What is Immortalism? And why it just might help save your life. And why it could also help save our species Homo Sapiens from extinction.
What does Immortalism say about “the human condition” of Disease, Old Age, and Death? And how does it propose to solve these intractable existential problems? What does Immortalism say about Global Warming, Climate Change, Biodiversity Collapse, and Nuclear Holocaust…and about its father Industrial Capitalism? And how does it propose to fend off their apocalypse?
Fighting Cancer, Heart Disease, Stroke, Diabetes, Osteoporosis, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, Obesity, etc and frustrated over the lack of cures? Find out why after a century of biomedical research, no cures!
First of all, outrageously inadequate funding. In 2022, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the crown jewel of government-funded biomedical research on all types of cancers, heart disease, alzheimer’s, diabetes, osteoporosis, and human aging etc–got only US$45 billion. That’s after more than a hundred years in existence. In that same year 2022, the first year of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, Washington’s bipartisan aid to the Zelensky regime was over $100 billion. That’s 2.2 times bigger than the NIH budget.
The second reason why no cures: we are using the wrong research paradigm.
Will the lifesaving Breakthroughs for cancer, heart disease, stroke, obesity, alzheimer’s, osteoporosis, and other aging-related killers come in time to save you?
How can we speed up the Breakthroughs’ arrival?
How can we make sure The Breakthroughs will be affordable and accessible?
Why is a powerful Immortalist Movement essential for The Breakthroughs to come quickly? To save people struggling with Cancer, Heart Disease, Stroke, Diabetes, Osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s and other major killers.
Why is a global Immortalist Movement required to speed up the arrival of the anti-aging, disease-curing, and life-extending breakthroughs?
Beyond Religious & Utopian Immortalism
For most of human history, there was only one kind of immortalism: Religious Immortalism. Religion and Church had a death-grip monopoly on immortality in the afterlife. So long as enough people were able to believe, selling real estate in heaven was a hugely profitable franchise.
With Religion and Church in decline, and Science and Medicine in the ascendancy, a secular immortalism, one which could dream of immortality without God, without Church or Religion, arose. Since neither Science nor Medicine was advanced enough to make immortality-in-this-life possible, this secular immortalism was mostly Utopian Immortalism. Its immortality depends on a belief in the inexorable exponential progress of Science and Technology under Capitalism.
Transhumanism and Cryonics are examples of Utopian Immortalism; they also overlap significantly with Utopian Immortalism. The Transhumanist belief in “The Singularity” is similar to the evangelical Christian belief in “The Rapture.” Both doctrines are classic deus ex machina; they will solve all our problems, no matter how dire, and just in the nick of time to save us.
The ImmorTalist Manifesto
In 2001, The ImmorTalist Manifesto by Elixxir was published. In addition to debunking once and for all the mortalist arguments in praise of Death, Elixxir’s manifesto presented a compelling and comprehensive case for using science to cure Disease, Old Age, and Death.
Rejecting the faith and belief that Science and Technology under Capitalism will somehow inevitably produce the needed cures and breakthroughs, Elixxir argues that the Economy, State, and Government must be mobilized around the goal of curing Disease, Old Age, and Death to optimize the probability that the breakthroughs will come in time to save us.
Toward this end, a powerful immortalist movement and immortalist party are required worldwide, especially in nations with the most advanced biomedical research infrastructure.
To push State and Government toward this overriding goal of curing Disease, Old Age, and Death, Elixxir’s manifesto argued that a powerful immortalist movement and party are needed.
MSNBC correspondent and former Wired magazine Sci-Tech writer Brian Alexander called it an immortalist “classic.”
Life Extension magazine did a big rave review of the book, describing it as “an extraordinary book (that) challenges the belief that we must grow old and die.”
Oxford professor and Transhumanist Nick Bostrom was so excited by The Immortalist Manifesto he used it in his lectures.
In 2011, a revised edition of the manifesto was issued, entitled Cure Disease, Old Age & Death: The ImmorTalist Manifesto. This edition emphasized the existential threat of Global Warming, Climate Change, Biodiversity Collapse, and Nuclear Holocaust, and added the prevention of their nightmare scenarios to the Immortalist Agenda. So now the Immortalist Agenda is to 1) Cure Disease, Old Age, and Death; and 2) Prevent the apocalypse of Global Warming, Climate Change, Biodiversity Collapse, and Nuclear Holocaust.
Unlike Ray Kurzweil, transhumanist evangelist and prophet, who does not consider climate crisis and biodiversity collapse as serious problems since he believes science and technology can easily solve them. Especially when the so-called “Singularity” happens.
“The “Singularity” is to Transhumanists what the “Rapture” is to fundamentalist Christians,” Elixxir points out. “It solves all our existential problems, like mortality, as well as global warming, climate change, biodiversity collapse. It’s deus ex machina.”
In contrast, Elixxir argues that our lives and the fate of our species hinge on whether we succeed in creating a real Immortalist Movement and Party capable of liberating us from the chains of Disease and Aging.
Elixxir’s Immortalist Manifesto inaugurated 21st century Immortalism. For the first time, there is a scientific and political roadmap for curing Heart Disease, Cancer, Stroke, Diabetes, Osteoporosis, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and Obesity. And most of all, a roadmap for curing human biological aging, the Human Aging Syndrome…in time to save us.
Therefore, Elixxir’s Immortalist Manifesto is “a paradigm shift…powerful, original, profound, movingly right!”
The 3rd Revised edition is coming soon.
Stay Young & Save the World!