Apparently documentary films are often funded in chunks; they make part of it, put together a trailer to show around, and then get more money to finish it. I’m included in this part-way-through trailer for David Alvarado’s slick-looking new film on longevity:
Though the trailer is 2D, much of it was actually filmed in 3D, including a wide ranging lunch discussion with myself and my GMU colleagues. Hope that makes it into a final version.
Robert Koslover That trailer is quite good. I look forward to seeing the full movie.
MichaelG I wish people wouldn’t use the word “immortality” in these discussions. Immortality means forever — millions, billions of years. Your memories, even in artificial form, aren’t going to remain active for that long. Your body definitely isn’t.
Just stick to “live to be 1000″ or something. It’s much easier to envision. I also think a lot of people would say “no” to the idea in that form.
nikki_olson MichaelG,
I agree, the word ‘immortal’ presents a problem. Due to the history of the word and it’s association with mythology, it tends to suggest being ‘unable to die’. The preferred way of thinking about it (at least in the futurist community) is ‘indefinite lifespan’, meaning, that the end is up to you or dependent upon having a really bad accident, rather than it being up to biology. ‘Radical life extension’ is also better than ‘immortal’ as a way of looking at it.
I agree. The trailer looks quite good.
Abelard Lindsey I would use terms like postmortal or ageless instead of immortal. I think post-mortal is commonly used in hard-SF to describe people who have live extension. Any other suggestions?
BTW, the trailer has a lot of Greg Benford in it. Presumably, others such as Aubrey appear in the full movie.
Karl Hallowell Your memories, even in artificial form, aren’t going to remain active for that long.
Why not? No reason that memories or any other information couldn’t last till the heat death of the universe.
The odds seem to me to be heavily against it, but why not play the long odds?
That was pretty good.
mjgeddes Unfortunately for life extension proponents, current human society has signed our death warrents. Society for the most part treats individual people as totally disposable. Saw an article in the NZ Sunday paper about life in rest homes – confirmed what I already knew – old age is just horrible full-stop. Seniors have lost all status (treated like small children by rest-home staff, meals, activities all regulated, regarded as disposable). Yes, we really are surrounded by hordes of irrationals in a world gone mad.
Aubrey de Grey has to be in the movie. I was surprised not to see him in the clip.
I laughed at Robin’s scenes in the snow. I don’t think I’m atypical enough that it wouldn’t entertain others.
I don’t know how seriously r vs K selection in biology, but there do seem to be clear differences on that axis between species. Flies seem sufficiently different from us that life-extension genes in them would likely be very old news for us.
mjgeddes, maybe the elderly aren’t treated with dignity in such homes (understandable if they’ve lost enough function to assert their own decisions). But what is the effect on their length of life? I wouldn’t be surprised if it was significantly negative, but I definitely think it calls for some evidence.
Konkvistador I loved the trailer.
A tiny nitpick. I don’t know why but I feel that keeping the token of the pact for immortality with cult of the frozen head might be best kept hidden until . It looks a bit odd until its explained at 3:11.
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