[ExI] Life extension

[Adrian Tymes]

On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 9:05 AM, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com>wrote:

> For some reason, a lot of people tune out to radical life extension, but
> do not tune out to radical health improvement.
>

Easily explained, if we put aside our own viewpoint and honestly accept
what their viewpoint is.  (Not that we agree with it, just that we
accurately recognize it.)

They believe that death is inevitable, period.  They think that one can no
more achieve immortality than reach the Moon merely by flapping one's arms,
or exceed the speed of light through conventional Newtonian thrust.
Further, they have a heavy bias toward believing in the impossibility of
things quite unlike what anyone has achieved before.  Therefore, living to
200 is "obviously" impossible and anyone saying otherwise can be dismissed
without thinking too hard about it, just like anyone proposing another
perpetual motion machine.

On the other hand, many people *are* alive at 90 today - and some of them
are generally physically capable, if past their prime.  That's not
speculation.  Therefore, there is existing proof that this is
possible...and so the same could be made true for more people.

They might have logical dissonance at the likely consequence of a lot of
super-healthy 90 year olds (i.e., people living to 150+), but they don't
reject the possibility of many super-healthy 90 year olds itself.
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