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 __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=22863