If it weren't for the douche bags making a fuss over stem cell research, he could probably be using his own legs instead of a machine.

>> ^dgandhi:

Since this is an insurance funded project, I tend to think of it in terms of what a similarly funded project with different objectives might accomplish.
Consider the Mprize, which seeks to find ways to extend life. If some non-trivial subset of people bought life insurance with the Mprize as beneficiary we could potentially encourage the funding of the research needed to extend current human life. All the Mprizes research goals will needed to be meet for cryo to work, so why not put that horse before the cart?
To be immortal you simply have to live past the break-even point, where life is being extended as quickly as time is passing. It is entirely feasible that humans will become functionally immortal, but never reach the point where cryo bodies can be reanimated. Even if cryo does become feasible, the probability that current cryo systems will be compatible with real functioning cryo tech approaches 0.
The cryo companies are, effectively, siphoning resources of those interested in life extension into a bet with exceptionally bad odds. Why not bet on reaching the break-even point in your lifetime, instead of sinking resources into something which is extremely likely to have no benefits for anyone?


Cryo seems like a risky bet if you die tomorrow and want to be brought back to life before the year 2100, but if your time frame is more flexible, it seems like a different picture. It seems hard to imagine in a time when every individual's cheap mobile phone will possess greater information processing power than all of humankind today, that we won't be able to figure out what the structure of cryonic brains was before the cryonic damage occurred.

That being said, the average person born in e.g. 1975 seems to have an excellent chance of living to 2075 if they live a health lifestyle*, and it seems difficult to imagine that stem cells, nanomedicine, etc. won't have changed the face of medicine by that point. Innovation has continued fine even through the current global fiscal bust. Like you, I'm also a big supporter of the Mprize.

*Researchers find in the last 18 years in the US, "the number of people adhering to all 5 healthy habits has decreased from 15% to 8%." http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/006231.html
*"Recent scientific and medical evidence shows that a diet consisting of foods that are plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat will help prevent and often reverse most degenerative diseases that kill us and are expensive to treat. We should be able to live largely disease-free lives until we are well into our 90s and even past 100 years of age."http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204251404574342170072865070.html

this analysis

Where I think you, Maddow and Yglesias err is that you commit the all-too common mistake of mistaking 'Republicans' for 'Conservatives'.

Let us be blunt. GWB was NOT 'conservative'. Just because he supported the Military and opposed stem-cell research & abortion does not make him or any other Republican a conservative. No real conservative would have increased spending like GWB did. A true conservative does not increase federal power. He cuts it. He does not increase spending. He reduces it. He does not reduce freedoms (like Bush did). He increases them. There is a big difference between RINO big goverment 'compassionate' social conservatives (So-cons) and fiscal conservatives like Tea Party folks who want to cut taxes & spending. I know that the left likes to lump them all into the same bucket to make an easy target, but I stridently disagree with the position.

Yglesias is saying fiscal conservatives screwed things up. Such a statement is completely false. No fiscal conservative was running the show with GWB in office. He was all about so-called compassionate conservativism, and 'new tone' bipartisan social spending crap. So from where I sit, it is you and Yglesias who are trying to pull the false equivalence rhetorical fast one here. You're trying to have your cake by lambastic fiscal conservatism (which hasn't been practiced for decades) by using a bunch of RINO So-Con liberal Republicans as your example. That may fly with the less educated or the ignorant - but not with me.

In any case, it isn't germaine to the thread. Maddow is neither (A) original or (B) a journalist. Or are you suggesting that O'Rielly, Hannity, and Beck are original journalists? Because they point out Democrat hypocrisy all the time. Journalists report news. Journalism is very dry by nature, and is objective. Hacks advocate. Hacks are sensationalist by nature, and slanted. They are not the same. Which brings me to...

Pennypacker - blah blah moronic blah blah.

Merely because you disagree with my words does not make them moronic. Such a statement is a very Maddowian ad hominem approach. Very illogical.

Journalism is the conveyance of newsworthy material.

If it helps you to compartmentalize - then put the word GOOD in front. I'm talking about journalism as a field that can be respected and considered professional, fair, and neutral. There are all kinds of 'journalism' if you want to Yellow Journalism or gossip rags. But NEWS is another animal (or should be). In the true sense of the word Beck, Maddow, and all other opinion pundits are not 'journalists'. If you want to say guys like Limbaugh and Olbermann are journalists then that's your affair, but most other people are a tad more disciminating.

If he reported objective conditions i.e. facts without blind assertions he would qualify.

If this is your standard, then you have agreed with my original argument. Maddow is just as guilty as the rest at making things up. Her opinions about the Tea Party in particular. She grossly misrepresents them. During the protests last fall she routinely cherry picked isolated fringe radicals out of far larger, less salacious crowds and painted them as if they represented the Tea Party as a whole. This was just like when Limbaugh picked the whacko goons out of the anti-war rallies and said they were all kooks. Don't pretend to me that Maddow is somehow 'journalistic' and the other opinion pushers are not. Sell that bridge elsewhither.

1. She has a popular following. She's part of popular culture.

I would argue 'popular' is a term that only applies to a bigger audience than her measley average. The 3 AM test pattern has as big an audience as her show, but that doesn't make it an 'audience', or popular.

She's a journalist because she diggs deeper into a topic to find accurate support for any commentary she might interject to grab
viewers/listeners.

I perform that function here for the sifters. Does that make me a 'journalist'?

And not simply your subjective opinions/assertions.

Physician, heal thyself.

Why are other countries growing in sciences, while the USA lags behind? Religious Nutcases.

Why are other countries been studying stem cell research for the past decade, and the USA is just NOW, getting around to it? Republicans

Why are students more interested in becoming lawyers, TV-reality waste-oids, and drug taking atheltes? Greed.

So, religious, greedy, republicans, are what is making the USA fall behind against other countries in the sciences. Heck, the Theory of Evolution and Creationism talk about two totally different concepts. One talks about survival of the fittest, and the other how everything got started. One doesn't talk about how the universe and planet came in to being. The other doesn't talk about (beyond the social injustices of 2K years ago) what happen SINCE, the start of things. But dont try to educate a religious idiot on this. They think it's just some trick of evil science to weaken their already lame faith, and even lesser ego's.

So yes, since science is not really that important to the USA. that will soon mean, engineering will not be to popular to study (since engineers actually do something with the crap scientists discover). And we won't have to worry about producing anything of value to anyone beyond the borders of the USA. Since they can already produce the goods and services they need.

Yes, lets all thank the greedy, religious republicans for this recession, which is just the start, in a long list of decomplishments (is that a word? Is now...), the USA will be known for, for the next few years, if not decades!

One of the only things that the Obama administration is actually moving in the right direction. At some point they will learn the lesson that prohibition taught us decades ago. I'm a teatotaller, and the only 'drug' I've ever taken are antibiotics. But I fully support the move to end government's 'war on drugs'. I believe people that takes drugs recreationally are idiots, but that's my opinion and legal policy should not be based on moral opposition to a cause. That goes for abortions, gay marriage, and stem cell research too.

In 15 or 30 years, science will give her the face she wants using stem cell-based treatments. (Assuming civilization doesn't experience a greater slow-down than we've seen already in the last year.) Her condition is temporary.

That kind of progress is happening before our eyes:
"Groundbreaking Stem Cell Surgery Gives Boy New Cheekbones: Genetic Defect Causes Underdeveloped Facial Bones, Tissues." ABC News, Oct. 2009.

1. We support the union of all United States citizens for a greater good on the basis of the right of national and global self-determination.
What do they actually propose here? Isn't the UNITED states already a union? Or do they want to change something?

2. We support equality of rights for the United States citizens in its dealings with other nations.
Seems reasonable, but this is not really something that can be settled internally in the US, the "other nations" would have to agree as well. Internally, of course, anyone should be allowed to trade internationally as they please, not some people favored.

3. We support land and territory to feed our people and to settle our surplus population.
Either this is a painfully obvious point, or something more sinister is behind it. "We will grow stuff and farm it", well sure, knock yourselves out. "We will clear nature preserves and such to increase our use of the land" Less good. "We will only use what land is necessary to support the people." Better. A matter of interpretation.

4. We propose that the United States shall make it its primary duty to provide a livelihood for its citizens.
A job at all costs? Jobs can't just be created out of thin air - there has to be a reason for them. Welfare is better than a job that has no value.

5. We propose all citizens shall have equal rights and duties.
Well, duh.

6. It must be the first duty of every citizen to perform physical or mental work. The activities of the individual must not clash with the general interest, but must proceed within the framework of the community and be for the general good.
Yes and no. I agree that the first duty of a citizen should be to work, but this is indirectly determined by the fact that if you don't work--> you don't earn--> you die. Whether or not something "clashes with general interest" is harder to define, because plenty of work has not been in the gneral interest, but have been useful in the end anyway. Say, stem-cell research. No matter how many people want to ban it should not matter, because it is indeed useful to the survival of the human race.

7. We support the abolition of incomes unearned by work.
End welfare? Sure, but then you'll have to make up dummy-jobs, which in the end is welfare anyway. I can see the value in getting cheap labor this way, but I think this is worse than just plain welfare until a real job comes around.

8. In view of the enormous sacrifices of life and property demanded of a nation by any war, personal enrichment from war must be regarded as a crime against the nation. We demand therefore the confiscation of all war profits.
End wars. Sounds noble enough. Confiscating war profits sounds an awful lot like theft though. What needs to be done, is make sure that there is fair dealings in companies that provide services for war - the corruption that makes sure that companies like blackwater and halliburton gets all the deals must be quelled. A company exists in part to create profit for its people - if no profit should be made on war, then the state should make its own stuff. It is the one "company" that shouldn't make a profit.

9. We support the nationalization of all businesses which have been formed into corporations (trusts).
Uhm, what!? I think this is a bad idea. Oversight, bureaucracy, conflicts of interest are all stuff I can see arising for this. If something has gotten big, it's because people have bought their product. We shouldn't penalize a good company just because it's big.

10. We support profit-sharing in large industrial enterprises.
Again, what the hell is this? "Oh poor apple, I see you haven't made as much profits as us.. here, have some money." - microsoft. That's just stupid.

11. We support the extensive development of insurance for old age.
Fair. Pension should be maintained for those who need it.

12. We support the creation and maintenance of a healthy middle class, the immediate communalizing of big department stores, and their lease at a cheap rate to small traders, and that the utmost consideration shall be shown to all small traders in the placing of national and municipal orders.
I don't like the concept of classes - mostly because I don't think it's all that applicable anymore. People should get payed for their abilities + supply/demand of the job. And again they want to take the "evil big stores" and turn them into nice little stores. It's a dream world, Neo. They are not big because they are evil, they are big because they sell a good product. If you want to "level the playing field", then give incentives to make jobs locally and penalize foreign jobs (like sweatshops and such).

13. We support a land reform suitable to our national requirements, the passing of a law for the expropriation of land for communal purposes without compensation; the abolition of ground rent, and the prohibition of all speculation in land.
"Expropriation of land for communal purposes without compensation".. get the fuck out of here. This land is my land, that land is your land♫ let's keep it that way. If there is a dire communal need for some of MY land, then you can well enough buy it from me, so I can move somewhere better.

14. The United States must consider a thorough reconstruction of our national system of education (with the aim of opening up to every able and hard-working American the possibility of higher education and of thus obtaining advancement). The curricula of all educational establishments must be brought into line with the requirements of practical life. The aim of the school must be to give the pupil, beginning with the first sign of intelligence, a grasp of the nation (through the study of civic affairs). We propose the education of gifted children of poor parents, whatever their class or occupation, at the expense of the State.
Education must be reformed, I agree, but this is not the way to do it. "Practical life"? There are plenty of things that ought to be taught that have nothing to do with practical life, biology, chemistry, mathematics (beyond the basics), history - we can't all go to knitting and shop-class. And in the higher educations the subjects become even more esoteric. What's "practical life" for some, is not at all for others. Hell, specialization is the cornerstone of education.

15. The nation must ensure that health standards are raised by protecting mothers and infants, by prohibiting child labor, by promoting physical strength through legislation providing for compulsory gymnastics and sports, and by the extensive support of clubs engaged in the physical training of youth.
Mandatory fat camps! Heh, I do think that gymnastics and sports should be mandatory in school, but that's it. English is mandatory too, why not some for of physical activity? I don't think that adults should be compelled to do sports directly though - that's their choice. I would rather that incentives were made to be healthy, or maybe certain penalties for being grossly unhealthy.

16. We propose the Federal abolition of any militia except as implemented by Congress.
Of course. There should only be one army. If you want to make "Bob's army" you can go off and make "Bob's Country" and do it.

17. To put the whole of this program into effect, we support a strong central power for the United States Federal Government; and the formation of Corporations based on estate and occupation for the purpose of carrying out the general legislation passed by Congress in the United States.

This seems to be against what's been said earlier. Now they want to MAKE corporations? Confusing. Don't they trust the states to carry out the legislation?

Neocon is inflammatory when used to portray everyday conservative politics as extremist

Agreed.

There are splinter groups, factions, lobbys, and advocates of all stripes on both sides of the asile. But neolib is 'left' as neocon is 'right' and both are very much movements. It'll shock you, but I think the Republican party today is dominated by neolibs. They are big government tax & spenders - and that's leftist. There are precious few fiscal conservatives, and we desperately need to put a bunch of fiscal 'neocons' in charge. The problem is that neocons are cumbered with a lot of stupid right wing social voters who are myopically focused on irrelevant garbage like abortion, stem cells, gay rights, and all that sort of stuff.

Agreed.

Frankly - I wouldn't care if we elected a President that legalized drugs, legalized gay marriage, loved abortion, and shot stem cells out of fire hoses. If he was a true FISCAL CONSERVATIVE who would balance the budget, reduce the size of the federal government, and put our spending in the black then I'd vote for them without thinking once.

Agreed, although we'd probably disagree on exactly how to reduce the size of government.

Yeah - and Madcow, Olbermann & left wing pundits are painting average citizens as right wing nut-jobs just because they are protesting Obama's huge deficit spending & other leftist politics.

Disagree. They are definitely inflammatory but from what I've seen on the sift, they tend to focus on the nut-jobs and on how they are protesting. It's better for ratings.

How many vids have shown up on the sift that lambaste the protesters, call them nazis, and otherwise impugn the free political speech of people who lean right? A lot. Pot - meet kettle.

Again, the vids not so much, it wouldn't be interesting. Comments on the other hand, yeah there is a lot of name-calling. Not nice, but not attacking free speech. As long as you aren't calling for banning or silencing the other (admittedly there is some of that, which I don't agree with either), I see it as merely the right to show your disagreement. As I said before, your use of neolib, well thats just something I have to get used to. (Although I still don't think it has the intended effect of countering the use of neocon.)

I still think the term neolib is inflammatory as opposed to balancing out the misuse of neocon

Neocon is inflammatory when used to portray everyday conservative politics as extremist. The left has no grounds to take umbrage when the tactic boomerangs and they are painted as the extremists. That's the zeitgeist.

I don't see any evidence that there is a unified liberal movement with those ideas as part of its platform. That's how you see it because you conceive of yourself as being opposed to them.

Well - I never said they were one unified movement. They are a philosophy and a political point of view. There isn't one 'unified movement' for the neocons either. There are splinter groups, factions, lobbys, and advocates of all stripes on both sides of the asile. But neolib is 'left' as neocon is 'right' and both are very much movements. It'll shock you, but I think the Republican party today is dominated by neolibs. They are big government tax & spenders - and that's leftist. There are precious few fiscal conservatives, and we desperately need to put a bunch of fiscal 'neocons' in charge. The problem is that neocons are cumbered with a lot of stupid right wing social voters who are myopically focused on irrelevant garbage like abortion, stem cells, gay rights, and all that sort of stuff.

Frankly - I wouldn't care if we elected a President that legalized drugs, legalized gay marriage, loved abortion, and shot stem cells out of fire hoses. If he was a true FISCAL CONSERVATIVE who would balance the budget, reduce the size of the federal government, and put our spending in the black then I'd vote for them without thinking once.

But if you listen to those pundits, they paint me and anyone that dislikes them with the same brush, we're all zombies for Obama, communists, or "neolibs."

Yeah - and Madcow, Olbermann & left wing pundits are painting average citizens as right wing nut-jobs just because they are protesting Obama's huge deficit spending & other leftist politics. Go figure... How many vids have shown up on the sift that lambaste the protesters, call them nazis, and otherwise impugn the free political speech of people who lean right? A lot. Pot - meet kettle.

The record for longest human lifespan is currently held by Jeanne Calment, who lived to 122. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment

She did that with 20th century technology, and she wasn't even an intellectual or highly motivated.

We've already entered the age of organ regeneration... growing new organs from our own cell... and it's already saving lives. I think it will pass regulatory hurdles and come in to widespread usage within 10 or 20 years.

Genome sequencing is down from $250k a year ago to $5k now (http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/006527.html). In 10 or 20 years most people will have their genomes sequenced, and medicine will no longer be a crap shoot.

Experts say that most drugs, whatever the disease, work for only about half the people who take them. Not only is much of the nation’s approximately $300 billion annual drug spending wasted, but countless patients are being exposed unnecessarily to side effects.

[Conventional] studies tend to be “one size fits all,” with the winning treatment recommended for everybody. Personalized medicine would go beyond that by determining which drug is best for which patient, rather than continuing to treat everyone the same in hopes of benefiting the fortunate few. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/30/business/30gene.html?ex=1388379600&en=a3e1de30bab852a6&ei=5124&partner=facebook&exprod=facebook

If you die in 2050, that sounds like a waste, because I think it's highly unlikely I won't live into the 2100s. Imagine where technology will be in 2100.

------------------------------
Re: 'world of criminals'

I think the idea of humans as possessing 'personhood' is a simplistic model. The deeper you dig in the cognitive sciences and the human sciences in general, the more clear it becomes that human thought outputs and behavioral outputs are just the result of deterministic mechanisms. Looking at humans as 'persons' isn't looking at a deep enough level of detail... and it makes us take things 'personally' -- as if the decision agents (in a game theory sense) we're interacting with are 'persons.' Humans want to be good... they just have simplistic, unmotivated brains.

Change the inputs, and the outputs will change. Embryo selection is borderline-practical today, and it's increasingly being used. My prediction is by 2030 5% of births (in wealthy countries) will be using it (for cosmetic and temperament improvements - e.g. reduced addictive behavior, greater motivation, less 'social learners' and more 'infovores'), and by 2060 60% of births will be using it. When those generations reach 25 years old, they'll be starting to influence society, which will be 2055 and 2085, respectively.

However, by 2055, I think we'll have neurotechnology that achieves most of the large goals of neurogenetic change: next-generation neuropharmaceuticals, neuroimplants, and changes to the organization of our neural tissue using stem cells.

I believe the future is humanistic and humanitarian. And the world is incompetent, waiting for us to influence the arc of history.

IMHO, anyway.

What do you think?


------------------------------

In reply to this comment by gorillaman:
I think we're going to miss SENS by at least a generation. The way I treat my body I'm expecting to die around 40.

Doesn't it gnaw at you that, living in a world mostly populated by criminals, any good you do will primarily benefit them?

In reply to this comment by chilaxe:
Gorillaman, we're young enough that we have a decent chance of living to see the fulfillment of SENS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey_de_Grey).

Doesn't that make you want to do something with your life that's ingenious and constructive, helping out the common good, instead of just pursuing vendettas?

I've noticed four sub groups, to the three camps in the poltical arena. We have the traditional three: Conservatives, Moderates, and Liberals. But the conservatives & liberals have two other groups: the comprimisers and the fanatics.

Comprimisers, tend to think on legistation, and talk with their counter-parts on the isle. Finding ways to agree to one thing, but come half way on another issue. In do this, they can they have the other side, come to their side on an issue. Its a give & take relationship. When that happens, alot of good works come out of congress, and help propell this country forward.

Fanatics, are the opposite. They take the route of 'my way or the highway' attitude towards discussions. They would not move an inch on their position, regardless if God, Himself, said so. These are also the ones who just flat-out reject the other side, regardless of the issue or arguement. Even if the issue stands to help their side of the arguement.

Today's politics, has these four groups, a compriser & fanatic to each side. The liberal side seems (for the moment), to have a heavy percentage of comprisers then fanatics. Were as conservatives, have a heavy amount of fanatics to comprisers. This creates a huge amount of tension on even simple issues (like education, and the President talking to American children), let alone a complication issue (like Health Care in the USA). We actually call these fanatics the 'neo-' group. Neo-lib, or neolib, and the neo-cons.

Moderates, however, tend to not be as full of passion on the subject matter. They are there, and discuss of things. They tend to have mixed views, liking the ideas of one side, and the other. Some try to bridge the gap of the arguement, to bring a consenus and move on to the next task at hand. And some, rather enjoy the chaos that is created, and just hangs on. Since, the issue will come up in the next election, and judging on how people in their home area feel, is how they market themselves. Which is why many of the issues we all say come up on the Democratic and Republican sides, are the same ones from 1930! Yes, some issues, are new-er, due to history conditions (i.e. events of Sept. 9, 2001, and following it), and some due to technology (i.e. stem cell research and the Internet). But most issues, are just blown over from issues that go back decades.

If there's something defensible/good about these things, I can't see it.

Stem cell science and gene therapy will eventually cure them. (If we want them cured.)

Natural breast implants made from the patient's own stem cells are on their way and are already working in the lab.

Relying on the inequities of the genetic lottery doesn't seem consistent with our principles, so I think stem cell based cosmetic treatments are a step forward.

It's not just violence he's concerned about. Education, social advancement, technology, medicine, politics are all affected by religion. The policies of the above (partial) listing of issues are guided by the beliefs of the men and women behind making them.

Want some violence-free examples? Terrific.

1) Intelligent design in science classrooms
2) Parents denying the papilloma virus vaccine to their daughters because (to them) cancer is a valuable deterrent to pre-marital sex
3) the treatment of women in the arab world
4) impeding stem cell research
5) the Pope's claim that while AIDS is bad, condoms are worse
6) George W. Bush (sorry, that's a violence example...my bad)

So while he doesn't go into the above in THIS video, his books are replete with religion-related concerns of a wide variety, violence being a big one, yes, and justifiably so.

>> ^ponceleon:
So does the guy now not believe in God? I mean the equation was pretty simple and it failed...
ooh, speaking of fail
Also, I always get pissed off when people say that "god gave us the gift of doctors." Fuck you. Doctors went to medical school for 4 years and studies SCIENCE. They didn't get "blessed" with some "magic" power allowing them to wave their hands around and cure people... After all, these doctors also perform abortions and stem cell research, how do you know which ones are god-approved?
As for the Israel thing... oh just stfu... I don't even know where to begin with that crap. The religious significance of a shitty piece of desert has the world in turmoil and none of them can see that they are all delusional followers of fairy tales? All I got to do is watch idiots carrying crosses down a street, dopes bobbing their heads in front of a wall, or lemmings walking in circles around a rock to know that none of these religions (or any for that matter) know a damned thing about the nature of the universe.



Your doctors have only 4 YEARS of college!!?
That's fucked up.

OH and it's called MEDICAL SCIENCE. It's not a branch of physics and you don't have to know squat about math. It's also the only "science" where having a smile on your face helps the the experiment go more smoothly. And where the "object" that's experimented on has it's own voice.