X-Message-Number: 20638
From: "Mark Plus" <>
Subject: Beating on the science-versus-religion hornets' nest.
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 19:09:44 -0800

Here are a couple of articles likely to interest cryonicists:

An interview with evolutionary biologist and former Dominican priest
Francisco Ayala, who teaches at the University of California at Irvine, 
about the religious implications of new biotechnologies:



http://www2.ocregister.com/ocrweb/ocr/article.do?id=16327&section=NEWS&year=2002&month=12&day=16

And an article by Canadian Transhumanist/democratic socialist George Dvorsky 
about "Ending Biblical Brainwash":



http://www.betterhumans.com/Features/Columns/Transitory_Human/column.aspx?articleID=2002-12-15-2

For the record, I'm not sympathetic with the explicit democratic socialist 
outlook of Betterhumans.com and the affiliated World Transhumanist 
Association.

One, there's no money in socialism.

Two, after dealing with the public for a good deal of my life, I'm not 
impressed by the judgment of the typical person you're likely to meet on the 
street. I'm glad the U.S. has a de facto restricted franchise, and I shudder 
to think what might happen if we did have a real "democracy" in this 
country.

Three, I can see a real conflict between democratic political processes and 
the desires of some self-professed Transhumanists who delusionally think 
they set the agenda for an effective mass movement. There aren't enough 
Transhumanists worldwide to fill the auditorium of a typical high school, 
much less enough ones strategically placed to shape the course of American 
politics. What are they going to do when their beloved democratic political 
process ignorantly and short-sightedly in effect sentences them to death by 
banning certain technologies?

A long time ago I decided that I wasn't going to let psychological 
scarecrows like laws and contingent cultural beliefs interfere with what I 
have to do stay alive, provided that I can find ways around them. Socialist 
Transhumanists seem really naive about the nature of the problem we're 
facing if they think they can "persuade" the dullard hominids out there to 
see things their way.

Mark Plus
It's not "religious" or "science fictional" if you can do it.

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