The Argument to Moderation
The argument to moderation says, more or less, that you'll get more funding for longevity science if you stop talking about the logical result of successful longevity science - thousand year life spans and such. An example of the type can be found at Amor Mundi by way of the author's dislike for goal-oriented futurism above a certain threshold of ambition: "It seems to me that the resistance to de Grey's SENS research program and its 'engineering' focus [in] some quarters of biogerontological orthodoxy looks to be pretty well described in [terms] of incumbent resistance to a possibly promising scientific paradigm shift. ... at the level of rhetoric it seems to me were one to embrace the more 'bioconservative' [ideal] of a medical practice that would confer on everybody on earth a healthy three-score and ten years or even the 120-years some lucky few humans may have enjoyed this would be little distinguishable in the therapeutic effects it would actually likely facilitate (as a spur to funding, research, improvement of tools and techniques, theoretical publications, and so on) from those facilitated by the more 'transhumanist' ideal of technological immortality." I couldn't disagree more - progress in advocacy is achieved by pushing the boundaries of discussion as far out as possible. The further they go, the further goes the reasonable centerpoint.
Link: http://amormundi.blogspot.com/2008/03/aubrey-de-grey-technological.html