I had the idea almost seven years ago.

In the depths of an existential crisis, consumed with absorbing everything I could about transhumanism, and working for an internet start-up (before the first bubble burst), I decided to create an outlet and destination for forward-thinking ideas and information.

What to call it?

Well, we were talking about human improvement, right? In all its forms?

So what better name could I choose than Betterhumans?

Straightforward, perhaps.

And purposefully provocative.

For nearly seven years, in various forms, I've overseen my baby's growth.

But lately I've been a very neglectful parent.

And so, to help my baby grow into adulthood, I have found an adoptive parent.

Someone with as much passion for the site as I had at its height -- someone with more time, resources and connections to facilitate its further growth.

But before I go on, you need some background.

Because it's hard for me to believe that this day has come.

After all, when I started the site, I knew almost nothing about creating websites and web content.

To build the first version of Betterhumans, I learned HTML.

To build the second, I learned how to program and build rudimentary databases.

By the third version, I had built a complete content-management system from scratch, all the while managing constantly evolving hosting arrangements as our traffic grew.

(Today, the site users third-party software; I realized long ago that my core competencies don't include web development.)

And man, how it grew.

We published news articles, columns and reports that attracted hundreds of thousands of unique visitors.

We earned media attention from around the world for what used to be outrageous ideas (but now appear on episodes of 60 Minutes).

I actually worked on Betterhumans full time for nearly two years of my life, sacrificing many opportunities (and, to be honest, relationships) in the process, despite the fact that the site generated barely enough revenue to support its own existence.

But there was consolation.

Such as the opportunity to meet and make many new and brilliant friends, including my now good friend and Betterhumans collaborator George Dvorsky, without whom the site might honestly never have survived.

And now, it's time to move on.

While I'm still interested and intrigued by transhumanism and forward-thinking ideas, my current passions don't include building a transhumanist-themed website.

The site has subsequently languished.

So I reached out to someone I thought would be interested.

Someone whose passion shows through involvement in far too many cutting-edge organizations to list here.

His name is James Clement.

Some of you may know him as the new Executive Director of the World Transhumanist Association.

Others may know him from his work as COO of the Maximum Life Foundation, or as President of the InnerSpace Foundation.

Wherever you know him from, you know his passion and drive.

And you'll know that he's exactly the right person to reinvigorate Betterhumans.

So, where to from here?

Well, we're helping James get ramped up.

And he's already started posting content and inviting eminent new bloggers aboard.

Over the next few weeks, we'll be helping James migrate Betterhumans to new servers, as well as helping him launch a new version of the site with even more features.

As for me?

I have many other projects on the go.

But I'll be here, the proud parent, as Betterhumans grows up and matures away from home.

To everyone who has come along for the ride...

Thanks for your undying support.

Months after starting down this path, I am happy to announce (as you might have seen) the launch of a refreshed Betterhumans.com. The new site is lighter, less cluttered, more focused and more content-rich, changes aimed at expanding Betterhumans' position as a top destination for learning about and discussing issues and developments in advancing science, technology, self- and societal improvement.

Please click around, explore, and freely report any issues, below or in the support forum. Our goal is to roll out improvements once a month, with the next round of improvements slated to launch in the first week of July, and to include bug fixes, optimizations and additional features and functionality.

One thing I have learned running Betterhumans for the past few years (and through other media work--and life in general) is that you can't please everybody. I know some people will absolutely despise our changes. And that's cool; everyone's entitled to an opinion. Based on the concept work, mockup review and opportunity everyone had to view the site on staging and provide their feedback, however, I'm confident that the majority of our members and casual visitors will appreciate the changes.

Thanks to everyone for your ongoing support. I look forward to further improvements as we all work to create the future!

Above my fridge I have a cupboard. It's a pain in the ass to reach, particularly for a short guy like me. A silly place for a cupboard, really. But for some reason, I've decided that this cupboard will house my supplements. Maybe it's the proximity to the fridge, to reinforce to myself, or perhaps to convince myself, that these products are somehow different from prescription drugs. Or maybe I just like the fact that when I open the cupboard, I see a lineup of bottles. Sort of a pride thing, like a rich guy with a glassed-in garage for his car collection. I open my two cupboard doors and reveal my collection to the world. I'll even offer some people a test drive.

Granted, it's not the craziest collection. I'm not yet on a Ray Kurzweil-style supplement regimen, consisting of hundreds of supplements a day. I decided this year to get a bit more aggressive, and follow the Life Extension Foundation's top 10 regimen. So I've been gradually adding supplements--first a multivitamin for general health and wellbeing, then omega fatty acids for brain health, then coenzyme Q10 for mitochondrial health and energy. All of this along with creatine and whey protein for body building and muscle health. And today I added another supplement, and am looking forward to reporting on its effects, whatever they might be.  

It started when I realized that, for the past few weeks, I've had some rough days. Mood swings, really. Along with some poor sleep. I'm not sure if it's the weather. Or maybe the fact that the sun comes beating into my apartment at 6:30 AM. But whatever the case, I felt that my mood could use some general improvement. So today, after knowing about this supplement for years, I decided to start taking S-Adenosylmethionine (SAMe). 

For those who don't know about SAMe, follow the link to learn more. The compound is one of the most well-researched and well-supported supplements around, particularly for mood modification. There are literally hundreds of studies attesting to its benefits, which rival those of antidepressant drugs but come with far fewer  side effects.  

I just started taking the drug--I mean, supplement--today, and it's too soon to tell what impact it will have. But I am optimistic. And damn if opening that hard-to-reach supplement cupboard doesn't already feel a tad less onerous.

So a few days ago, I was ready to dump Betterhumans. I had planned to give members and visitors two weeks notice and then, if I couldn't find someone to take it over, just shut it down. Drastic, perhaps. After all, I've run the site for nearly five years now. But as I worked myself raw on the new site, I just couldn't stand how much time, energy and money Betterhumans was consuming. And I just felt that I didn't have enough passion for the site right now to endure what was required to keep it alive and growing.

Fast forward a few days, and I'm excited to announce that a test version of the new Betterhumans.com is available. Those who are interested can take a spin by following that link. Those who have patience can wait until Sunday, June 3 when, if all goes well, we will launch the new site here.

How could I be so moody? It's a love hate relationship. Hence my subject line, which I borrowed from Shannon Larratt, who runs the successful BMEzine.com body modification e-magazine. Larratt's personal email includes (or included—it's been awhile since I've corresponded with him directly) the line: "Death to BME, Long live BME!" He explains this as "a takeoff on 'The king is dead, long live the king,' as a reference to BME's roughly yearly redesigning and improvement of itself—and the need to consciously do so."

Now, Larratt seems to be referring to the fact that he must constantly kill the old BMEzine.com to create the new. But to me, this also expresses the love-hate relationship we all have with consuming personal projects. It's a tension that becomes particularly challenging when you try to balance your desire to see something succeed with other aspects of your life. For this redesign, at least, I was able to pull through—albeit just barely. And I do believe it was worth it. So what can you expect? Here are some things to get excited about:

Enhanced news coverage

One of the best new features, in my opinion, is expanded news coverage. While we haven't yet turned on our new news feed, we will be doing so shortly. It will bring about 50 relevant news items to your attention each day. How can you parse all of that content? We've made it easy. Step one is to download the new, free Betterhumans toolbar. It will scroll relevant news through your browser. (You can also see all the latest news by subscribing to the news RSS feed or browsing the news index.) Then, simply by reading, commenting on and rating news items of interest, you will help drive the most interesting news to the home page. In this way, we will be combining technology and distributed human effort to produce both the most comprehensive and the most focused coverage of issues and developments in science, technology, self- and societal improvement.

Focus on activism

One reason why Betterhumans has become somewhat frustrating to me is seeing so much great conversation and so little action. To help address this issue, the new site features a forum dedicated to activism and a prominent "action items" banner encouraging people to participate in creating positive change. I am aiming to work with partner organizations such as the Methuselah Foundation, World Transhumanist Association, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, Foresight Institute and Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence in bringing activism opportunities to wider attention.

Original articles

While Betterhumans has moved away from providing original editorial (apart from blogs) over the past year or so, the new site will offer a return in the form of a new articles section. For this section, we will be commissioning and republishing more detailed and thought-provoking items, including interviews with leaders in diverse fields related to our editorial mandate.

Streamlined design and functionality

I hate clutter, and I know that many of you do as well. For the new site, we therefore removed some features and functionality that was rarely used, in order to improve usability, appearance and performance. We made other tweaks as well aimed at optimization, and I intend to make streamlining and optimization a continued priority.

Now, I know that some of you are going to absolutely hate the new site. And that's okay; everyone's entitled to their opinion. But others of you will recognize the improvement, and get excited about participating in its ongoing development. Some of you might even get so excited that you want to learn more about volunteering. Whatever the case, please add comments below, as well as note any bugs that you discover (or email them to simon-dot-smith-at-betterhumans-dot-com). The more feedback I get, the more I’ll feel that all the work is worth it.

Thanks to all of you for your continued support, and to everyone—particularly George, James, Parish, Pace, Matthew and all our featured bloggers—who contributed what they could to bring things to this stage. Long live Betterhumans! For today, anyway.

At first I thought it was the car. It was shaking. Here I was at a red light, taking one of my first driving lessons, and the car was about to stall, I thought. Then I looked down at my left leg, which was twitching back and forth like a piston, shaking the car along with it. And then I looked at my driving instructor, the cause of my nervousness. He was a caustic Israeli who yelled at me for everything--"Go!" he would shout if I took too long making a left turn. He almost certainly got his experience training soldiers to drive tanks. Hence it was that he delivered orders rather than gave lessons. Like that day's. "Drive me to the convenience store," he commanded, with a hint of disgust. "I need to get cigarettes."

That was 13 years ago. I went on to fail my first driving test, after nearly killing me and my evaluator while making a left turn out of the parking lot. I blame my instructor.

Yet somehow, in the haze of battle, I managed to pick up some useful knowledge. And one piece of knowledge that stuck with me is this: look where you want the car to go, because your mind will follow your eyes, and your steering will follow your mind. It's a simple concept, but probably one of the most important things to remember when driving. If you're in a skid, for example, you need to look at the road ahead so you can steer in that direction, rather than look towards the ditch you're trying to avoid.

Most people, and particularly those who have been through a bad skid, would agree with the importance of looking where you want to go. I think most people also recognize that in everyday life, your focus affects your path; if you're constantly focusing on negative outcomes, your mind steers your actions towards their realization. Conversely, visualizing positive outcomes steers you there. This is the basis for much self-improvement through self-hypnosis and visualization.

Yet when confronted with the unfamiliar and hence scary, people tend to forget this commonsense idea. One of the best examples is conversations about longevity and life extension. People who are unfamiliar with the real prospect of healthy life extension often express existential angst when considering the addition of decades to their life. Hell, even I'm not immune to this, despite spending the past six years regularly reading and writing about it.

In thinking about it, however, I believe this angst often comes up because we take our eyes off the road, which is caused by the fact that we don't know where to fix our gaze. For today's lifespan, and today's world, people have a fairly clear vision, dictated by social custom, of the road ahead. The signs along the way typically read "school," "career," "marriage," "kids," "retirement" and "death." At each landmark, people look to the next. They know the route. But if you question the map, perhaps by proposing multiple careers, multiple retirements or, say, a long-delayed death, it becomes more difficult to know where you should be looking next. What's up ahead? We don't know for sure; things are changing fast, while at the same time the road is looking longer.

Because of this, I think we need to think about what new landmarks we can create, both as individuals and as a society. And we should make these visions as grand as possible, so that when our eyes are leading our minds to guide our actions, we're aiming for the stars rather than just the Moon.

What might such visions look like? Well, how's this for grandiose: colonizing the Universe. Sure, it sounds absurd; we're just barely able to routinely put people in space. But imagine how different your life would be if everyday you woke up and said, "One day, humanity will colonize the Universe. I want to be around for that. And I want everything I do to contribute directly or indirectly to its achievement." Or maybe look to more short-term, yet still grandiose, goals, like developing a sustainable energy infrastructure. Or completely eradicating poverty. Or ending all forms of reality television.

Whether you're feeling up for colonizing the Universe or not is besides the point--and we have plenty of time to debate its merits. What's important is that when we feel disoriented by moved, murky and missing landmarks, we create new ones upon which to focus our gaze. Those who are concerned about how to spend any extra time granted by life extension medicine don't need lectures so much as visions. And the more inspired those visions, the more motivating.

This past December, looking where I wanted to go saved my life when a car I was driving began fish-tailing across a snowy highway. Surprising even myself, rather than reacting in fear, I recalled my driving instruction and, without my legs shaking, looked ahead, eased off the accelerator and steered with the skid in the direction I wanted to head. After about 20 perilous seconds, which felt like hours, the car pulled out of the skid. It was a profound reminder. I should have called my driving instructor and gloated, in retribution for his caustic comments and cigarette runs. But I'd rather not look back; I want to go forward. After all, failing a driving test seems pretty minor when we have a universe to colonize.

I'm pleased to announce that things have been moving rapidly with the next version of Betterhumans.com. We now have several positions filled and our volunteers are working behind the scenes on planning and development.

I am also pleased to announce the addition of several prominent writers to our list of Featured Bloggers. These include:

• Michael Anissimov
• Ralph Cerchione
• Anne Corwin
• George Dvorsky
• James Hughes
• Peter Passaro
• Reason
• Russell Blackford 
• Brian Wang

Some of our Featured Bloggers have already started posting to the site. Others will begin when we transition to our new format.

And on that note, I wanted to announce some intermediate steps towards the next version of the site. Over the next week, and hopefully the next few days, we will be:

1. Adding a Featured Blogs section to the site.
2. Adding a Featured Blogs feed to the home page.
3. Reorganizing the forums along these lines:
1. Improve the world
   
• Activism
• Technology
• Ideology
  
2. Improve yourself
• Mind
• Body
• Other
3. Make connections
   
• General discussion
• Introductions
4. Improve the site
• Staff
• Support

You will notice these and other changes as we move towards the next version of the site, which will involve a total overhaul. As a step towards the new site, we need to change the architecture, which is why we're adding in some new sections and reorganizing the forums.

Please send any feedback to me, Parish or any of our other staff!

 

 

Well, that was embarrassing. For the past few weeks, we've been experiencing some quite annoying error messages. I spent hours looking into the problem, and found that the likely culprit was some bad code, some bad processes, some inefficient server settings, and insufficient RAM.

Well, I'm happy to announce that the site got an injection of 1 GB of RAM, and some tweaks that mean you should bring up pages much faster even when nobody's visited for up to 20 minutes, which is rare. If you've visited since Friday, you've hopefully noticed how much faster everything is. I'm hoping that this will address the error messages, and keep things moving lightning-quick. But I do know that there are some underlying code issues that won't be addressed until the launch of Betterhumans X. And I also know that technology can be finicky. So please report any issues to me.

On the note of Betterhumans X, Parish and I will be working this week on recruitment of featured bloggers and staff. Staff get a sneak peak at the current concept for Betterhumans X, as well as other benefits. There are still positions available, so if you are interested, please read our job descriptions and drop us a note (simon.smith-at-betterhumans-dot-com or parish.mozdzierz-at-betterhumans-dot-com). Note that it doesn't take much to make a big difference; working 20 minutes a day to bring the community better news, for example, would be a tremendously valuable and rewarding contribution.

If you're concerned about the future of Betterhumans, and the future in general, I'm pleased to announce some major initiatives that will get you excited--and to invite you to join the fun.

Extend life: Join the Betterhumans Mprize 300 group

The first initiative, which Reason already announced (thunder stealer!), is the creation of a Betterhumans Mprize 300 group. This initiative, spearheaded by Betterhumans' new Deputy Editor Parish Mozdzierz (better known to y'all as Veritas), and met with enthusiasm by the Methuselah Foundation's Kevin Perrot, gives Betterhumans members the ability to become leading supporters of longevity research for a very low cost. Essentially, we pool our resources to join an elite group of 300 who are each pledging $25,000 towards the development of antiaging medicine. Learn more and donate now! (I'll be making my donation after getting this year's tax refund, hopefully in a few weeks.)

Help build Betterhumans: Join our team

The second initiative is the creation of an organizational hierarchy and the staffing of key positions to help take Betterhumans to the next level. We have listed several positions for which we are seeking volunteers, including for managing the news, creating feature articles and leading activism projects. Look over the list of openings to see what might be of interest. Volunteers receive benefits such as their own Betterhumans email address, access to our staff forum, and the ability to help steer the site's evolution. We will also be contacting members that we think might be great for specific roles, so keep an eye on your inbox.

Prepare for Betterhumans X

Our staffing initiative is in preparation for the next version of Betterhumans--version 10, or X--which we're hoping to launch by the summer. This version will feature a refreshed site design, enhanced functionality, faster response times and a whack of new editorial elements such as feature articles, interviews with leading figures, featured bloggers and a curated gallery of futuristic works. We will be requesting feedback from staff volunteers shortly, and unveiling elements of the new site to the community over the next few months.

I'll be the first to admit that Betterhumans has lost some of its momentum over the past few months. But I'll also be the first to say that, in part thanks to Parish's enthusiasm, things look better now than ever. We've already developed a conceptual design for Betterhumans X, for example, and are preparing to recruit featured bloggers with the help of George Dvorsky, who has moved from his Deputy Editor position with Betterhumans to head up our Advisory Board.

Things are really starting to move. So if you're up for some excitement, have some energy to spare, and see a good fit with any of our listed positions, drop us a note.

Things are about to get interesting.

So this year, I and many of my friends are turning 30. And don't think people aren't noticing. This month and next month alone, three close friends will mark the birthday. And this has brought on the inevitable anxiety about aging, getting older, leaving youthful days behind, and various other manifestations of ageist bullshit that, thankfully, is being driven further and further out of our culture with each new development in antiaging medicine, and each fresh take on what it means to mark birthdays in a transhuman era.

I joke that if 40 is the new 20, as some have argued, then 30 is the new 10. Obviously, this isn't quite true. After all, I had no pubic hair at 10. But I do truly believe that our chronological age increasingly doesn't reflect our biological age when compared with previous generations. While the notion of your "real age," as opposed to your chronological age, has become commercialized, this doesn't undermine its truth. Because even with our limited interventions today--which mostly consist of the right exercise, diet (including caloric restriction), supplementation, sun avoidance and modestly effective drugs (such as Lipitor, perhaps the most successful antiaging drug to date, as it fights various age-related cardiovascular ailments and possibly Alzheimer's)--we're able to make a huge impact on our biology.

And this is just the beginning. With each year you add to your life with today's interventions, as Aubrey de Grey has noted, you add one more year in which to benefit from future interventions. So, say today's interventions give you an extra 10 years. That means 10 more years of antiaging research from which you can benefit. If those interventions give you another 10 years, you have 10 more years in which to benefit from new interventions. And since the pace of scientific and technological advancement appears to be speeding up, there's a good chance that within those 10 years you'll see more progress than in the previous 10. Eventually, the development of new interventions outpaces your aging--you start to see 15 years added for every 10 years of aging, then 20 years added for every five years of aging, and so on--and we reach escape velocity into an indefinite lifespan.

If you don't believe this is possible, or happening, take a good look around. Several companies, such as Elixir Pharmaceuticals, are already developing life-extending drugs. And de Grey's Methuselah Foundation is already funding research into SENS, de Grey's engineering program for slowing and reversing aging, as well as organizing the Methuselah Mouse Prize for antiaging research. And we're not talking small operations; the Methuselah Foundation has received high-profile support and now has more than eight million dollars to play with, a number increasing rapidly as the organization's profile and success grows.

So as people around me start turning 30, and my birthday approaches, it's become strikingly apparent that beliefs and attitudes about age and aging will take longer to change than aging itself. Rather than resign themselves to a defeatist and depressing position, and hasten bodily decline through unhealthy behaviors born of negativity, people need to adopt ageless thinking and do everything they can with existing interventions in order to see the next round of interventions and, ultimately, a day when chronological age means less to your self- and societal- perception than the color of your hair. 

This isn't to say that we shouldn't value the experience and wisdom that comes with age. Nor that we shouldn't realize differences in maturity between those who are 20 and those who are 40. But in such case, we're not associating chronology with biology. We're associating it with psychology. What I'm talking about is the increasing error in judging our own and others' biological functioning based on a number that appears on their driver's license.

So let's change the culture, beginning with ourselves. For my 30th birthday, I'll strive to give myself the gift of ageless thinking, and do what I can to encourage a similar attitude amongst my friends. 

Over the past month, I've become obsessed with reading about limb lengthening surgery. (Among other things; I do tend to have a somewhat obsessive personality.) This was partly stoked by recent reports that China has banned the procedure, which is in fact not true--the country's health ministry is just cracking down on unauthorized clinics. It also came after seeing ads all over the web--and Betterhumans--for lotions, potions, devices and exercises that purportedly make people taller. Most of these, of course, are scams; for adults whose growth plates have fused, limb lengthening is the only thing that works. 

My interest in the subject is both personal and intellectual. I stand between 5'3" and 5'4", depending on whether it's morning or night (gravity compresses your spine over the course of a day), and whether I've been sitting in a chair all day or hanging from a tree. I've been short my entire life, and can remember having an opportunity to take growth hormone as a child, although for some unclear reason didn't push for it. Probably in part because, in spite of my height or because of it, I'm a confident and ambitious person (some might say swaggeringly arrogant) who fights hard to achieve his goals.

Yet I know that humans value height. The majority of CEOs are over six foot, the taller US presidential candidate tends to win the election, and people earn more money, on average, with each extra inch of height. Some might argue that this is simply a cultural rather than biological artifact. But as with our notions of beauty, I think it's quite clear that there's something ingrained. And it makes some sense: as a sign of strength, tallness would be a desirable trait to our ancestors on the savannah. Of course, I also think that our society, for evolutionary or other reasons, has come to associate tallness with confidence and capability, which is self-reinforcing; short people tend to get short shrift, hence tend to have lower confidence. (Although I have met many tall people with low levels of confidence; it cuts across height.) And I by no means think that short people can't be successful; on the contrary, I think that such traits as intelligence, confidence, creativity, enthusiasm and ambition are far more important in the long run, since they allow you to create your future.

But I find myself in a bit of a conundrum. On the one hand, I recognize that height is a positional good; if everyone started increasing their height, nobody would really be better off. This is opposed to, say, health and longevity; if everyone started living longer and healthier, everyone would be better off. (Illogical arguments to the contrary aside.) Yet this doesn't quite help with the fact that short people do face discrimination. While we can fight against such discrimination, I also feel that we should give people greater control over their body in all aspects, including the right and ability to healthily increase their height as they see fit.

Which brings me back to limb lengthening surgery.

Buy the inch

The surgery was pioneered by a Russian doctor named Gavril Ilizarov. Ilizarov discovered by accident that, contrary to common misconception, you can get bone to grow after puberty. The trick is to break it and slowly stretch the broken pieces apart by less than 1mm per day. New bone grows in between, and nerves and soft tissues stretch and grow to accommodate the change. This necessitates the use of a fixator to hold the bones steady while stretching them apart. Ilizarov used an external frame for this, while some newer methods use an internal nail-like system.

While 1mm per day may not sound like a lot, it adds up. And because both the lower (tibia and fibula) and upper (femur) legs can be lengthened, height increases of 5 inches aren't uncommon, while height increases of a foot--typically for people with various forms of dwarfism--have been accomplished. Height increases of about 2.5 inches appear to be most common, typically by performing the procedure on the lower legs alone. And such increases have lower risks of complication, including lower risks of making people look disproportionate.

The cost for the procedure can be as little as US$20,000 for reputable treatment in China. This includes surgery, two months worth of lengthening (called distraction), several months of accommodation (it can be six months or more before you're walking properly), physical therapy, medication and nursing. There are just a handful of reputable locations, with those in more developed nations costing far more--in the US, it costs about US$85,000 for two inches, not including accommodation or physical therapy.   

Tall order

So, would I do it? 

As someone who believes in human enhancement, I'm already over most of the ethical and intellectual hurdles that might give others pause. And to me, there's nothing to be ashamed of in trying to take more control of and responsibility for your life in as many areas as possible. The key issues for me are:

1. The pain: This obviously isn't a pleasant experience. While different people who have undergone the procedure report different levels of pain, nobody has reported a walk in the park. So if I were to decide in favor of limb lengthening, I'd really need to prepare myself mentally for the experience. I would hope that my general level of fitness and flexibility would help keep pain levels lower. There should be less nerve and soft-tissue stretching, for example, thanks to years of martial arts training and stretching.
2. The cost: US$20,000 isn't that much money for a possible lifetime of benefit. But tack on the possibility of six months without full-time work and it might cost far more. Even US$30,000 total impact isn't unreasonable. But it might not make sense if the money could be better spent elsewhere. Is the benefit worth the cost?
3. The career speed bump: I currently feel very good about my career and career path. Putting my career on hold for six months isn't something I really want to do.
4. The risks of the procedure: There are, of course, risks with the limb lengthening procedure. Complications such as infections tend to be manageable. But despite having a success rate in some cases as high as 99%, as a surgical procedure, there are still concerns. I don't want to do something damaging to my body in the pursuit of something potentially enhancing.
5. The potential long-term health implications: Long-term, there can also be risks, such as arthritis, although it's hard to find long-term reports given that this is a fairly new procedure that's not very widely practiced.
6. The impact on activities: Reports say that you can resume normal sports activities within a year to two years after having limb lengthening surgery. I've practiced martial arts for about 10 years now, and one of the things I'd hate to do is take a two-year pause. Also, I'm not so keen on being largely confined to bed and a wheelchair for two months or more.
7. The social ramifications: Family and friends would know what I'd done. (I'm obviously not keeping my thoughts on the matter a secret.) I think that most people who are close to me would disapprove. Such responses, however, haven't stopped me from undertaking other actions that met with reproach and quizzical stares, such as signing up for cryonics. So in many ways I'm prepared for such reactions, and I think many people around me are prepared for slightly eccentric behavior.
8. The potential for better interventions: Another major factor to consider is the potential of future interventions to offer a more holistic and less painful growth. People are already researching other biomedical methods of increasing height, and advances are regularly being reported in the area of tissue engineering and bone regeneration. It would surely suck to go through an expensive, painful procedure only to have something better come on the market in a few years--and, perhaps worse yet, to be excluded from taking advantage of it due to having a previous, incompatible procedure.
9. The potential future irrelevancy: Finally, there's the fact that technological advances might make such a procedure irrelevant. To be a bit radical, for example, imagine that in 20 years from now we're regularly downloading our consciousness into robotic bodies, or conducting many of our activities virtually--Second Life is just the beginning. Height might become far less of a concern in such situations. For   this reason and the fact that future technology might offer better height-increasing solutions in the future, it might be best to invest in life extension research, which could provide a better chance that I'll live long enough to see leg lengthening surgery become irrelevant or be overtaken by better technology.

Phew! That's an overview of things running through my head. I'm glad to get them out because I'd love to hear responses. I hope you rise to the challenge.