Transhumanist Resources
Topic-Life Extension- The Centenarian
Information on living to an old age.
- Principia Cybernetica: Cybernetic Immortality
The successes of science make it possible for us to raise the banner of cybernetic immortality. The idea is that the human being is, in the last analysis, a certain form of organization of matter. This is a very sophisticated organization, which includes a high multilevel hierarchy of control. What we call our soul, or our consciousness, is associated with the highest level of this control hierarchy. This organization can survive a partial --- perhaps, even a complete --- change of the material from which it is built.
- Transhumanist Readings: Life Extension and Immortalism
- The Value of Health and Longevity. We develop an economic framework for valuing improvements to health and life expectancy, based on individuals’ willingness to pay. We then apply the framework to past and prospective reductions in mortality risks, both overall and for specific life-threatening diseases. We calculate (i) the social values of increased longevity for men and women over the 20th century; (ii) the social value of progress against various diseases after 1970; and (iii) the social value of potential future progress against various major categories of disease. The historical gains from increased longevity have been enormous. Over the 20th century, cumulative gains in life expectancy were worth over $1.2 million per person for both men and women. Between 1970 and 2000 increased longevity added about $3.2 trillion per year to national wealth, an uncounted value equal to about half of average annual GDP over the period. Reduced mortality from heart disease alone has increased the value of life by about $1.5 trillion per year since 1970. The potential gains from future innovations in health care are also extremely large. Even a modest 1 percent reduction in cancer mortality would be worth nearly $500 billion. (Murphy and Topel, U. of Yale)
- The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant.Once upon a time, the planet was tyrannized by a giant dragon... (A tale by Nick Bostrom)
- Death is an Outrage.While you were reading this sentence, a dozen people just died, worldwide. There. Another dozen people have perished. I think this is an outrage. I want to tell you why I think so, and what nanomedicine can do to help. (Robert A. Freitas Jr)
- Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence A practical approach to developing real anti-aging medicine (Aubrey de Grey)
- Recent Developments in the Ethics, Science, and Politics of Life-ExtensionBlackballing the reaper is an old ambition, and considerable progress has been made. For the past 150 years, best-performance life-expectancy (i.e. life-expectancy in the country where it is highest) has increased at a very steady rate of 3 months per year.1 Life expectancy for the ancient Romans was circa 23 years; today the average life-expectancy in the world is 64 years.2 Will this trend continue? What are the consequences if it does? And what ethical and political challenges does the prospect of life-extension create for us today? This article comments on some views on the ethics, science, and politics of lifeextension from a recent edited volume, The Fountain of Youth. (Nick Bostrom)
- Four minute introduction to transhumanism (Flash)
Very nice flash animation by Joel de Rosnay, covering biomaterials, bionics, stem cells, nanotechnology, robotics, and the symbiosis between man and machine.
It provides a concise four minutes introduction to transhumanism, highly recommended.
- Betterhumans
An independent transhumanist webzine.