Open letters calling for an all-out war on aging

Current Open Letters

Open Letters (4 letters: on aging and on cryonics; to European Parliament and to US Congress)

The Victory Plan

1. Make and publish Open Letters
   1. prepare (Done or almost done)
   2. get reviews of several key people in life extension field (Aubrey de Grey, Matt Kaeberlein, USTP, A4LI, lifespan.io, Adam Gries etc), update
   3. agree with several organizations to publish that Open Letter (possible organizations: USTP, A4LI, lifespan.io, LEVF etc)
2. Collect as many signatures and support statements of scientists as we can. At least 100
   1. promote it on conferences on aging
   2. promote it in Twitter, Facebook etc
3. When we have 100 signatures, much more people would be enthusiastic to help us, and in several months we could realistically get 500 - 1000 signatures of scientists.
   
4. Contact people who might be interested with our ideas in Europarliament and US Congress, try to get it to be discussed in Europarliament or/and in US Congress.
5. Get feedback from Europarliament / US Congress. Likely they would generally agree that the problem is very important but would ask for further clarifications. On our part, we ask them for special funding to make that clarification (say $1 to $10 mln) and I think they might accept that. But even if don't, I think a lot of people would try to write these clarifications. We already have a #geroscience White Paper, btw. And we have nice vitalism.io Whitepaper (that discusses the scale of funding among others). And we have a lot of nice materials on numerous websites on aging.
6. After several cycles of our requests to Europarliaments and their requests for further clarification (with each cycle gaining attention in mass media / youtube / etc and with each cycle increasing number of signatures under our Open Letters), they finally launch Moonshot projects on aging research and on cryonics, and their funding begins.

What shall be done

Here are examples of open letters calling for funding to defeat aging: googledoc.
I encourage everyone to write their own versions.

Why indefinite life extension field had not yet its open letters?

Examples of such open letters:
Scientists' Open Letter on Cryonics
See also: Moonshot Project To End Aging

In my opinion, an open letter should reflect:
(a) To whom it is addressed
(b) The importance of the issue
(c) A call to action

With point (b), everything is simple and clear.
Points (a) and (c) are interrelated, and probably for each recipient must be a different Call to Action, and therefore a different open letter. Although there should probably be a combined version of all Open Letters in one.

A few possible options are:
(1) (a) to NIH management (c) create a separate intramural SENS institute with Aubrey de Grey in charge
(2) (a) to the U.S. government (c1) fund the SENS intramural institute (c2) declare an all-out war on aging with a budget of at least <...> $$$
(3) (a) to venture investors (c) consider investing in SENS projects, in particular in the combinatorial therapy project
(4) (a) (a) to wealthy people (c) fund the promotion of these open letters, as well as SENS research
(5) (a1) to scientists of Buck Institute of Aging (a2) to NIA researchers (a3) to NIH researchers (c) sign these letters, share these letters within your laboratories, pass them on to your bosses
(6) (a) to the fellow citizens (c1) ask your deputies to read the open letters at their meetings and pass them on to higher authorities (c2) make video clips urging people to sign the letters (c3) participate in <...> <...> (our cool activities to promote these open letters)
... etc., there are 100+ options to think of

Coming up with a form or action related to these open letters is a must, but in my opinion anything the community does can be used to promote the letters: reels, pickets, lectures. Anything at all.

I also think it's very important to have not only signatures, but also video declarations of support. It's more complicated, of course, but it's also more effective.

I think the sequence of actions is approximately as follows:
(1) discussion of the texts of open letters. Let everyone come up with their own options, post the texts of these letters (or not only the texts) in the chat, and the participants will give likes (or dislikes), and then we will understand what options people like

(2) Let chat participants (especially those who supported some versions of open letters with their likes) record video messages in which they support the letters they like. Video messages may be different, some may be cool and funny and some may be dry and serious, but there should be a common element, such as a link in the video description to the supported open letter (and perhaps the person should read aloud the text of the open letter that they supported, maybe in a separate video).

(3) When the number of videos supporting some Open Letter reaches a reasonable number, say 50, we can start offering to sign it (preferably with a video support) to scientists and other influential people. As an option, one could try send out invitations to those scientists who have signed an open letter in support of cryonics[1].

Questions regarding formulation of Open Letters

(1) Should we mention only aging or age-related diseases as well?
I personally think we shall mention age-related diseases as well.

(2) Should we call for "at least 1% of GDP" or maybe for $100B/year as US Transhumanist Party calls? (point CIV in https://transhumanist-party.org/platform/)
I personally prefer "at least 1% of GDP"

(3) Should we mention US Congress simultaneously with UK, Germany etc? or separate letters should exist for each of these counties?
I personally think that separate letters should exist. Because when you ask everyone it's kinda ask noone specifically. I think we just need to give people possibility to select option to support all these open letters (to all governments) at once, maybe as additional question in a form.

Why decision-makers and big scientists would support our open letters?

Big decision-makers have an average age of 50-60 years. They have already problems with their health which can't be solved by any best modern medicine. Their health is already decreases step by step. They have only ~20 years before their death. They don't have enough time to just wait for science to conquer aging. Their only chance is to launch an unprecedented super project. If only they would believe in the possibility of such a superproject to stop and reverse aging within their lifetime, then they will easily allocate 2% of the countries' budget for this.

Big scientists are also 50-60 or even more years old. For the same reasons, the super project is almost the only chance for them.

The same reasons apply well to those who are in their 30-40-ies whose parents are in their 50-60-ies. For them to protect their parents from aging, diseases and death, the only way is to ensure the super project is launched.

Why do we urgently need such open letters?

Now, most people almost never hear ideas of defeating aging asap/during their lifetimes (or hear about it only occasionally from a few people). It thus makes perfect sense for them to think that our ideas are extremely ahead of time and chances are too small. Defeating aging asap/during our lifetimes is one of the most underrepresented topics in mass media. Only few scientists, politicians, etc tells their opinion on the subject while most others don't.

The remedy for this is supposedly simple: (a) collect the bold motivational statements of scientists and other famous (as well as ordinary) people (b) show/advertise to a large number of people the existence of such alternative opinion of respected people (c) the more respected people sign our bold and motivational open letter, the easier it will be for other respected people to join them and increase the list. The perceived chances of success will begin to increase as people will see the existence of a considerable number of respected people who support our ideas. This list of open letter signatures would greatly help every our activist to convince people, to lobby, to get funding etc etc.

Another problem is lack of motivation. Even people believe that science could possibly solve aging within their lifetime, they often don't see how they can help science. In open letters, scientists could directly ask people for help (in numerous ways) thus motivating them.