Longevity Escape Velocity

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Faster please:

Scientists believe that by the 2030s humans could live forever

Humanity’s quest to defy aging is entering a transformative phase. The concept of “Longevity Escape Velocity” (LEV) now serves as a cornerstone in debates over the future of human life.

This idea suggests that advancing medical technology could enable life expectancy to outpace the passage of time, potentially leading to a form of immortality. But such a possibility raises profound ethical, societal, and economic challenges.

LEV borrows its name from physics, where “escape velocity” describes the speed required to break free from a gravitational pull. Applied to aging, it envisions a scenario where biomedical advancements outstrip the aging process, potentially rendering death from old age obsolete. Although still speculative, the theory has gained both ardent supporters and cautious skeptics.

Leading geneticist George Church believes this vision could materialize within our lifetimes. Similarly, Sourav Sinha of the Longevity Vision Fund predicts that with sufficient investment, LEV could be achieved in a few decades. Their optimism is rooted in breakthroughs in gene editing and cellular rejuvenation.

…

Dr. Aubrey de Grey, who coined the term LEV, criticizes society’s resignation to aging, likening it to accepting bad weather. His optimism is shared by futurist Ray Kurzweil, who anticipates the arrival of LEV by 2028. However, this timeline seems ambitious given the rigorous approval processes for new medical treatments.

Kurzweil also predicted LEV would be reached by 2024. I figured I would make it that far, and he moved the goalpost. I expect it will be moved again. The only way I see it not moving is if a black market appears for some treatment.

They Can’t Run, They Can’t Hide, The Internet is Forever

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Quote of the Day

Just the ones with TDS!!

(tiny dick syndrome)…

Karls_quest (@Karls_Quest)
Posted on X, November 20, 2023

It’s not only another Markley’s Law Monday; it is another science denier (see also here)!

His account is deleted, but the Internet is forever:

I’m Going to Need a Deeper Bunker

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The head of America’s largest bank told an audience at the Institute of International Finance that his team is running scenarios in preparation for a global conflict involving nuclear powers.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, told the crowd that war was imminent and nuclear proliferation was a greater existential threat than climate change.

“World War III has already begun. You already have battles on the ground being coordinated in multiple countries,” Dimon said at the annual event in Washington, DC.

William Koblensky Varela
November 18, 2024
Jamie Dimon Says He and His Team Are Preparing for Serious Conflict with Russia, China.| Moneywise

I need a deeper bunker, and more supplies stored away. Nuclear winter is tough in an already cold climate.

Trump was Made a Martyr

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The yearslong effort to vanquish Donald Trump in court was a dismal failure. For liberals like me, it may be tempting to attribute the collapse of the various cases against him to convenient explanations of process or personnel. The more uncomfortable truth is that our search for political salvation primarily through the law has backfired. To oppose Mr. Trump in his second term, liberals must learn the lesson of this defeat, which is that there is no alternative to persuading our fellow citizens of our beliefs.

Samuel Moyn
Yale professor of law
November 22, 2024
Opinion | The Legal Battle Against Trump Was a Miserable Failure – The New York Times

Basically, they made President a Trump a martyr. The overreaching on all the legal claims made Trump a sympathetic figure. People related to him on this because they have been suffering abuse inflicted by the “liberals” for decades. The more they attacked him with such thin legal cases, the stronger the sympathy became. People became more and more convinced the attackers were on the side of evil.

Moyn doesn’t understand a key point. Alternatively, he is deliberately dodging it. His political bedfellows know what he avoids saying here. They are pushing a faulty belief system that cannot be sold to the majority of the people. In today’s world, lawfare is of one of the only tools they have to achieve their goals. The Internet exists, so restricting information through “approved gatekeepers” does not work as well as it used to. The remaining other primary option they have is criminal violence. And they don’t have the numbers or the monopoly on firearms to win on that front either.

Hence, they are losing their battles for mind share.

As a side note, here is a useful hack. You can use it to read some pay walled websites, such as the New York Times. This works on Windows Edge. I’m not sure about other browsers or operating systems.

  1. Go to the web page you want to read.
  2. Type “Ctrl-A” (select all).
  3. Type “Ctrl-C” (copy).
  4. Open up something that will accept HTML from the clipboard, such as Word.
  5. Paste the clipboard into the document.
  6. Read the entire web page.

National Concealed Carry Reciprocity and Suppressors Deregulation

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Trump defeated Harris handily and pro-gun senatorial candidates secured a GOP Senate majority and the House is poised to remain in GOP control. This trifecta provides an opportunity to secure pro-Second Amendment legislation that has heretofore eluded both the White House and Congress.

Such legislation includes national reciprocity for concealed carry, which Trump supports, and a hearing protection act, which would remove suppressors from NFA (1934) oversight and regulation.

The previous Trump administration was on the cusp of securing a hearing protection act in 2017, but it was torpedoed by then-Speaker Paul Ryan (R) following the October 1, 2017, Las Vegas attack. Although Yahoo News reported that Ryan tabled the act “indefinitely,” Trump and the GOP-led Congress can pursue suppressor deregulation anew.

AWR Hawkins
November 7, 2024
With Trump, Gun Rights Groups Seek to ‘Make America Pro-Gun Again’ (breitbart.com)

We should try for this. Even if we only move the Overton Window a bit, it will make future actions easier. Future action options include court rulings and reintroducing the bills in the next legislative session.

Already WWIII?

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Joe Biden‘s administration has allowed Volodymyr Zelensky to launch American-made missiles into Russia, with allies of both Donald Trump and Putin decrying the move as escalation towards World War Three. In his statement, Medvedev took the warnings a dramatic step further, declaring it is “already WWIII”.

In response to the move by the US, Putin has signed a new decree, titled the “Fundamentals of State Police in the Sphere of Nuclear Deterrence”, which, state-run news agency TASS reports relaxes the parameters by which Russia will respond to attacks with nuclear weapons. The document reportedly states: “Nuclear weapons (NW) are an extreme measure to protect the sovereignty of the country.

Liam Doyle
November 19, 2024
Vladimir Putin’s top crony Medvedev warns West and NATO ‘World War 3 is here’ – World News – Mirror Online

Is this just saber rattling? A bluff? Or is this a serious threat that requires I now need to head for the hills of Idaho?

Political Philosophy Questions

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Are individuals a means to social ends or an end in themselves?

Is society supposed to serve individuals or do individuals serve society?

Do conscience and reason function at the individual or the collective level?

These are the questions of our time.

Alice Smith (@TheAliceSmith)
Posted on X, August 13, 2022

I think the answers are obvious, but these are political philosophical questions I will let you answer on your own.

We Live in Interesting Times

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This is not what I want to be reading in the news:

Putin lowers the threshold for using his nuclear arsenal after Biden’s arms decision for Ukraine | AP News

President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday formally lowered the threshold for Russia’s use of its nuclear weapons, a move that follows U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to let Ukraine strike targets inside Russian territory with American-supplied longer-range missiles.

The new doctrine allows for a potential nuclear response by Moscow even to a conventional attack on Russia by any nation that is supported by a nuclear power.

I really wish I could live in an underground bunker in Idaho for the next few months.

How to Attack the NFA

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The NFA never should have been enacted but we are (unfortunately) stuck with it for now. In my view, the proper way to attack in the courts the NFA is incrementally, i.e., one case at a time. As I see it, we need SCOTUS victories on AR bans and Mag bans first. Then attack the NFA by arguing “suppressors” and perhaps “short barrel rifles” are protected arms and, of course, look to attack the NFA via going after the Hughes Amendment as per the Rybar dissent in the Third Circuit by then-judge Alito. We have several 2A issues to clean up first before I think we can launch a serious legal assault on the NFA. That’s just the political and legal reality today.

As to my views, I unfortunately do not possess the power to waive a magic wand and eliminate unconstitutional and and/or stupid gun control laws. So, I have to work within our constitutional system, which is not perfect but it certainly beats all the other political systems out there.

Mark W. Smith/#2A Scholar @fourboxesdiner
Posted on X, November 17, 2023

Yes, this was posted a year ago. I’m trying to clean up my queue.

If you follow Smith’s YouTube channel (164 K subscribers), you will find his predictions about SCOTUS. He predicts they will take the semi-automatic ban case out of Maryland this term. That would likely mean “assault weapons” and normal capacity magazine bans in all states would be “dead men walking” by next summer:

With that out of the way the NFA would soon see front line action in the courts.

Weather Varies Over Even Short Distances

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I recently installed a new weather station near my pistol range in Idaho. Barb gently mocked me about it because it is less than three-quarters of a mile from the Boomershoot weather station. The pistol range is also about 120 feet higher in elevation. I insisted the Boomershoot site has different weather than the pistol range. She just smirked as I tried to explain.

Here is today’s proof.

Boomershoot temperature, humidity and wind:

Pistol range temperature, humidity, and wind:

Build a Spaceline Instead of a Space Elevator

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This sounds promising:

Riding a space elevator to the Moon is possible using today’s technology – The Brighter Side of News

The Spaceline Concept

Penoyre and Sandford offer a novel twist. Instead of anchoring the cable to Earth, they propose tethering it to the Moon and extending it toward Earth. This would take advantage of the Moon’s slower orbital rotation and the gravitational equilibrium between the two celestial bodies.

At a critical point known as the Lagrange point, the gravitational pulls of Earth and the Moon cancel each other out. This region would serve as a pivotal part of the spaceline. Below the Lagrange point, Earth’s gravity would pull the cable downward.

Above it, the Moon’s gravity would draw the cable upward. This setup significantly reduces the tension forces on the cable, making the concept viable with current high-strength materials like carbon polymers, including Zylon.

According to Penoyre and Sandford, these materials could support a cable extending from the Moon to geostationary orbit. Such a structure, with a diameter no greater than a pencil lead, could feasibly be constructed at a cost comparable to other large-scale space missions—around several billion dollars.

They claim it can be constructed with present day materials and engineering techniques.

I wonder how much an underground bunker on the moon would cost. The risk of nuclear fallout and marauding hordes would be greatly reduced. Sealing all doors and windows would suck. Suiting up for a walk would take time. The clothing would be expensive. However, the view would be out of this world.

Make Believe Psychology Degree

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That Mr “Tactical” combined that truly ridiculous man-spreading/crotch shot with all those guns is a blatant confession that he has a very tiny penis & he’s really self-conscious about it.

Sometimes a cigar *isn’t* just a cigar…how many phallic symbols does this guy need?

Kim Votes Blue @nkanow
Posted on X, November 20, 2023

It’s not only another Markley’s Law Monday, it is another science denier (see also here)!

Everyone should know by now that Freud was wrong about the whole penis envy thing. She must have received her psychology degree from the back of a cereal box.

If You Want Our Vote, Be What We Want

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It’s kind of hard to market yourself as cool when there’s video of them being cringe.

It’s kind of hard to market yourself as “not communist” when there’s video of them being wearing soviet symbols, have a Che flag in their office, and articles written by them saying “we’re communists”.

It’s kind of hard to market yourself as “not sexualizing children” when they’re inviting drag queens to the White House for story time.

It’s believable that they “care” about the economy. What’s not believable is that they’ll do anything to make it better. See “we’re totally communists” above.

As for being the “adults in the room”? We have video of their supporters screaming at the sky, and Democrat-heavy organizations in and out of government are having coloring books and puppy therapy days. Hard to be mistaken for an adult when the public perception is “toddler temper tantrum”.

Stop trying to market yourself as something the public wants, that you absolutely aren’t. If you want their vote, it is way easier to BE what the public wants.

Tirno
Comment to Your Lying Eyes.
November 15, 2024

I have nothing to add.

Bill Maher on Democrats Election Loss

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Maher does a decent job of articulating the errors of the Democrats in the 2024 election.

If They Actually Did This

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Dude…
If they actually did this, and have that massive of a roll back of government regulation and power, it would be one of the most important things in American history.

I don’t think most people grasp just how awful Chevron was, and how it empowered the government to meddle in literally everything.

SCOTUS just kicked Chevron in the junk, which enabled people to push back against government regulation, but we all expected the government to fight back and cling to power every expensive and time consuming step of the way. Having the government actually curtail itself? That would be astounding.

Larry Correia @monsterhunter45
Posted on X, November 14, 2024

Corrreia was referencing this post:

I agree with Correia with special emphasis on the “if”.

Here’s a key point about our mission at DOGE: eliminating bureaucratic regulations isn’t a mere policy preference. It’s a legal mandate from the U.S. Supreme Court:

  • West Virginia v. EPA (2022) held that agencies cannot decide major questions of economic or political significance without “clear congressional authorization.” This applies to thousands of rules that never passed Congress.
  • In Loper Bright v. Raimondo (2024), the Court ended Chevron deference, which means agencies can’t foist their own interpretations of the law onto the American people. Over 18,000 federal cases cited the Chevron doctrine, often to uphold regulations, many of which are now null & void.
  • In SEC v. Jarkesy (2024), SCOTUS restricted the use of “administrative law judges” by agencies. The same agency that wrote the rules shouldn’t be able to prosecute citizens in “courts” that it controls.
  • In Corner Post v. Board of Governors (2024), the Court held that new businesses can challenge old regulations, greatly expanding the statute of limitations & opening many more rules up for scrutiny. So we shouldn’t just look at rules passed in the last 4 years, but over the past 4 decades (or more).

DOGE is ready help the U.S. government conform to the U.S. Constitution once again. @elonmusk and I are ready to serve.

Vivek Ramaswamy @VivekGRamaswamy
Posted on X, November 13, 2024

That is a really big IF. I can believe the intention is there. I can believe they are the best people for the job. I am not convinced they will overcome the incredible resistance they will encounter. This resistance may even include assassination attempts.

I wish them well.

Your Lying Eyes

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For one Democratic policy aide, the biggest concern was movement among younger voters. Feelings about masculinity were leading segments of Gen Z to break from the longtime trend of younger voters being more liberal, this person said.

“These kids are like, ‘Trump is cool. He’s the man, he’s great. He’s cool. It’s cool, bro. He’s cool,’” the Democrat said. “Everyone’s like, ‘Whoa, whoa, Latinos and African Americans like Republicans now.’ No, the men wanted a man. The men wanted a man’s man.”

“We have no easy path here,” this person continued. “We need to convince people that we’re the adults in the room, that we care about the economy, that we care about their pocketbook, that we’re cool dudes, that were not communists, that we’re not sexualizing their children, that we’re … not going to ban Zyn.”

Allan Smith
November 12, 2024
Trump just realigned the entire political map. Democrats have ‘no easy path’ to fix it.

It is not an easy path because they have to convince people they can’t believe their own eyes.

We live in interesting times.

It is Not the Product, It is the Sales Pitch

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We’re going to have to stop treating health care access, affordable housing, and taxing the rich as mere theory or political talking points and start rolling out plans district by district, state by state, until they become federal policy. We’re going to have to confront our elitist tendencies and recognize the intrinsic value of all professions and the rich experiences of those without formal degrees. And we’re going to have to show what we’re made of as the strong, reliable, and authentic leaders voters crave.

I believe we can still rebuild trust with Americans. I believe we can still reinforce our commitment to representing the needs and values of all citizens. We just have to get out of our emotional, hypersensitive, politically correct way and focus on the labor of changing our public image. Unless we’re too afraid, too good, or just too damn late.

Tera Johnson-Swartz
November 12, 2024
Democrats Need To Drop the Elitism if We Want To Win Again | Opinion – Newsweek

What I find most interesting is she has a clue but still doesn’t get the big picture. She understands they have been condescending and out of touch with people in the “fly over” states. But she thinks the products they have to sell are still the right products. They just need be better salespeople. It apparently is beyond her comprehension that people exist who just want to be left alone. Less government is not an item in her sales catalog.

Related:

The people voting different from the “coastal elites” are a nothing but a problem. It is not possible they have some valid points.

Biggest Popular Delusion in World History

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#Bitcoin, crypto, and blockchain will likely go down as the biggest example of popular delusions and the madness of crowds in world history. The overall losses when the bubble finally pops will be staggering. It’s not just the speculators who will be left holding a bag of worthless Bitcoin, but also the investors who funded all the infrastructure and related businesses. This is likely the biggest misallocation of resources in human history. Not only will the net losses to society be staggering, but Bitcoin itself will do more to tarnish the reputation of libertarian capitalism and the concept of sound money than any failed government program ever has.

Peter Schiff @PeterSchiff
Posted on X, November 11, 2024

I am in tentative agreement about bitcoin being the biggest popular delusion in world history. The possible exception to this is faith in communism. And the tremendous amount of electricity consumed just boggles my mind.

But the bubble will last as long as enough people have faith in it. It is conceivable that will be decades or even a century.*

But the [dollar | bitcoin] will last as long as enough people have faith in it. It is conceivable that will be decades or even a century.

* Edited as per a suggestion via email from Mike H. only November 13, 2024.