I get it now, thanks! Question: do you want a small number of (exceptionally smart but not yet rich, typically young) people who already significantly care about NotDying care even more about it, or do you want a large number of people (some of them who are billionaires) not think that rationality is a weak subculture, by a slow osmosis, learn the ideas and through that slowly figure out that dying is not such a good idea and throw their immense numbers and wealth at it?
The disadvantage of the second solution is that it may be too slow for your own timespan. It would be kind of a process where nothing happens for a long time and then blam NASA like budgets are thrown on the problem. Your first solution works on a shorter timespan, but you are preaching to a choir of largely like-minded people who have significant amount of smarts but not so much money to throw on the problem.
I suspect that, to the extent that “Mort!” would act as advertising, my target group would be those people who are not currently transhumanists or cryonicists themselves, but have subculture leanings which reduce their automatic emotional rejection of the ideas: science-fiction fans, skeptics, atheists, and others of that ilk. I don’t think I can do anything that would measurably nudge the larger population, who currently resoundingly reject or ignore transhumanist ideas; at least, as you put it, in my own timespan.
As an example, here’s a possible use case, at a science fiction convention: Someone drops a Dalek on their foot, and exclaims “Mort!”. A nearby conventioneer thinks, “‘Merde’?” and asks, “Are you French?” The swearer explains, “No, ‘Mort’ - death is obscene. Now where’s that sonic screwdriver?” The questioning conventioneer and any other bystanders are socially nudged, slightly, in the direction of anti-deathism, and might be a percentage point or so more likely to discover LW in the future; and the swearer has used an expletive to help manage pain. Everyone wins.
I don’t think that an anti-deathist swear word is going to make the general population any /less/ interested in cryonics, life-extension, etc.
I get it now, thanks! Question: do you want a small number of (exceptionally smart but not yet rich, typically young) people who already significantly care about NotDying care even more about it, or do you want a large number of people (some of them who are billionaires) not think that rationality is a weak subculture, by a slow osmosis, learn the ideas and through that slowly figure out that dying is not such a good idea and throw their immense numbers and wealth at it?
The disadvantage of the second solution is that it may be too slow for your own timespan. It would be kind of a process where nothing happens for a long time and then blam NASA like budgets are thrown on the problem. Your first solution works on a shorter timespan, but you are preaching to a choir of largely like-minded people who have significant amount of smarts but not so much money to throw on the problem.
I suspect that, to the extent that “Mort!” would act as advertising, my target group would be those people who are not currently transhumanists or cryonicists themselves, but have subculture leanings which reduce their automatic emotional rejection of the ideas: science-fiction fans, skeptics, atheists, and others of that ilk. I don’t think I can do anything that would measurably nudge the larger population, who currently resoundingly reject or ignore transhumanist ideas; at least, as you put it, in my own timespan.
As an example, here’s a possible use case, at a science fiction convention: Someone drops a Dalek on their foot, and exclaims “Mort!”. A nearby conventioneer thinks, “‘Merde’?” and asks, “Are you French?” The swearer explains, “No, ‘Mort’ - death is obscene. Now where’s that sonic screwdriver?” The questioning conventioneer and any other bystanders are socially nudged, slightly, in the direction of anti-deathism, and might be a percentage point or so more likely to discover LW in the future; and the swearer has used an expletive to help manage pain. Everyone wins.
I don’t think that an anti-deathist swear word is going to make the general population any /less/ interested in cryonics, life-extension, etc.