From: Geoff Smith (geoffs@interchange.ubc.ca)
Date: Wed Mar 29 2000 - 03:38:52 MST
On Tue, 28 Mar 2000, Kevin Kelly wrote:
> As you point out, Robert, huge sums of money are already being diverted to
> health and longevity issues. In fact the desire for longevity is so obvious
> and the profits so sure, that it doesn't seem to me that anything other
> than the market is needed to make it happen.
I don't think a substantial desire for longevity -- and following from
that, substantial future profits -- is in the least bit obvious. It may
seem that way from spending enough time on this list, but in casual
conversation, I find people are generally opposed (often vehemently) to
the idea of indefinite lifespan. However, I think the general
population's opinions on death are highly swayable -- often deathist memes
are incongruent with the host's own values and beliefs, particularly
athiests. Often, people's opposition to death is just a bunch of
unconscious irrationalism: overpopulation concerns, "I will live on
through my children/ideas", "Near Death Experiences prove the existence of
an after-life." They just haven't thought about it, and there is no
widely available information to set them straight.
Which brings me back to what Natasha and Robert are saying. People are
acting against their self-interest. They need to be educated,
culturally. Plain, old-fashioned marketing. If there is any role for an
NGO, it is education. Once people are sold on the idea that a greatly
expanded lifespan is highly valuable for both themselves and most of
the people around them, the market demand and investment dollars will flow
naturally. There is a mantra embedded in the collective consciousness,
"The Internet is the Future." Seeing how that simple hypnotic phrase has
transformed our economy overnight, I can only imagine what the effects
would be after embedding a similar suggestion about longevity.
What the transhumanist movement really needs is a Strategic Marketing
Thinktank. The issues involved in promoting biological immortalism are
not very different from selling a vacuum: identify a value in your
customer that is fulfilled by your product, demonstrate this connection to
your customer, assess the reaction of your customer to this connection, if
the customer has reject your connection as invalid, reframe it or come up
with a new connection. Simple! Okay, not so simple, but a highly
creative and interesting art, and one that a lot of tranhumanists could
gain a lot from learning, myself included.
There is precedent for philosophical marketing. Christianity was so
brilliantly packaged, it spread through the Hellenic and Roman Empires
like wildfire. I believe the same is possible for extropian
memesets. Facilitated by the Internet, I think we can expect even better
results.
Geoff Smith
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