> >Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 10:14:45 -0400 (EDT)
> >From: "Alex F. Bokov" <alexboko@umich.edu>
> >Subject: Re: "...Death is an evil" (Sappho 630 BC)
> >- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> >On Tue, 2 Oct 2001, Damien Broderick wrote:
> > > If something like this were shown to be true, death literally
> would be
> > seen
> > > as a disease, akin to kuru. Medical means might be found to block the
> > prion
> > > form and promote benign conformations. What then for the
> pious? Must we
> > > assume that God has allowed this vile disorder for our own
> good, or even
> > > cast it upon humankind as a punishment? But if that's so, it
> must apply as
> > > well to other illnesses, yet even the pious, unless they are
> very odd,
> > seek
> > > cures for infections and heart conditions, etc. Why not for death?
> >I doubt it's prions, but hey, I'm wrong more and more these days.
> >Whatever the cause of aging, infectious, genetic, or thermodynamic, it
> >IS a disease. Once we nail it, I'm sure it will be the same damn
> >Darwin and Galileo crap all over again. If the 'pious' are still the
> >dominant culture when this happens they'll put us on trial, maybe kill
> >us, and then quietly make their peace with us a century or two later
> >(if they're still around and I'm not too optimistic).
Oh, this is such defeatist nonsense, all due respect and all. Most people
want to live healthier for longer -- go ask them. The problems are
1) poor education and a lack of personal responsibility in society; most
people don't realize that there are things that they can do, and don't
expect to actually have to get off their collective arses to do it in any
case.
2) a boatload of baggage, cranks, junk and idiocy that seems to surround any
discussion of health, let alone life extension, and let's not even talk
about immortality
3) basic ingrained human laziness and short-sightedness. Next to no-one
would save for retirement if the govenment didn't pretty much make them do
it.
So my point: practical anti-aging and practical immortality are possible,
they will happen. It's something that people want, when you get past the
illogic and contradictory views and lack of awareness and education. This is
all just like selling any new product (photocopiers, faxes, telephones,
better mousetraps) that provides a clear and obvious benefit...you have to
get out there and work damn hard to convince people at the start. People
don't just start using something or asking for something even if it provides
a clear and obvious benefit.
Ok, I'm slipping onto my life-extension activism hobby-horse again. I'll
stop. After I just say -- again -- that if everyone on this list put as much
effort into *doing* as they do into *talking about doing* then we'd all be
getting a lot closer to living forever, transhumanism, etc. It doesn't take
much more than a couple of hundred dedicated types to engineer a paradigm
shift over five to ten years or so.
Reason
http://www.exratio.com/
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