X-Message-Number: 16423
Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2001 16:12:51 -0500 (CDT)
From: Eivind Berge <>
Subject: Re: Cryonet #16417

Mike Perry wrote:

> Personally, I live a celibate lifestyle and sex is not so important.  But I
> support the right to choose here as elsewhere.

But if everybody chooses to transcend as you envision, my right to choose
being a normal man with a normal sex life is meaningless. Life as I know it
consists of playing the zero-sum game of competing with other men over
women. Now I am very, very bad at it: most of my life has been exclusively
sexual frustration; but this is the world I prefer, I am only not satisfied
with my ability to manipulate it to get what I want. I hope that cryonics will
provide a second chance in which I can fare better, and don't want to wake up
only to find that women have been supplanted by asexual non-human beings.
This is why I am not an extropian. I have no desire to explore the universe
(there are no women out there), and as for superintelligence, I'm an
anti-intellectual, I think. Sure I want to be better than the next guy at
intellectual pursuits, but they are no end in themselves. As for changing my
appearance, I realize that women are not indifferent to looks, but if I can
change it everyone can and therefore I don't welcome that opportunity -- the
red queen. The important variables I can influence are wealth and power.

The superintelligence I might become could of course run all kinds of
simulations, but why would he want to?

Mike Perry himself admits that his precedent is religious, and even if his
super-optimism is justified and everything happens like he hopes, it is nearly
as unappealing to me as any religious scenario. If, say, Jesus is all he is
made out to be, I see no reason to worship him. I refuse to be bullied around
by any deity, and likewise notions that it is somehow a good idea to hasten
the evolution of a successor race would only detract from my enjoyment of
life right now.

This said, as an immortalist I too realize that the eternal return problem
will eventually force me to change into something motivated by something
entirely different than sex. But first I want to live, as a human, for a long
time. *I* just want to get laid.

Eivind Berge

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