Re: The ImmorTalist Manifesto.
-----Original MessageFrom: "Roman Shein" <she***@v*****.com>
To: "science.news.bessmertie" <iga***@p*****.ru> (746375)
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 14:56:24 +0300
Subject: The ImmorTalist Manifesto.
>
> Кому попадалась книга The ImmorTalist Manifesto (автор Elixxir)?
1. http://www.immortalism.com/ (Выдержки и реклама, которые у меня отбили всякую
охоту знакомиться с книгой дальше)
2. http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/ItemDetail.aspx?bookid=7798 (Здесь можно
купить книгу за $ 13.50. На Амазоне можно купить б/у за $13.40. Я бы не стал
тратиться :).)
3. http://www.quantium.plus.com/lr/lr90.htm#bo
book review: "The Immortalist Manifesto"
by Rudi Hoffman < RUDIHOFF***@a*****.com >
I am a long term member of the Life Extension Foundation, arguably among the
most important groups around because of the research that Bill Faloon and Saul
Kent do. And, as most readers will know, Bill and Saul are high profile and high
dollar supporters of cryonics.
(BTW, it is only $75 per year to be a member of LEF, and you 12 wonderful magazines
with the latest abstracts and research on life extension/enhancement, along with
promotions for their vitamins/supplements. Members are offered a significant
discount on some of the highest quality supplements available. More relevant
to this list, these guys are among the few people on the planet, along with Ettinger
and Pichugan, who are supporting and conducting cryonic and cryogenic research.)
So when The Immortalist Manifesto--Stay Young and Save the World was positively
reviewed by Life Extension Magazine, I was inclined to pay 13 bucks or so and
add it to my LEF order.
Lovers of liberty, limited government, free enterprise, and capitalism will find
much to hate in this book. I found myself so annoyed by the author's self-aggrandisement,
arrogance, naivete', socialist ideology, and politics of envy, that I almost
missed the point of the whole book. As I am reading it, I am continually shocked
that the libertarian leaning LEF and Faloon are promoting this book. And then
it hit me squarely between the eyes, a paradigm shift that confirms what may
be true for most human beings, including me - "We don't have new ideas, we rearrange
our prejudices."
This annoying, arrogant, naive, would-be cult leader has a basic premise that
is profoundly and movingly right!
Death and aging are the universal themes of every life. And because this is the
way "it has always been," all culture, religion, philosophy, literature, and
even science has assumed that it is "only natural" that we age and die.
And "Elixxir" is powerful, original, and profound in his indictment of the cultural
norms that say that we can't fix this "natural" state.
Aging and Death are the elephant in our living room we are all trying to ignore,
to pretend these are not inexorable realities.
"Elixxir" (the author ... goes by one name, evidently) has issued a clarion call
that we are all dying, and the only way to fight the aging and death facing all
of us is to pressure government to create a "war on aging". He envisions this
as a parallel to the "race to the moon" of the 1960s, where Kennedy galvanized
a nation to do "the impossible" and in 1969 actually put a man on the moon.
The tone of the book is that of a manifesto. Parts of this book reminded me of
the screed penned by the Unabomber in its didacticism and criticism of current
capitalism. Other sections bring to mind The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx,
because of the author's astonishing socialism and insistence that capitalism
and greed are against life extension.
In summary, I am glad I read this book. Partly because it is good to challenge
one's basic paradigms occasionally.
And because I happen to agree with the author in one basic issue. Stopping aging
and death is the problem universal to all humans, and every other problem is
secondary.
Click here for more reviews and an opportunity to buy
UK readers click here for more reviews and an opportunity to buy
--
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