 Welcome, Felix. This is Felix Wirt of the German Party for Biomedical Rejuvenation Research. And we have spoken in prior years back when it was the Party for Health Research. So could you tell us a bit about your rebranding and the ambitions behind it? Yes. So last year we had a strategy change. The Party was founded in 2015 and as you said initially it was a Party for Health Research and we promoted the reasoning of the development of medicine that will prevent the disease of old age like Alzheimer's, cancer and so on. And we didn't talk about life extension, we just said that it's about preventing disease. And everybody thought that it's a good idea that people that we asked nobody had something against it but we didn't get much attention because there's already so much research going on and people just peered against cancer and Alzheimer and they said ok, the big parties in Germany they already do this so why do we need another health research party? And also it was misunderstood a lot because Party for Health Research everybody thinks understand something different with health research everybody has a different idea what health research is. But it was always about promoting rejuvenation research, the sense approach, the prayer approach so that we always wanted to help to hasten the development of medicine that will also let us live longer. But initially we wanted to say that explicitly because we wanted to avoid questions about things like overpopulation. And so last year we did the strategy change. Now we especially say that it's about life extension and rejuvenation medicine so that people can live potentially maybe four thousands of years if you consider the longevity and scapulosity. And now we focus on that. So in our election posters we say now that one of our election posters has in big letters written the question where do you want to live in 800 years. And the election posters also say that it's about the development of medicine that will maybe let people live for thousands of years. And this gets, it's very provocative but it gets a lot of attention from the general public and also from the media. And so many more people go to our website or many more media outlets interview us. And on our website we explain the solid science behind it. So we explain the sense approach, the hallmarks of aging. We link all the relevant sites, also other sites like lifespan I owe or fight aging. And also the media interviews us, we can also explain to them that it's not like a joke because many people initially think it's a joke when we talk about living that long but then we can explain the science when they ask about it. And from my experience they understand it and they take it seriously. So am I interested in it. And now a lot of people have caught almost everybody else here but what about all the population and the pension system that will collapse and won't it get more raging and so on. So we also address those questions on our website and give good answers, good possible solutions to those imagined problems that might occur. Yes and I am very much in favor of this new strategy. Of course as you know we have been pursuing that kind of very open approach about our objectives in the U.S. Transhumanist Party since its founding. Indeed it is the case that this can sometimes attract controversy or objections but those objections exist anyway and they would exist even for a more let's say euphemistic version of the same set of proposals. It's just that if one is open about one's goals then people can voice those objections and they can be discussed and debated and we can offer our responses, our counterarguments and hopefully advance the discussion in that way. So I very much think that this new strategy is likely to get a lot more attention and a lot more media coverage and shift the overton window of discourse. Now I also know that you are a candidate for the European election in 2024. Could you tell us a bit about that? Yes, so the party exists since 2015 and we participated already in 20 elections in Germany. So those were like, so we participated in the last European election and the last two federal elections in Germany and then in 17 state elections in Germany and so on the federal level and on the state level there is a 5% threshold and that means that you only get as a party to parliament if you get at least 5% of the votes. But at the European level, at the European election there is no threshold so you get your first seat once you get at least 0.5% of the votes and it's the last European election 2019. We got 0.2% of the votes and so next year there is a European election again and I think that the reason why we didn't get more votes yet is because we are still very unknown because there are a lot of small parties in Germany and a lot of people don't care so much about the small parties, they don't know about them. So once we get better known, I think we have a very very good chance to get much more votes and there is a realistic chance that we get at least one seat in the next European election just next year in June I think. So last time it wasn't May, I think this time it's a little bit later. Yeah, I think in June. So yeah, having a seat in the parliament of course would help a lot with the advocacy because for example you could give talks in the parliament as a parliamentarian and you could do lobbying directly in the parliament and also we could hire people that do advocacy full time. If you have a seat in the parliament, if you have a petition you can hire people for about 20,000 euro a month salary to work for you full time and do advocacy. And yeah, so this would help a lot and make the work much more efficient. So that's our hope that next year we will be in the European parliament. Indeed and based on your vote totals back in 2019, it seems that you're in striking distance you would just have to a little more than double your previous vote total and you have already been engaging in a lot of impressive activism your various posters about the diseases that are exacerbated by aging and the poster with Aubrey de Grey. I think they did make an impact on the people in Germany and I'm curious what advertising messaging approaches you plan to pursue for the 2024 European parliament election to raise that level of public awareness further. So we made a very good experience this year. This year we participated in two state elections in Berlin and Bremen and now we are in October, we participated in the state election in Hesse again on October 8th this year. So this election campaign will also be a very good promotion for the European election to get more known for that. And so with our election, new design election posters, for example with a question whether you want to live in 800 years or another election poster and ask how old do you want to get, like 80, 100, 500 or so you can vote now you can choose now and you don't lose your vote or another poster says that over 100,000 people die every day of aging and things like that I mean those posters really catch attention people just take photos of those posters and share them on their social media account that's our experience. So we will probably keep this strategy that was this year already a success and continue to do that and we hope that we get more donations so that we can buy more election posters so that we can hang them everywhere in Germany and get seen by as many people as possible and I wanted to add to the results so there were already three state elections where we already had 0.5% of the votes but it's not an impossible goal to get 0.5% it's a European election of course we would need 0.5% German-wide and so far we only had it on state level but it's not impossible Yes indeed and I'm sure those posters are memorable for the people who come across them because they generally don't see those messages from politicians and here is a party that is promising something radically different and radically better at least I hope that many people will see living dramatically longer as radically better but at the very least they will remember you and they will engage with these ideas which is the most important element of this of course if you do get elected to the European Parliament that would be an immense boost in visibility and I think many media outlets many academic writers are going to cover that event and that will further advance our movement now I'm curious if somebody wants to help your efforts what can they do and perhaps your answer will differ depending on whether that person is in Germany or whether that person is in another EU country or whether that person is outside the EU but what are some possibilities? We are interested in all kinds of collaborations because also prior to elections when more people come to our website we link to all kinds of other sites so we also added to link to other advocacy organizations or other things that are going on in the longevity field that want to have more views so you can go to our website it's a German website for humansforschen.de I don't know you can just Google German Party for Regimination Research and you will find us there but we also have our program and our election program we translate it into English and also our statutes so on this website you also find things in English you can read it in English but most of the things we translate into English and of course people can donate for our election campaign people that don't live in the EU can donate a maximum of 1000€ per year per person or that's the limit and we are interested in all kinds of collaborations and you can become a member of the party the membership is free and you don't have to live in Germany and if you are like a scientist in the aging field you could also join our advisory board so we have a scientific advisory board and a strategic advisory board and the more people we have on there the better it looks for the general public because they see that there is a party for souls are they telling what are their traditions is it serious what they are talking about with the sense approach and what is all that of aging is it even a serious thing but if they see that there are scientists who support us and stand behind it with their name and this is also an obstacle yes indeed well thank you for putting forth all of those suggestions hopefully some of our viewers will explore your website and consider the possibilities that you put forward for offering support now you've been here for the first two days of Longevity Summit Dublin what are your impressions and perhaps some of the most noteworthy aspects that you've observed thus far well there are more people attending than last year that's a good thing so it grew quite a lot and so far I met a lot of interesting people that I didn't know before even people that live in my hometown that I didn't know before so it's very nice to see that I feel it grows yes and given that you're meeting people from your hometown perhaps that will expand your base of support as well excellent well I'm glad that the summit is proving to be fruitful for you and your efforts and I hope you enjoy the remainder of it as well indeed thank you Felix