X-Message-Number: 23051 From: Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2003 16:12:48 EST Subject: RE: The Immortal's Dilemma: Deconstructing Eternal Life <<The essay appeared on The Secular Web < www.infidels.org > site. What bothered me was that most of those who responded to this essay were in agreement with the author's conclusions. See: http://tinyurl.com/y4b4 >> The author is assuming that this life is OK as it is, and then presenting us with all the problems immortality implies. But he's wrong. This life leaves a lot to be desired. A better life is one where people die when they feel they have accomplished their desires and their duties, and fulfilled their dreams and experiences; not a life that ends as our bodies slowly crumple under their own weight, not a life crippled before its first breath by the dictates of some cursed mutation, nor a life that ends because a random virus decides to snuff it out, and certainly not a life where millions of children die of starvation at an early age while others are dying from burgers and fries. The desire for eternal life isn't due only to the brevity of this one, but also due to the profound, and simultaneously meaningless, unfairness of it all. It is this tragic reality that Transhumanists and Cryonicists are seeking to defeat. Not just death, but death and injustice. We dream of a world where men live and die as they choose, rather than dangling in the wind with only the whims of blind chaos to decide our fate. We seek a life with more than death as our only guarantee. Jonathan Hinek Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=23051