Re: Rifkin speaks in SCI AM

Mark Crosby (crosby_m@rocketmail.com)
Wed, 3 Sep 1997 06:04:30 -0700 (PDT)


I first heard about Jeremy Rifkin in an excerpt from his
just-published book _Algeny_ in the May 1983 Datamation (a magazine
for data processing management). I thought it was so good I made a
copy and highlighted the most potent passages.

Rifkin talked eloquently of "moving from the age of pyrotechnology to
the age of biotechnology"; and, "for our children, then, nature will
no longer be something they are born into but rather something they
program"; and, "a living organsim is no longer seen as a permanent
form but rather as a network of activity. With this new definition of
life, the philosophy of becoming supercedes the philosophy of being".

A few years later, when Rifkin started making the news with his
anti-biotech law suits, I was AMAZED to realize that he was against
all these transhuman trends he had so aptly described!

Here's the note I wrote on my copy of the article: One would hardly
suspect, by reading these cleverly edited excerpts, that Jeremy Rifkin
is vehemently opposed to 'algeny'. This leads me to conclude that
Rifkin is simply a clever journalist out to exploit all angles of his
chosen niche.

Mark Crosby
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