> What changes in your personal lifestyle have you taken to increase
> the amount of extropy therein (changes = mental, physical, social,
> etc.)?
I'm loving the responses to this question. I hope what I say
here isn't to far off of what was being asked for.
I was raised in the "LDS" (The Mormons) church. One of their
cultural natures is to work very hard to "save" others because of "the
worth of souls". "bring, save it be one soul into me, how great shall
be your joy with him in the kingdom..."
Mormons believe they have the keys to eternal exalted life.
If you choose their way you will get it, if not it is choosing death.
They believe all are free to choose one or the other and they
continually try to convince others to choose their way. The Book of
Mormon, 2 Nephi 2:27 says:
"they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great
Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to
the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men
might be miserable like unto himself."
These philosophies have spilled over into my extropian way of
life. In other words, I think that they have things kind of right but
just backwards. If one only follows their teachings, doesn't choose
to do more than have faith and pray and go to the temple... if one
doesn't do the research work required and if one isn't cryonically
preserved..., it is choosing death. Since I'd hate to have my friends
and family miss the opportunity to make it to eternal life, I take any
advantage I can (without being to much of an obnoxious pain), to say
things like: "In a thousand years we'll know who is right, who made
the right choice, who is alive in a glorious, eternal life, heaven and
who is miserable in hell, sheo, or the grave." I try to get as many
as possible to not give into the temptings of those that apparently
"seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto [themselves]".
In other words I'm more or less crying warnings of hellfire
and damnation to them for making incorrect choices. I know this is
against the usual extropian nature to live, choose, and let others
live and choose what they may. But, possibly because of my LDS
background, I have troubles with this. I don't want to be the only
one of my LDS family and friends that can be "brought back". I think
if more extropians took this attitude about getting the critical words
of warning out cryonics and extropianism would spread much faster.
(Not to mention the corresponding research effort and funding... ever
hear about the quantities of LDS owned assets and the amount of works
and money that goes into the growing number of temples...?) Many
people just aren't yet blessed with enough smarts and must be told
what to do with powerful and explicit warnings of how extreme the
consequences are. It's sad, believing that their promises of
salvation are false, to see so many belief systems like LDS be so
successful at preying on such people that so desperately want to be
told what to do.
Brent Allsop