I just had a very fascinating discussion with person I believe
to be a devout humanist that revolved arround our differences (me
being an extropian/transhumanist) of belief. I noticed some very
pronounced differences in our beliefs/assumptions about life.
He seemed to work off of assumption like never, will any of
his children (or their children...), ever have a chance to "swim in a
stream" the way he did when he was a child because of such streems now
being polluted due to "overpopulation"... For him the optimal life
span was arround 100 years and he expressed that he had no desire to
live any longer than that. He was very comfortable, apperently happy
with and valuing the idea of death and eventually ceasing to exist.
In contrast, as an extropian, I value having as many children
as possible (while admiting that there might be cases when
overpopulation is troublesem, to the extent that it might be good to
make efforts to avoid for a time.) I think the more people there are
the faster we can progress and the better things will become. I
"hope" that either I, or some of my children (or maybe their children
and so on...) might eventually be able to live forever.
He was a slightly older person than I and I think he
considered me as nothing more than a fantasizing youth. He also
indicated that he had such tendencies when he was younger. But,
anyway, I very thoroughly enjoyed our conversation and learned some of
the differences between his and my beliefs/assumptions about life
which I thought might be pertinent to this thread of hummanism vs.
transhumanism tenants.
Brent Allsop