I'm Still Here, I'm still trying to live forever

I have felt a sense of stagnancy among the world's population of aspiring immortalists in the past few weeks. For example, Eliezer Yudokowsky doesn't seem to be pushing the issue much these days on overcoming bias (even as examples), neither does Robin Hansen. And the leading immortality sites and blogs seem weirdly stagnant, some with the last publicity updates seeming to be from a couple years ago.

My passionate desire not to die as this self-reflective, conscious entity remains as strong as ever, but the world seems to be a more apathetic place for this passion than in the recent past.

What's my plan of action here? It's hard to say right now, other than my default plan centered around the ageless wisdom to try to maximize the extent that I'm "healthy, wealthy, and wise".

Observing the mass of humanity, even the mass of intelligent, rational humanity, I feel a bit like Arthur Dent  contemplating a clueless Earth about to be destroyed. Sure Earth isn't about to be destroyed, but all around me are people who are likely going to die in 70 years or less and who seem to care much less than they likely will when on their death bed. People who meticulously plan decades ahead for financial, political, and academic aspirations and ambitions don't contemplate plans to cheat death? It's a fucking crapshoot to become a transplant surgeon, a supreme court justice, or the managing director of a bulge investment bank. But yet people can seriously plan and lay the ground work for the probabilistically unrealistic goals and yet discount making a plan for themselves to beat aging?

It's a mystery to me. I don't think I'm close to the smartest person around, and I have good evidence on why I shouldn't think that. But I think an aspiration to cheat death should probably come with the threshhold intelligence to aspire for a good professional job, a healthy fit body, a nice wardrobe, a nice car, and to live in a nice neighborhood. It's an aspirational insight that seems to me to be hitched with the level of intelligence needed to be a comfortable hedonist/materialist that's at least internally resistant the solicitations and fantasies of organized religion and self-destructive consumerism. It's a mystery to me why the million plus Americans (and their counterparts throughout the world) who are smart enough to end up millionaires with attractive physiques are not smart enough to be trying to construct a future where they'll be immortal. It's an insight which doesn't seem to me to require an ability to be an elite, nobel-prize caliber biomedical scientist or physicist. It's an insight which doesn't seem to me to prerequire an intelligence like Aubrey de Grey's or Anders Sandberg's. Someone who becomes a self-made millionaire, who keeps themselves in shape, seems to me to be someone who is already good at placing their aspirational goals above the temptations and sdistractions of the environment. They can say no to tempting consumer products, no to tempting unhealthy foods and portions, no to exhortations to give their money to various causes, but feel compelled to say yes to the prospect of future decrepidity and death? They jump on new ways to be fit and new ways to build their wealth, but when Aubrey de Grey comes along they are apathetic? What the fuck is going on? Reader comments welcome.

Comments

[TGGP]

I think Eliezer has said he wants to separate his own transhumanist interests from OB. His reason for pursuing Bayesian rationality is to achieve his transhumanist goals, but he wants to preach Bayes even to people with no interest in transhumanism.

[michael vassar]

Almost zero people actually pursue goals stretching even 5 years into the future. Those who appear to are actually responding to local social pressures, not long term aspirations.

[Ben Wraith]

Very well said, Hopefully Anonymous. I completely agree.

I only recently discovered transhumanism and realized that the goal of immortality, which I'd previously dismissed as unrealistic, was something worth striving for. Now I can't understand why no one else sees that.