Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Containing more than 160 essays from over 40 contributors, this edited volume of essays on the science, philosophy and politics of longevity considers the project of ending aging and abolishing involuntary death-by-disease from a variety of viewpoints: scientific, technological, philosophical, pragmatic, artistic. In it you will find not only information on the ways in which science and medicine are bringing about the potential to reverse aging and defeat death within many of our own lifetimes, as well as the ways that you can increase your own longevity today in order to be there for tomorrow’s promise, but also a glimpse at the art, philosophy and politics of longevity as well – areas that will become increasingly important as we realize that advocacy, lobbying and activism can play as large a part in the hastening of progress in indefinite lifespans as science and technology can.

The collection is edited by Franco Cortese. Its contributing authors include William H. Andrews, Ph.D., Rachel Armstrong, Ph.D., Jonathan Betchtel, Yaniv Chen, Clyde DeSouza, Freija van Diujne, Ph.D., John Ellis, Ph.D., Linda Gamble, Roen Horn, the International Longevity Alliance (ILA), Zoltan Istvan, David Kekich (President & C.E.O of Maximum Life Foundation), Randal A. Koene, Ph.D., Maria Konovalenko, M.Sc. (Program Coordinator for the Science for Life Extension Foundation), Marios Kyriazis, MD, M.Sc MIBiol, CBiol (Founder of the ELPIs Foundation for Indefinite Lifespans and the medical advisor for the British Longevity Society), John R. Leonard (Director of Japan Longevity Alliance), Alex Lightman, Movement for Indefinite Life Extension (MILE), Josh Mitteldorf, Ph.D., Tom Mooney (Executive Director of the Coalition to Extend Life), Max More, Ph.D. , B.J. Murphy, Joern Pallensen, Dick Pelletier, Hank Pellissier (Founder of Brighter Brains Institute), Giulio Prisco, Marc Ransford, Jameson Rohrer, Martine Rothblatt, Ph.D., MBA, JD., Peter Rothman (editor-in-chief of H+ Magazine), Giovanni Santostasi, Ph.D (Director of Immortal Life Magazine, Eric Schulke, Jason Silva , R.U. Sirius, Ilia Stambler, Ph.D (activist at the International Longevity Alliance), G. Stolyarov II (editor-in-chief of The Rational Argumentator), Winslow Strong, Jason Sussberg, Violetta Karkucinska, David Westmorland, Peter Wicks, Ph.D, and Jason Xu (director of Longevity Party China and Longevity Party Taiwan).

Available on Amazon today!

black.banner.large.new.typeJust over three months ago I found an organization called “Lifeboat.” I’d been interviewing experts from a variety fields about the issues and opportunities of moving beyond our present human potential (technologically or otherwise), and decided to reach out to a community with many perspectives and different areas of expertise. When I emailed Eric Klein at Lifeboat, my message was something as simple as:

Daniel: “Might it be possible to connect with one of your experts for 15–20 over the course of the coming month? I didn’t want to email them without contacting your Foundation itself, first.”

Eric: “This is fine.”

Little did I know that a message would be cast out to the vast network of Lifeboat members, and the next three months would be a flurry of back-and-forth emails, fascinating conversations, and writing new articles.

For this I’m more than grateful, but more importantly, I’ve been able to glean something important from all these talks with Lifeboat members in so many fields. I decided that if I’m going to catch up with PhDs and future thinkers in dozen’s of fields, I need to keep at least one question the same for all of them, to glean and pool their interdisciplinary insights in a meaningful — if not interesting — way.

The question I settled on was this: “What can we do as scientists, businesspeople, leaders and thinkers to move the world forward in a beneficial way — together — despite so many differing opinions and approaches from other well-intended people working towards the same purpose?” Ultimately, I saw this question as not only the most fruitful way to encourage some of the collaboration and mutual understanding that I happen to deem vital, but also to poke and prod for new ideas on this subject from the varied corners of the intellectual and scientific universes.

So in this article I wanted to take a second and slow down from interviews, and for the first time write about the differing perspectives on this most important matter — all from “Lifeboat-ers” from around the world.

Building a Better Future — Ideas from Lifeboat’s Experts

First, I’ll explore some of the varied opinions and perspectives from individual Lifeboat members. Second, I’ll look at some of the few commonalities across my many interviews — and what we might glean from them. Third, I’ll give my own perspective on the matter of building a better future, and some insights from the journey of the last three months. Let it be known that I don’t dogmatically adhere to any of the opinions expressed, but I aim to be open-minded enough to consider and learn from each. My intention here is solely to share opinions in the kind of well-intended fashion that I hope will be productive for the purposes expressed.

Dr. Ben Goertzel — A Shift in the Nature of Philosophy and Science

Ben Goertzel Dan FaggellaOne of my first Lifeboat interviews in June was with the one and only Dr. Ben Goertzel, head of the OpenCog Project and renown father of what is known as Artificial General Intelligence. When I posed the question about the “best path forward” at the end of my hour-long interview with Ben (http://sentientpotential.com/ben-goertzel-interview-humans-n…-the-pack/), he referred to our surpassing of present notions of Philosophy and Science. “Only a few hundred years ago, philosophy and science were one-and-the-same… with scientists referred to as ‘natural philosophers.’”

In the future, Goertzel predicts a complete surpassing of our present notions of science, the universe, cognition, and philosophy. Indeed, these are merely present constructs, and to Ben, the enhancement of intelligence and consciousness will shed new light on the material and metaphysical universe than our present human perspective is capable of shedding. In this way, what will make the future better might be an openness these these huge developments, and a willingness to escape any shell-like notions of our present human perspective and condition.

Dr. Soenke Ziesche — Don’t Leave Out the 3rd World

Sentient Potential InterviewDr. Ziesche is a humanitarian, working with the United Nations since 2000 on projects varying from earthquake relief to information management, with locations as diverse as New York City and Sudan. His PhD from the University of Hamburg focused on cognitive science and AI. His advice for keeping a true perspective of “world benefit” in mind is to “keep in mind the bigger picture… the situation of poor people in countries that are not as privileged as the people are in the places where this research (about artificial intelligence and emerging technology) happens.”

He is not alone in the belief that we may “leave behind” the poorer or large technologically isolated populations when technologies develop (though Kurzweil seems to argue against the likelihood of this scenario: http://www.singularity.com/qanda.html). Soenke believes that the possibility of neglect is real, and that factoring in the opportunity and wellbeing of the huge percentages of the human populations in 3rd world conditions would be a massive oversight of technological development if it aims towards “the good.”

Logan Stroendj — Someone’s Got to Try It

Logan Streondj interview - Lifeboat foundationI ran into Logan through some of his articles, and a general interest in his “human speakable programming language” project. In our conversation about the future of humanity and the varied approaches to moving forward, he mentioned that it might make sense to have “voluntary communities” of individuals who are interested in a certain “mode” of living, or a certain dynamic of progress in the human condition. For example, there might be a geographic location where people interested in brain and cognitive research go to explore these matters in a more concentrated and concerted fashion, and another region where people interested in recycling and reusing materials can live to further apply and research in that world.

Logan’s potential vision would involve a kind of super-computer of a potential global state which aggregates the insights from these various research activities and makes it available to be used be any and all of the communities on or off of our planet. Logan goes so far as to say that there very well may be a segment of the population who would voluntarily create a community where pillaging and plundering are commonplace, and chaos rules — and that it may be best to not only allow these like-minded people to live that particular kind of life — but that like the rest of the “communities,” there is likely something to be learned and gleaned from what happens in this social experiment, as well.

Dr. Russell Blackford — Policy

Russel Blackford VimeoDr. Russell Blackford is an active writer, editor, philosopher, and more, and is presently writing a book called “50 Great Myths About Atheism.” His perspective on the matter of overall human progress was that there should be — at least in our present age — a policy and decision-making process based around the traditional liberal values of preventing harm, or bringing about a secular benefit. An example of policy that seems to go against these standards includes many laws that involve stem cells, which Dr. Blackford believes to give credence to embryos which exists within a religious notion rather than empirical evidence about the “live” or lack-there-of of an embryo. In his full interview he goes into significant detail on policy-making with a non-secular agenda.

Though he is wary of dogma, he sees these very values as keeping dogma at bay, and that there sanctity might help keep the conversations and progress of technology and humanity grounded in as much objectivity and rationality as possible.

Commonalities, Similar Themes from Experts Around the World

Though I was certainly able to drink in a good number of perspectives from my varied interviews, there were also enough common “themes” for me to take notice.

One of which is the idea of collaboration and an interdisciplinary approach to the pursuit of a “better” future. Few of the thinkers I spoke with happened to give an explicitly closed-minded conception of what “better” implies, or how we can go about attaining it. “The more perspectives, the better” seems to be a shared notion — and the recognition that the insights gleaned from one domain should be accessible and

Transparency is a second theme that appeared enough to mention here. One application of this idea is the easy transmission of knowledge across domains, countries, and languages. In another light, “transparency” implies knowing what the world is up to in order to make sure we’re keeping dangerous experiments and malicious intentions from causing serious harm. It sure is nice to know what the rest of the nanotech world is up to in terms of building off of their findings, but it’s also important to understand where the new dangers might have been found, or to stop a team of researchers working on something terribly destructive.

A final commonality with the thinkers I spoke with (Blackford and Goertzel mentioned here, amongst many others) was the idea of open-mindedness and remaining unfettered by particular ideologies. With so much change underway, not only is it likely to be harder than ever to function under an ideology (say the experts I spoke with), but a particular ideology tends to impose it’s views on the past and future, limiting growth and the potential for important change.

Conclusion, and a Word from the Author

Aubrey de Grey InterviewAll in all, my experience with Lifeboat interviews has been a rewarding one, and has certainly helped me to round out my own conceptions of what a “better” future might be, and how we might go about moving towards one.

Though I aim to be as ever-flexible with my notions (having never escaped Hume’s Fork), I am congenial with many of the common ideas that many of the thinkers I’ve interviewed have expressed. First, I have the utmost reverence for the idea of remaining open-minded in our transition forward, and in collaborating across language and geographic boundaries. I strongly believe that this kind of access and pooled effort is necessary for the heights of not just technological progress, but indeed “wisdom,” which seems equally as important in a future of greater technological power. Aubrey de Grey mentioned in our interview that science fiction books often sell because they relate to and reinforce the present more than they create reasonable new possibilities for the future. Let’s hope that we can avoid putting on the “future-blinders” as we make a transition forward in science, social policy, medicine, etc…

I would add, if I could, that maintaining a united kind of collaboration with shared positive intentions would appear to be the ideal. The shame would be any kind of conflict with it’s origin in differing approaches to a better future (especially in speaking to so many well-intended and hard-working people from around the world in various fields). If we are truly after the same “end” (though putting a definition to that “end” seems awfully dangerous) of an aggregately better future, my truest hope is that we would be open to learning from one another, and wary of “enemizing” others so long as there is no danger or malice in their approach. Escaping our tendency to fossilize certain ideological beliefs, or to take other approaches in an open-minded and not personal fashion would seem to be a greater challenge (at least in our present human condition) than many of the technological hurdles we’re trying to jump at present.

Indeed, would there be no greater shame than for this very enthusiasm for a “better future” (potentially wrought and tainted with the insidious forces of egotism, greed or glory) to be the force the prevents a “better future” from ever happening?

I’d like to thank all of the Lifeboat members who were kind enough to share their thoughts and catch up with me at Sentient Potential, including Aubrey de Grey, Ben Goertzel, Dr. Russell Blackford, amongst so many others.

With the best of intentions for a brilliant future,

Daniel Faggella

Daniel Faggella (Google + Profile) is a graduate of UPENN with a Master’s degree in Applied Positive Psychology, a national martial arts champion, and author of “Explorations into the Philosophy of Transhumanism.” Attached to no specific school of thought, his pursuit at www.SentientPotential.com is to pool the insight of the world’s scientists and future thinkers in a grander global conversation about the collaborative progress of humanity.

A full view of the future has to consider a huge range of time scales. Freeman Dyson pointed this out (as D. Hutchinson alerted me). I borrowed his idea in the following passage from my book, The Human Race to the Future, published by the Lifeboat Foundation.

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Our journey into the future begins by asking what the next hundred years will be like. Call that century-long time frame the “first generation” of future history. After a baker’s dozen or so chapters we then move to the second generation — the next order of magnitude after a hundred — the next thousand years. The seventh generation then has a ten million year horizon, the very distant future. Beyond the seventh generation are time horizons above even ten million years. This “powers of ten” scaling of future history was used by well-known physicist Freeman Dyson in chapter 4 of his 1997 book, Imagined Worlds.
—

Technical update on the ebook edition: Many Kindle devices and reader software systems have a menu item for jumping to the table of contents, and another menu item for jumping to the “beginning” of a book, however that is defined. I found out how to build an ebook that defines these locations so that the menu items work. You can use basic html commands. To define the location of the table of contents, you can insert into the html code of the book, right where the table of contents begins, the following html command:

<a name="toc"></a>

And now the user can click on the device or reader software’s “table of contents” menu item and they go straight to the table of contents!

To define the “beginning” of the book where you, as the author, want users to go when they click the “beginning” menu item (title page? Chapter 1? You decide), just put the following html command at that location in the ebook’s html source:

<a name="start"></a>

…and now that works too!

Of course you can use MS Word, Dreamweaver, etc., instead of editing the raw html, but ultimately those editors do it by inserting the same html commands.

The imposition of compositional structure within the craft of writing was recently pointed out to me. As students we are told repeatedly to open, elaborate and conclude a writing work. This carries on into so-called professional life. Indeed the questions that arise during the course of any given writing work are outside the scope of the work itself, the material of the work deals with facts and recommendations, which are based on our conclusions. To end a piece of professional or student work without conclusions and with questions would be seen as a lack of seriousness. We believe time invested into investigation is only worthy if we emerge with answers. And the answers we are to have begin with our original questions and are influenced by the way we approach the questions. And yet we approach the questions knowing they will need to be answered and so our opening approach is very limited. We not only formulate opening questions we feel we will have a good chance of answering, but our entire attention during the duration of looking at the question is focused on finding an answer. So where is the originality then in our thought? And where is the opportunity to explore the limitations of thought itself as it is applied to the complexity and urgency of matters in the world? If my opening point of inquiry is designed to be something I know I can find an answer for, then certainly I have no opportunity to go beyond what I know to address it, not really, and so there is nothing new. And if I begin a problem knowing I will be judged on finding an answer for that problem then I will necessarily limit or eliminate any point of fact or inquiry that takes me from that task. The generally accepted process and presentation of writing today is linear and monolithic in an academic and professional context. We talk about complexity and interrelatedness but we judge, evaluate and reward a written approach to that complexity and interrelatedness according to how well it fits into what we already know and according to the standards we have already found to be acceptable. Because we are bound to our knowledge and our processes of merit through training, repetition, various forms of aggrandizement and institutional awareness, however subtle or overt, we disregard or penalize information and modalities that fall outside our realm of knowing. Therein, the places we go to fulfill our knowing may expand (geographically or otherwise) but the way we approach and arrive at knowing remains the same. Although some may develop original technical innovations, those technical innovations will be used as tools to serve the knowledge system that is already established within any given realm of inquiry.

Our assumptions and biases about knowledge creation are interwoven with our experiences, our interpretations of those experiences, and our identification with the experiences and interpretations. Patterns emerge and we craft a self through the mosaic and soon that mosaic can stand in for our self. When that mosaic of experience and interpretation is cultivated through authority and the authority of our own experience and sense of self, we will extend our sense of authority into the realm of that which we already know. In this we are setting up a subtle preoccupation with what we know and with the familiar way we arrive at knowledge while simultaneously we derive a prejudice against what we do not know and also any unknown means to cultivate the known.

For example, pretend I am a teacher with a PhD, many people have applauded my research and I publish books, give famous lectures and have tenure at a prestigious school. I feel confident in my work and consider myself to be an authority in my field. A student comes along who does not know me and takes my class for the first time. She questions my logic and says my class is a bore. She tells me my exams do not test her knowledge of the subject but instead test her ability to repeat my version of the subject. She writes a paper calling into doubt the major premises of my field, to which I have contributed the most popularly followed lines of inquiry and she proposes an entirely new approach to the field and ends her paper with grand questions about the nature of intellectual thought. How do I approach this? In a typical situation I would question the student’s credibility as a student. I would consider her farfetched and someone who is incapable of understanding the subject matter. I would have trouble finding a way to give her a passing course score. She would be a problem to fix or to solve or to ignore. Never would I consider that perhaps she had a point. Why? I assumed the ascendency of my own knowledge based on my own sense of authority. Because the student operated outside my realm of knowledge and outside my sense of appropriateness in the acquisition of knowledge, I decided she was wrong. Invisible to me are my own assumptions of authority, including my assumption that authority has validity. Even though I have a wide set of experiences related to a branch of knowledge I am unable to see that those experiences are necessarily limited because I have only had a certain set of them, no matter how vaunted, and that knowledge itself is limited because it is always about what is already known. So I approach my student as if she is a problem instead of approaching her as a person with insight that may also be valid and should be explored. If we use something that is already known to approach what is new, how can we really approach it? The new will consistently be framed according to its relationship or lack of relationship with what has been established. And as has already been stated, what has been established is where authority has been placed, including our reverence for all the things we have already authorized.

Many of us operate in this field of inquiry, discovery and selfhood and it is apparent when we review our written forays into the realms of global problem solving discourse. So often we conclude. So often we have answers and set approaches to solving problems. So often we solicit recommendations for action. But rarely do we ponder over, except that which we have relegated to philosophy. In the realms of activity (politics, business, economics, education, health, environment, etc.) we theorize action, take action or meet to form a new activity. We say events and circumstances are too urgent to stop for too much thought, but in our haste, our actions themselves lead to further reasons to have to meet again to reorient ourselves. Our writing becomes a part of this process. We write in order to validate our next action and we guide that writing according to what we think that action should be. We rarely write to discover the appropriate terms upon which our action should be based. We rarely question the terms upon which our previous action has been based. We rarely inquire into our standards, we just try to find novel ways to meet them.

What if our grand questions about the world ended with, “I don’t know.” Would that harm us? Does not knowing have to be accompanied by feelings of panicked desperation? Must we think ourselves inert if we do not have answers? What if we started with I don’t know? What will we do with Palestine and Israel? I don’t know. What will we do about hunger and miseducation? I don’t know. How will we live peaceably, without war and conflict? I don’t know. Is not I don’t know a better place to start than our usual conclusions, ideals and ideas? How is referencing what has already happened and what has already been thought (and what has not worked) a correct way to address how to move forward from right now? Perhaps in the ground of not knowing we have more possibility to create something new. We can put aside our predispositions and knowledge and simply give matters our attention. Indeed this may take more time. Or it may take no time at all. But the lunches, dinners, breakfasts, meetings, flights and arrangements accompanying our usual fast way of gathering together, sometimes for several days or weeks, to swiftly arrive at answers also takes time and over the course of years has substantially little to show as far as solving our grand world problems. It is obvious we don’t know, by the overall state of global affairs, so saying we don’t ought not be too challenging.

Let us all stop pretending. The urge to be right and definitive is ingrained into ourselves. We adore confidence and conclusions, especially if it is accompanied by a new technology and somebody says the word science. We write long reports about everything we know and every state of being we think we should have including bullet points for things we can do to be better. But rarely do we write about the world as it actually exists right now and how we have been utterly incapable of doing anything fundamentally different in it. This is not pessimism. Saying we are optimistic and having positive thoughts is not a substitute for critical inquiry. We are not going to smile ourselves into a better world. And just because we are smiling does not mean we care.

Our writing reflects this. A tome of high sounding phrases, deferred promises and volumes of technical bureaucratic lexicon. To what end? Perhaps it is our desire to conclude that hampers us. Perhaps it is our desire to know. Perhaps it is our desire itself, or in operation with other facets of our personality. But certainly we are operating within a certain structure and we seem to be thus far unable to work ourselves beyond its limits. Maybe we can free ourselves with our writing. I am not suggesting this as a method or as an exclusive approach. But so often we come to know through the words that we read and too often it is in the realm of fiction only that we allow ourselves imagination, curiosity, the unknown. Let us introduce imagination into our non-fictive selves. When we seriously consider policy and law and action, can we remove ourselves from tradition? Can we start only with what is now? How else can we speak to the moment if not from the place it exists. Now is only informed by history if we are living in the past. This is not a call to replace an old ideology with a new one or to discount traditions which have lasted because they are just. This is simply a question about how we might write differently about the circumstances in the world burning for our attention. It is an offer to approach our writing about the world’s most serious matters from a point of doubt regarding our own understanding. It is a somewhat diffident rejection of conclusions and the way conclusions as construct have been organized into our lives as authority through the way we have been taught to write and express ourselves through writing, and finally to arrive at knowledge of ourselves and the world through what we write and what we have read. It is a question about how writing affects our thought and how our thought affects our world and how we remain ignorant of a process we have created ourselves and silently abide by.

(I feel an internal pressure to “wrap up” what I have written. But my intent was not to begin to reach a goal, an end. It was to explore a question. And for now that exploration is complete, although not in conclusion.)

Memories_with_maya_dystopia_Dirrogate_small front_cover_Mwm

Of the two images above, as a typical Science Fiction reader, which would you gravitate towards? In designing the cover for my book I ran about 80 iterations of 14 unique designs through a group of beta readers, and the majority chose the one with the Green tint. (design credit: Dmggzz)

No one could come up with a satisfying reason on why they preferred it over the other, except that it “looked more sci-fi” I settled for the design on the right, though it was a very hard decision to make. I was throwing away one of the biggest draws to a book — An inviting Dystopian book cover.

As an Author (and not a scientist) myself, I’ve noticed that scifi readers seem to want dystopian fiction –exclusively. A quick glance at reader preferences in scifi on sites such as GoodReads shows this. Yet, from noticing Vampire themed fiction rule the best seller lists, and from box office blockbusters, we can assume, the common man and woman is also intrigued by Longevity and Immortality.

Why is it so hard for sci-fi fans to look to the “brighter side” of science. Look at the latest Star Trek for instance…Dystopia. Not the feel good, curiosity nurturing theme of Roddenberry. This is noted in a post by Gray Scott on the website ImmortalLife.

I guess my question is: Are there any readers or Futurology enthusiasts that crave a Utopian future in their fiction and real life, or are we descending a spiral staircase (no pun) into eventual Dystopia. In ‘The Dirrogate — Memories with Maya’, I’ve tried to (subtly) infuse the philosophy of transhumanism — technology for the betterment of humans.

At Lifeboat, the goal is ‘encouraging scientific advancements while helping humanity survive existential risks and possible misuse of increasingly powerful technologies.’ We need to reach out to the influencers of lay people, the authors, the film-makers… those that have the power to evangelize the ethos of Transhumanism and the Singularity, to paint the truth: Science and Technology advancement is for the betterment of the human race.

It would be naive to think that technology would not be abused and a Dystopia world is indeed a scary and very real threat, but my belief is: We should guide (influence?) people to harness this “fire” to nurture and defend humanity, via our literature and movies, and cut back on seeding or fueling ideas that might lead to the destruction of our species.

Your thoughts?

I have seen the future of Bitcoin, and it is bleak.

The Promise of Bitcoin

If you were to peek into my bedroom at night (please don’t), there’s a good chance you would see my wife sleeping soundly while I stare at the ceiling, running thought experiments about where Bitcoin is going. Like many other people, I have come to the conclusion that distributed currencies like Bitcoin are going to eventually be recognized as the most important technological innovation of the decade, if not the century. It seems clear to me that the rise of distributed currencies presents the biggest (and riskiest) investment opportunity I am likely to see in my lifetime; perhaps in a thousand lifetimes. It is critically important to understand where Bitcoin is going, and I am determined to do so.

Continue reading “Bitcoin’s Dystopian Future” | >

In an enormously influential article published in 1974 in Psychology Today, and in a longer version published later that year in BioScience, Garrett Hardin introduced the metaphor of the lifeboat for economic and ethical consideration. This conceptual construction was intended as an improvement over the then-popular ecological metaphor of “spaceship earth” coined by Kenneth Boulding in 1966. Interestingly, in the opening paragraph of “Living on a lifeboat”, Hardin indicates that metaphors in general may be understood as only an early stage in mentally approaching difficult problems, and that this stage may be surpassed as theory advances and becomes more rigorous.

In Hardin’s analogy, large entities such as nations or the biosphere are likened to a boat, while smaller entities – for example, migrating individuals or groups – are likened to swimmers trying to board the already cramped vessel and exploit whatever resources are on board. In the imagined scenario, it is believed that the boat is near carrying capacity, but exactly how near is not known with certainty given the many future possibilities. A central question focuses on at what point, if any, the risk of sinking the entire boat outweighs the good provided for each additional rescued swimmer.

The metaphor of the lifeboat has structured thought about conservation, economics, ethics, and any number of other disciplinary areas for decades. The question I would like to pose is the following: Is the lifeboat scenario still (or was it ever) an apt metaphor for structuring thought about ethical conservation of resources, or have we reached a stage where the boat should be scuttled in favor of either a new metaphor or more literal language? Please feel free to post any thoughts you may have on this issue.

1. Thou shalt first guard the Earth and preserve humanity.

Impact deflection and survival colonies hold the moral high ground above all other calls on public funds.

2. Thou shalt go into space with heavy lift rockets with hydrogen upper stages and not go extinct.

The human race can only go in one of two directions; space or extinction- right now we are an endangered species.

3. Thou shalt use the power of the atom to live on other worlds.

Nuclear energy is to the space age as steam was to the industrial revolution; chemical propulsion is useless for interplanetary travel and there is no solar energy in the outer solar system.

4. Thou shalt use nuclear weapons to travel through space.

Physical matter can barely contain chemical reactions; the only way to effectively harness nuclear energy to propel spaceships is to avoid containment problems completely- with bombs.

5. Thou shalt gather ice on the Moon as a shield and travel outbound.

The Moon has water for the minimum 14 foot thick radiation shield and is a safe place to light off a bomb propulsion system; it is the starting gate.

6. Thou shalt spin thy spaceships and rings and hollow spheres to create gravity and thrive.

Humankind requires Earth gravity and radiation to travel for years through space; anything less is a guarantee of failure.

7. Thou shalt harvest the Sun on the Moon and use the energy to power the Earth and propel spaceships with mighty beams.

8. Thou shalt freeze without damage the old and sick and revive them when a cure is found; only an indefinite lifespan will allow humankind to combine and survive. Only with this reprieve can we sleep and reach the stars.

9. Thou shalt build solar power stations in space hundreds of miles in diameter and with this power manufacture small black holes for starship engines.

10. Thou shalt build artificial intellects and with these beings escape the death of the universe and resurrect all who have died, joining all minds on a new plane.

If, we as a community, are intending to accelerate the development of interstellar travel we have to glower at the record and ask ourselves some tough questions. First, what is the current record of the primary players? Second, why is everyone afraid to try something outside the status quo theories?

At the present time the primary players are associated with the DARPA funded 100-Year Starship Study, as Icarus Interstellar who is cross linked with The Tau Zero Foundation and Centauri Dreams is a team member of the 100YSS. I was surprised to find Jean-Luc Cambier on Tau Zero.

Gary Church recently put the final nail in the Icarus Interstellar‘s dreams to build a rocket ship for interstellar travel. In his post on Lifeboat, Cosmic Ray Gorilla Gary Church says “it is likely such a shield will massive over a thousand tons”. Was he suggesting that the new cost of an interstellar rocket ship is not 3.4x World GDP but 34x or 340x World GDP? Oops!

Let us look at the record. Richard Obousy of Icarus Interstellar and Eric Davis of Institute for Advanced Studies claimed that it was possible, using string theories to travel at not just c, the velocity of light but at 1E32c, or c multiplied by a 1 followed by 32 zeros. However, Lorentz-FitzGerald transformations show that anything with mass cannot travel faster than the velocity of light. Note that Lorentz-FitzGerald is an empirical observation which was incorporated into Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity.

It is quite clear that you can use string theories to say anything you want. I used the term ‘mathematical conjecture’.

In April 2008 the esteemed Michio Kaku said in his Space Show interview, that it would take several hundred years to do gravity modification. But Michio Kaku is a string theorist himself. And I might add down to Earth one at that, since his opinion contradicts Richard Obousy and Eric Davis.

Then there is George Hathaway also with the Tau Zero Foundation who could not reproduce Podkletnov’s experiments, even when he was in communication with Podkletnov.

And this is the one group our astronaut Mae Jemison, leader of the 100YSS effort, has teamed up with? My sincerest condolences to you Mae Jemison. Sincerest condolences.

For the answer to the second question, you have to look within yourselves.

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Benjamin T Solomon is the author & principal investigator of the 12-year study into the theoretical & technological feasibility of gravitation modification, titled An Introduction to Gravity Modification, to achieve interstellar travel in our lifetimes. For more information visit iSETI LLC, Interstellar Space Exploration Technology Initiative.

Solomon is inviting all serious participants to his LinkedIn Group Interstellar Travel & Gravity Modification.