Secret Master Plan (just between you and me) pt. 2

This leads us to a few irrationalities in our recent past. A hundred years ago, only people with physical injuries or disabilities did any kind of purposeful physical exercise, and if you were seen purposefully running for the sake of running you were thought of a being insane or at least weird. Sixty years ago there were ads claiming doctors preferred Camels (https://youtu.be/YAB04wkCxqw) and doctors used to smoke in their offices. My grandpa used to smoke right before bedtime inside his room. This is nothing more than an indication of a cultural blind spot.

But not all cultural blind spots are the same. Some threaten to eliminate all of humanity if not corrected. At this moment in human history, we face existential threats like global warming, pandemics, nuclear war, meteorites, artificial general intelligence, and supervolcanoes. If we decide to not invest in space exploration, it is just a matter of time before life on Earth is wiped out. Something like a meteorite or a supervolcano is not a matter of if - it's a matter of when.

If we don't want to become a one-planet grave, we need to become a multi-planetary species and invest in space exploration.

The other cultural blind spot is around the same topic, death, at the individual level. Imagine a world where people lived for as long as they wanted and where you would grow wiser and stronger over time. Then an alien lands on that planet and brings along with him a brilliant idea: old age and consequently forced death. Do you think people would welcome that idea? Of course not. However, if being hit in the head with a club once a day for the rest of your life was inevitable too, we would rationalize away the awfulness of that predicament with justifications for why it's great to be hit in the head with clubs.

A good illustration from Harry Potter and The Methods of Rationality, chapter 39: Pretending to be Wise part 1.
"Tell me, Harry," said the Headmaster, "why do Dark Wizards fear death so greatly?"
"Er," said Harry, "sorry, I've got to back the Dark Wizards on that one."
"What?" said Dumbledore.
"Death is bad," said Harry, discarding wisdom for the sake of clear communication. "Very bad. Extremely bad. Being scared of death is like being scared of a great big monster with poisonous fangs. It actually makes a great deal of sense, and does not, in fact, indicate that you have a psychological problem."
The Headmaster was staring at him as though he'd just turned into a cat.
"Okay," said Harry, "let me put it this way. Do you want to die? Because if so, there's this Muggle thing called a suicide prevention hotline -"
"When it is time," the old wizard said quietly. "Not before. I would never seek to hasten the day, nor seek to refuse it when it comes."
Harry was frowning sternly. "That doesn't sound like you have a very strong will to live, Headmaster!"
"Harry..." The old wizard's voice was starting to sound a little helpless; and he had paced to a spot where his silver beard, unnoticed, had drifted into a crystalline glass goldfish bowl and was slowly taking on a greenish tinge that crept up the hairs. "I think I may have not made myself clear. Dark Wizards are not eager to live. They fear death. They do not reach up toward the sun's light, but flee the coming of night into infinitely darker caverns of their own making, without moon or stars. It is not life they desire, but immortality; and they are so driven to grasp at it that they will sacrifice their very souls! Do you want to live forever, Harry?"
"Yes, and so do you," said Harry. "I want to live one more day. Tomorrow I will still want to live one more day. Therefore I want to live forever, proof by induction on the positive integers. If you don't want to die, it means you want to live forever. If you don't want to live forever, it means you want to die. You've got to do one or the other... I'm not getting through here, am I."
The two cultures stared at each other across a vast gap of incommensurability.

And this finally, brings me to The Master Plan:

1. Create useful products that are highly profitable
2. Use that money to build a premium brain backup system
3. Use that money to build an affordable brain backup system
4. Use that money to build an even more affordable brain backup system
   While doing the above, develop a system to restore the backups.

Don't tell anyone.