science

Immortality or Bust

Immortality or Bust is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Immortality or Bust rather than just read about it. In short: Immortality or Bust is a 2019 feature documentary focusing on the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign of Transhumanist Party nominee Zoltan Istvan. Directed by Daniel Sollinger, it won two awards at film festivals - the Breakout Award at the 2019 Raw Science Film Festival and Best Biohacking Awareness Documentary at the GeekFest Toronto 2021.

Key takeaways

Immortality or Bust belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Immortality or Bust to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Immortality or Bust from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Immortality or Bust is a 2019 feature documentary focusing on the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign of Transhumanist Party nominee Zoltan Istvan. Directed by Daniel Sollinger, it won two awards at film festivals - the Breakout Award at the 2019 Raw Science Film Festival and Best Biohacking Awareness Documentary at the GeekFest Toronto 2021. It is distributed by Gravitas Ventures.

Synopsis Immortality or Bust explores the transhumanism movement and its major personalities as Zoltan Istvan drives his "Immortality Bus" across America. The film begins with Istvan and his mother, Ilona Gyurko, mourning over the body of his father, Steven Gyurko. Months before his death, Istvan had been driving a 38-foot campaign bus shaped like a giant coffin in hopes of generating publicity for life extension science, which aims to overcome death with technologies such as genetic editing, robotic organs, and mind uploading. Aboard the bus and featured in the documentary are embedded journalists from media such as The New York Times, The Verge, Vox, The Telegraph, and Der Spiegel. The documentary explores biohacker gathering GrindFest, cryonics facility Alcor, Jacque Fresco's The Venus Project, and The Church of Perpetual Life, and virtual reality's Second Life via Terasem, among other places. The documentary also features Istvan's visits with then Cyborg Party presidential candidate John McAfee, 2016 Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson, and comedian Jimmy Dore. In the documentary Alex Jones and Fox News criticize Istvan's presidential campaign while Good Mythical Morning, underground group Anonymous offer support, and John Horgan at Scientific American offer support. Immortality or Bust also focuses on Istvan's presidential campaign events, from California street demonstrations supporting transhumanism, to talks at Harvard University, to advocating for universal basic income, to delivering a Transhumanist Bill of Rights to the US Capitol. It also features Istvan's complex marriage to his wife and how his political ambitions affect his young children. The film concludes with Istvan's father voting for his son before he dies.

Cast Zoltan Istvan John McAfee Gary Johnson Alex Jones Jimmy Dore Max More Jacque Fresco William Falloon John Horgan Erica Orange Rich Lee Alexis Madrigal Maitreya One

Criticism Film Threat reviewer Chris Salce says Istvan mentions Jurassic Park themes too much in his transhumanism ideas, and that works against the overall message of the film.

References

External links Official website Immortality or Bust at IMDb

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Immortality or Bust

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Immortality or Bust claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Immortality or Bust before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Immortality or Bust ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Immortality or Bust

In research: Immortality or Bust appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Immortality or Bust in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Immortality or Bust is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2019 American films, 2019 English-language films, 2019 documentary films, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Immortality or Bust outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Immortality or Bust in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Immortality or Bust means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Immortality or Bust out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Immortality or Bust in simple terms?

Why does Immortality or Bust matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Immortality or Bust?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Immortality or Bust.