X-Message-Number: 22863
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 11:07:15 -0800 (PST)
From: Scott Badger <>

Subject: Re: cryonics making strange bedfellows? Dangerous, burn before reading.

You meant, "burn 'after' reading", right?

Whew, Rudi's going to be in the doghouse at home if
his wife reads that post. LOL

My feelings are mixed. I suspect that the rather ugly
climate progressive technologies find themselves in is
a knee-jerk fear reaction from those responsible for
maintaining the status quo. This is a symptom of
future shock and I'm not surprised to see it,
especially from a government infiltrated by the
Christian right (IMHO). Heck, the amazing things that
are happening and the accelerated pace of it all and
all the unknown variables is pretty disconcerting 
even for reasonable people.

But I still have this optimistic sense that even
though the opposition to neglible senescence (radical
life-extension) is to be completely expected, it
cannot win. Why? For the simple reason that pretty
much everyone wants to wake up tomorrow. Forget the
abstract notion of living for thousands of years. Down
deep, people don't want to get any older. They want to
live. And for that simple reason, massive profits
await those who develop truly effective life-extending
interventions/treatments. Heck, massive profits are
already being made by ineffective treatments. Think
how much moolah the real thing would bring in. No ...
fearful, conservative governments can bury their heads
in the sand but that just means that some other nation
will take the initiative. It's just a matter of time.
I hate to see the US left in the dust but that looks
like what's going to happen to me. Now whether the
efforts of the guardians of the status quo can be
thwarted soon enough for us to avoid the "second to
worst thing that can happen to us" is debatable, but
radically longer lives 'will' be a reality... despite
Bush, Kass and their ilk.

Of course, that doesn't mean we should sit on our
duffs and just wait for it to happen. We should be
activists for our cause by at least doing things like
writing to our representatives. 

See How You Can Make Your Voice Count at

http://www.bioethicssucks.org/

Best to all,

=====
Scott Badger, Ph.D.
Member: ALCOR, Extropy Insitute, Life Extension Foundation
Assistant Research Professor
University of Idaho
Two Original CD's "Phenom" and "Burdens" 
available at: www.mp3.com/scottbadger

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