All,
BBC TV screened it's program "Heart of the matter" at 11:50PM GMT on
Sunday. Was pure luck I even found out, happened to spot it in the TV
guide by sheer luck!
The first half of this program contained a section on life extension
delivered by Nick Bostrom of the WTA, and contained interviews with Max
More and Natasha Vita More. After that, they had a discussion with Nick
himself, along with a Neurologist (I think), an environmentalist, and of
course a theologian (there was another guy, can't remember what he did, one
of the sciences I think).
I found the host to be reasonably fair, and Nick did a fine job. However,
I get the feeling the environmentalist guy and the theologian missed the
plot. She was going on about needing death and old age in order to "value"
youth and such. The usual arguments about missing friends, boredom etc.
were brought out... Also the idea of "making space" for the next
generation was raised. When Nick responded on that issue they didn't seem
to have much of a response, and the discussion moved on...
The Env. guy seemed to be standard scare monger stuff, even appealing
directly to the camera at one point to press his message across. He also
brought up the overpopulation argument, to which Nick responded with the
facts about population decline in the west. To the Env. guy's credit, he
did bring up the point about inequality in the distribution of the benefits
of technology in the developing world. Not sure what that has to do with
us striving to become better than we are though:) His main objection was
"finite resources", and that he felt living for an extended length of time
would be some kind of additional drain on the planet.
The neurologist to be fair to her was fairly level headed, even bringing up
the idea of 0-4C body freezing in order to live a "punctuated" extended
life, ala Benjamin Franklin I guess. It seemed obvious that none of them
had any previous exposure to TransH/Extropian ideas. The other scientist
guy seemed cautious but optimistic about the future. Both of the science
orientated people seemed the most level-headed IMO.
Unfortunately I felt that it was too short a time, and that given longer
Nick would have had more opportunity to shine, in between the
'responsibility to die for our children' diatribes.... I'm sure he could
have easily showed them the dead ends in their ways of thinking, but I
suppose it's at least some exposure for our ideals. Maybe it'll get some
people investigating.
Anyways, that's my take on it. Would like to say well done to Nick for an
excellent overview and for his composed stance in the debate!
Regards,
James.....
J & J Corbally ~ Eire
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:04:38 MDT