The Domesticated Primate

I found a new site...or rather, one found me. :) It's called longevitymeme.org. A very cool name. Longevity Meme. I like it. My earlier posting on True Mutations and Designer Evolution got picked up by a site I found intriguing, and a bit of my posting was commented on. This is a bit recursive; I'm quoting a site quoting me talking about a book. :)

For instance, and this is the most glaring one (although I didn't corroborate this) is that a new drug cannot be brought into the U.S. market unless it's to treat a condition or disease. Read that again. So, if something is developed to extend life or extend your current capabilities, like vision or hearing, it will not be approved. It's the 21st century. How can this type of thinking still be with us?"

It's quite true, and exactly why there are not dozens of companies in the US directly aiming at extending the healthy human life span. Those with the inclination are forced instead into disavowing any thought of treating the aging process. Their technological breakthroughs are relegated to patching up age-related diseases after the fact rather than reaching for rejuvenation and prevention of aging.

Anyway, I suggest clicking on over there as they provided links within that text to back up those statements appended to my remarks. Very nice. The bummer is that this backward thinking is true. :(


In other news, by sheer luck or synchronicity or whatever, disinfo.com just today also posted a link to an article about transhumanism in Reason magazine just today that longevitymeme also picked up and commented on earlier. Maybe this whole transhumanism thing (this longevity meme, if you will, but to me, transhumanism encompasses a lot more than just longevity) will start getting more legs. I noticed lots of coverage recently for the CR diet, and I notice that things like vegetarianism/veganism/raw veganism seems to be more and more common, etc. - the connection being that people are trying to live longer, though the switch may also be due to morality, I dunno. I know my switch to vegetarianism involved both, but I'm a bit of a hypocrite since I still eat eggs/cheese, I suppose, and which is also ethically dubious.

Anyway, maybe there are more Prometheans and Icaruses (Icarusii? Icarusix?) among us than I thought. And that can only be a good thing, IMHO. :)