>From: "Randy Smith" <randysmith101@hotmail.com>
>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org
>To: extropians@extropy.org
>Subject: Re: as others see us
>Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2000 13:47:08 -0600
>
>Wow. Tremendous post. What a perfect example of eactly what we are up
>against.
>
>> Though I admire the depth of vision and imaginative genius on display in
>>this work I have many problems with its philosophical underpinnings.
>>Broderick, and the scientists he discusses, seem to have little conception
>>of old age and death as necessary parts of the human life cycle.
>
>I am stunned almost speechless by the depth of the gulf between his
>thinking
>and ours. When I hear someone who is apparently educated and well-read make
>this statement, and realize that the vast majority of humans share his
>viewpoint, I wonder if we have any real chance to win them over, ever.
>
>Perhaps the old saying about how new ideas win acceptance--the holders of
>the idea paradigm simply die out, leaving the field open for the new
>--is completely correct.
>
>
The tone of the review was more that of someone trying to convince himself
of what he's saying.
The kind of attitude expressed is not surprising and it's easy to see how it
comes about. As long as people have existed, death has been inevitable (and
even with billion year+ lifespans, it is still something which will
eventually happen). Those who accept this hideous inevitability as "a
neccessary part of life", thus desirable, probably were the ones better at
coping with their own morality, and the deaths of others around them. I saw
this documentary, "Sick: The life and death of bob flanagan,
supermasochist", about a guy with Cystic Fibrosis, constantly in pain since
childhood, who became a masochistic performance artist, doing things on
stage which would kill me if I did them. It's the same mechanism, you try to
turn something you can't get away from into something you love, something
you wouldn't give up for the world, a neccessary part of the grand cycle of
life.
---------------------------------------------------
Zeb Haradon (zebharadon@hotmail.com)
My personal webpage:
http://www.inconnect.com/~zharadon/ubunix
A movie I'm directing:
http://www.elevatormovie.com
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