - "An Open Letter to Apple"
• October 31, 2005 - "Transitional Video"
• November 3, 2005 - "When is a Podcast not a Podcast?"
• June 14, 2006 - "DVD's in 10, Digital Downloads in 5, and then the Grid"
• July 17, 2006 - "Pandora: Radio Done Right"
• September 9, 2006 - "Bitch 2.0"
• April 29, 2007 - "Goodbye, Pirating"

The founder and members of h+ Visalia have decided to change the name of their club to the provocative "Neosapiens", The Visalia Transhumanist Meetup. Their h+ website has been updated to reflect this change: http://hplusclub.com/visalia/

You can also find the group on Meetup.com: http://transhumanism.meetup.com/82/

If you are anywhere near Visalia, CA please show your support for this fledgling transhumanist club! They hold their meetings on Sundays at 1:00 PM PDT; you can find out more information by joining their Meetup group.

From the club's Meetup welcome page:

"New Humans", How do you see the world? Do you see the world outside the box? Evolution has given us the human brain, the ability to question and search for answers to those questions. I am the host of a radio program Neosapien Radio on KFSC Visalia 94.1. I am searching for others that are willing to talk about truth and the reality of the human condition. I will tell you up front that I believe in the Transhumanist Movement and believe that Science, Technology and the change of social thought from materialism, television, and greed can change the species dramatically. My interests include Neuroscience, Agnosticism, Evolutionism, Cryonics, The Singularity and The Future of Humanity etc. I wanted to start this meetup because I think there are many people searching for answers to the purpose of life and maybe together along with other organizations we can build communities of like minded people, free thinkers that could be part of a movement that would be positive for all humanity. We can all be better internally and make our world better externally. Thank you and I hope you will join me in these conversations. You can contact me at neosapien@live.com.
Thank you
Noel a.k.a Neo

What is your emotional reaction when people use the terms "immortality" and "Immortality Institute" in the context of radical life extension? Your gut impressions, please. Please leave your response in a comment.

Image caption: Screenshot of the Betterhumans website on April 24, 2008. The website was recently purchased by James Clement.

James Clement, Executive Director of the World Transhumanist Association (WTA), has purchased the transhumanist news website Betterhumans for an undisclosed sum, according to site founder Simon Smith. Smith announced the sale this afternoon on the Betterhumans website, as did his collaborator George Dvorsky on the Sentient Developments blog.

It is unclear what Clement plans to do with the online news property and how it may or may not fit in with his other activities at the WTA and the Innerspace Foundation, a neuroengineering advocacy organization. The WTA is currently exploring a branding and website redesign as well as a new digital magazine.

Betterhumans has undergone a series of new designs and directions over the past few years as it searched for monetary sustainability amidst audience growth. While Smith and Dvorsky suggest they will help with the transition to new ownership, they said they plan to pursue other opportunities.

Betterhumans currently consists of news headlines, an active blogging community, and some social networking features. Founded "almost seven years ago" according to Smith, the website has "attracted hundreds of thousands of unique visitors" in that time.

[Commentary]

The first comment to my post "One of Those Days" is rife with pseudoscience (always bad) and self-promotion (not always bad.) The author speaks of Immortals alive today, well beyond the 150 years posited during the Barbara Walters special. Here at the fringe of science, where the cutting edge may very well be the deluded edge, effectively distinguishing fact from fiction is more important than ever.

Consider this prediction: someday, babies will be grown in test tubes and horror will ensue. For most of the 1970's, in vitro fertilization was a controversial subject, until the first child conceived by this method was born in 1978. The heralding, and outcry, resulted in the Warnock Committee and guidelines for the industry. Today, the practice may be more acceptable but some segments of the population still find the technology ethically reprehensible and the laziest among them can cite examples of misbegotten horrors in science fiction with the best of them. The million and more "test tube babies" today should take these views as an outrageous personal attacks.

Babies were never grown in test tubes. IVF technology is so much more complex than that simplistic description, not the least of which is the fact that the technology requires implantation into a human mother's womb soon after division begins. We talk, though, in grand brush strokes, about test tube babies and clones and chimeras and hybrids and other types of people made possible by technology. The myriad shades of gray in reality are lost in an emotional discourse that paint us all into black and white categories.

And so we make room for pseudoscience. Pseudoscience exploits the naive and gullible, the mentally ill and ignorant. If we are talking about the Technological Singularity, then we must also be talking about the cyborg that really killed people decades ago (as the first caller to yesterday's MIT radio discussion insisted.) If we are talking about hybrids, then we must be talking about half animal, half human creatures that will eat us all. If we are talking about artificial general intelligence, then we must be talking about The Terminator. If we are talking about biological creation, then we must be talking about Intelligent Designers and their alien, omnipotent powers, conveniently tied to our religious comforts. If we are talking about radical life extension, then we must be talking about those Immortals already among us, perhaps gay and Parisian (don't ask; I wish I had never stumbled across those very bizarre ramblings.)

If science can make science fiction possible, then all fiction MUST be possible. Right? Especially that easy science fiction we make up in fits of craziness and self-importance or adherence to traditional values? Certainly not that science hip-hop that requires education and thinking and shutting the hell up to just listen, practice and learn.

Pseudoscience exists where people cannot be bothered to learn otherwise. Pseudoscience exists where people disrespectfully assault science and scientists for their own fleeting gain. To attack science with ignorance is truly morally reprehensible. It is evil, as black as evil ever gets.

If it is difficult for the layperson to tell the difference between pseudoscience and science, then there have been massive failures in our educational system, in our government, and in our communities. Carl Sagan wrote about two important tools for critiquing any claim: an aptitude for wonder and skeptical thinking. Cynicism was not in the tool kit. Neither was faith. Our social systems appear to have taught us usage of the wrong tools.

To sort through science and pseudosciences and other claims at the fringe is not to lose yourself to cynicism. Far from it. This active sorting should only increase your wonder at just how remarkable the Universe and its processes are. To hold real breakthroughs in science against claims in pseudoscience is to see crystal brilliance against filth. Likewise, to appreciate these real wonders is not to lose yourself to faith. A question can be asked, and answered, in all friendly frankness; a failed theory can be discarded with little resentment.

There is no question that we might momentarily mistake the real breakthroughs of today to be straight out of science fiction. But they are not. They ARE NOT. They arise out of the hard work and dedication of scientists, researchers, and technicians who have struggled over the decades to make some sense out of reality and then use this knowledge to solve problems, create new technologies, and improve existence when possible. When a scientist says he was inspired by science fiction, he is being humble. He may have been inspired by science fiction, but THEN he worked hard, studied hard, explored hard. For many years. Often with a lot of sweat, blood, and tears.

The first cloned human embryos are nothing like the clones in science fiction. They are not the result of a writer's imagination but that of a scientist's activity and, of course, imagination. The centenarians, that fast growing demographic in the United States and elsewhere, are nothing like the Immortals of New Age ramblings. They are genetic, environmental, and technological marvels, but also living and breathing members of the human race. What animates them is not the breath of some mythical force but the complex and still poorly understood interplay of physical forces and systems. These 100+ year olds inspire us as no fictional 2,800 year old Immortal could possibly.

No, there is not a 2,800 year old Immortal living among us today, and even if he did, he has nothing on those real people who have survived past 100 years and nothing on those researchers dedicating their time and effort to unlock the secrets of aging. Keep the silly fictions off this site, those silly fictions that do not make the cut if only you use the two tools listed above. Let us discard all silly fictions as soon as we detect them, and get to the business of reality.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008 was one of those days, one of those exciting days where life extension was in the news and an h+ club member had a chance to participate in the larger movement.

Life Extension on MSNBC

MSNBC's front page feature was "Longevity quest moves slowly from lab to life". Subtitled "Don't bank on anti-aging pills anytime soon — unless you're a worm", the article surveyed the current state of research into aging and possible solutions. The skepticism provided was mostly about when these technologies would become available for humans.

Reporters have been using centenarians as their angle in recent articles and television programs about longevity and this development is wonderful. This is the soft, humane, and friendly side of radical life extension discourse that until now seemed to be predominated by ethical debates and criticism.

GlaxoSmithKline to acquire Sirtris Pharmaceuticals

News broke on Tuesday that GlaxoSmithKline has agreed to acquire Sirtris Pharmaceuticals for US$22.00 per share (approximately US$720 million total.) Sirtris Pharmaceuticals was recently highlighted on the Barbara Walters' ABC News special "Live to 150, Can You Do It?" for their research into resveratrol and related compounds that may offer the health and life extension benefits of calorie restriction without the painful dieting.

Simone Syed on MIT Radio

Simone Syed, h+ Tucson President, called into MIT's WMBR radio station during the "DJ Awesome & the Wonder Friends" show with guest host Luke Griffiths. Luke's topic was the Technological Singularity, and Simone brought some much needed clarity and respectability to the proceedings after a rather bizarre rant by the first caller. Luke and Simone discussed definitions, transhumanism, and the timing of the Technological Singularity and mind uploading. Later callers included Yonah Berwaldt, past CFO of the Stanford Transhumanist Association and volunteer at Singularity Summit 2007.

The show has already been archived: [Streaming M3U format] Tue Apr 22 06:00 pm.

It is always great when you find life extension news in unexpected places, and even better when it happens to be from one of your favorite writers at your favorite technology blog. Gizmodo is always good for a laugh, and excellent for keeping up with the latest technology gizmo news. Adam Frucci recently posted about new hope for a calorie restriction drug, in his humorous, witty, and supportive way.

The comments, as usual for this topic in more mainstream venues, are not so positive.

I plan to explore the following declarations in more detail in future h+ Solutions posts. These declarations are from "The Transhumanist Declaration" by the World Transhumanist Association and contributors ("Doug Bailey, Anders Sandberg, Gustavo Alves, Max More, Holger Wagner, Natasha Vita More, Eugene Leitl, Berrie Staring, David Pearce, Bill Fantegrossi, Doug Baily Jr., den Otter, Ralf Fletcher, Kathryn Aegis, Tom Morrow, Alexander Chislenko, Lee Daniel Crocker, Darren Reynolds, Keith Elis, Thom Quinn, Mikhail Sverdlov, Arjen Kamphuis, Shane Spaulding, Nick Bostrom".) The document was last updated and adopted on December 01, 2002.

The Transhumanist Declaration

(1) Humanity will be radically changed by technology in the future. We foresee the feasibility of redesigning the human condition, including such parameters as the inevitability of aging, limitations on human and artificial intellects, unchosen psychology, suffering, and our confinement to the planet earth.

(2) Systematic research should be put into understanding these coming developments and their long-term consequences.

(3) Transhumanists think that by being generally open and embracing of new technology we have a better chance of turning it to our advantage than if we try to ban or prohibit it.

(4) Transhumanists advocate the moral right for those who so wish to use technology to extend their mental and physical (including reproductive) capacities and to improve their control over their own lives. We seek personal growth beyond our current biological limitations.

(5) In planning for the future, it is mandatory to take into account the prospect of dramatic progress in technological capabilities. It would be tragic if the potential benefits failed to materialize because of technophobia and unnecessary prohibitions. On the other hand, it would also be tragic if intelligent life went extinct because of some disaster or war involving advanced technologies.

(6) We need to create forums where people can rationally debate what needs to be done, and a social order where responsible decisions can be implemented.

(7) Transhumanism advocates the well- being of all sentience (whether in artificial intellects, humans, posthumans, or non- human animals) and encompasses many principles of modern humanism. Transhumanism does not support any particular party, politician or political platform.