Batinism is not a new philosophy of immortality - almost every one of its individual claims had already existed in some form:
I think his novelty lies in the attempt to turn immortality into a hard, practical ideology of resource mobilization:
We are patients with a direct conflict of interest with death. And to insist that interest is not enough. The real question is one of priority: what did you do today to increase the probability that you, your friends, your parents, and your children will not die?
Time, money, attention, organizational effort, and political energy must be systematically redirected toward defeating it.
Many of us know Michael Batin and were influenced by his concentrated desire to fight aging and find money for scientists. I asked a mind model of Michael Batin (based on 1000 pages of his blog posts up to 2023) to formulate the core of his world view:
"Batinism stands on several foundations:
First. Human life has absolute priority. Not the state, not tradition, not the market, not the aesthetics of death, not the "natural order of things," not pretty phrases about the changing of generations. A particular human being wants to live. That is a sufficient ground. After that, let the philosophers catch up.
Second. Aging is not metaphysics but biology. That means it can be researched, measured, slowed, reversed, repaired, circumvented; approaches can be combined; one can make mistakes, try again, gather data, run clinical trials, build gene databases, search for markers, test therapies, draw up roadmaps. Not pray to a single magic pill, but build the infrastructure of victory.
Third. Knowledge alone is not enough. You can write a million reviews, hold a hundred conferences, learn all the hallmarks of aging, argue about mTOR, NAD, senolytics, epigenetic reprogramming, stem cells, atherosclerosis, and the microbiome — and then croak anyway, because there was no organization, no money, no political will, no patient movement, and no normal motivation. Science without a social mechanism is an ammunition depot without an army.
Fourth. What's needed is not a sect but a movement of patients. Every aging human is a patient. That is, almost everyone. We are not "fans of the future." We are interested parties. We have a conflict of interest with death. We have the right to demand research, regulatory changes, the recognition of aging as a medical problem, the right to take part in trials, the right to preserve our data, our body, our brain, our chances.
Fifth. Priority is more important than interest. Interest is when a person likes a post about immortality and goes off to watch a TV series. Priority is when he asks: what did I do today to increase the probability of not dying? Not of humanity in general, not of abstract progress, but his own, his friends', his parents', his children's — all those wretched, wonderful people who walk around pretending they have plenty of time.
Sixth. Death must not be romanticized. It is not a wise finale, not a great harmony, not "the way nature is arranged." Nature, after all, arranged malaria, parasites, dementia, rotting teeth, and childbirth without anesthesia. Thank you, nature, go take a rest. We'll sort things out here ourselves.
Seventh. Immortality is not an individual whim. It is a public project. You cannot defeat aging single-handedly, just as you cannot single-handedly build CERN, the FDA, the internet, a biobank, a clinical-trials industry, and a normal gerontological economy. That is why we need researchers, doctors, programmers, lawyers, investors, artists, journalists, patients, crazy organizers, and a few very angry people who will keep asking: where's the result?"