In a message dated 4/3/00 1:31:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
starman125@hotmail.com (John Grigg) writes:
< This may seem at first to be a good strategy but the problem is we will
need
the support of the 'comfortable thinkers' to advance our agenda for the
achievement of superlongevity because of negative public attitudes which may
form, spurred on by certain influential special interest groups. >>
John, I think you have brought up a consideration that must be taken into
account even as we proceed on our own without waiting for anyone.
There is no need to cite chapter and verse of pressure groups opposing
new ideas, or even old ideas, with varying degrees of success all is
necessary is to read a daily newspaper for a short while.
IMHO, let us go ahead with attempts to neutralize or even recruit the
average man to our cause. However let us also note the lack of success other
worthy causes have had; example, the effort to get people out to vote.
In the meantime it appears that a great deal of the life extension effort
is being carried on by private efforts motivated by people that want to live
longer and have the capital to finance their program.
In addition there seems to be research financed by the government. I met
a young lady doing research on a portion of the telemerase (spelling?)
problem. In her mind she was working on a problem contributing to her Ph.D.
and I don't believe she was really aware of the implications of what she was
doing. Or maybe she didn't want me to be aware of the implications of her
research? :)
Finally, if we can take the statements of present day researchers at face
value we have methods that will provide us major life extension available now
at reasonably low cost. My concern is to evaluate existing programs and use
any knowledge that passes the test. I imagine that is also the concern of
many others. Can you help us?
You also said: "As for the Bell Curve, the book's point about the
intelligent congregating together in communities and work as the 'nobility of
a meritocracy' does make sense to me but other things about that book were
very flawed."
I can't imagine any book as densely packed with statistics as THE BELL
CURVE not being flawed to one extent or another. To give an almost trivial
example can you imagine that any of the popular world almanacs don't contain
errors of fact?
However two things should be noted:
1. The major thrust of the book is the congregation of the Cognitive Elite
(the authors term, not mine) and no one to my knowledge has seriously
challenged that.
2. The challenges that have come concerned secondary issues. Those
challenges have been discussed online and in literature. Those that want to
study those issues can go straight to the sources. They don't need me to
give my second hand interpretation.
John, thank you for your response
Ron Harrison.
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