X-Message-Number: 24943 Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 21:13:05 -0400 From: Randolfe Wicker <> Subject: Life without romance? Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT "Till death do us part" would certainly seem an unlikely vow in a future immortalist marriage ceremony. Thomas Donaldson (POSTING #24935) touches on some interesting issues. He is certainly more than optimistic about an immortal lifespan making a person less likely to hurt others of do evil to them. I know some people who have indeed become more decent as they aged. However, I know others that have turned into uglier and more hateful beings each day they lived. His idea that immortalists would lose interest in history because they would increasingly have been part of it does not withstand close scrunity. Look at how passionately people today argue over the Vietnam War that they all experienced. I think history would be even more interesting to most people because each would have his/her own interpretation of those events, which overlapped their own lives. Reproduction is a difficult issue for immortalists. Donaldson is right when he points out that two people in a romantic union share their lives, then continue sharing or slowly grow apart as they change with time. However, Donaldson clings to the idea that two people (or a larger group) would produce a child "not just from their genes but their ideas about what a new human being should be like". And "These groups would occur independently of any pairing for sex". One of the most unappealing characteristics of immortalists is their willingness to forsake the human body and the pleasures involved with inhabiting it. Cryonicists, especially those who don't opt for head-only suspension, are much better than most immortalists in this regard. They want to "suspend" their bodies and ultimately be able to enjoy an extended life in them. Personally, I don't see life inside of cyborg devoid of bodily cravings, joys and satisfactions as being such a promised land. Immortalists should consider "eternally youthful healthy bodies" as the capsules in which to spend countless years. Reproduction? Why does reproduction take two or more. One can simply reproduce a later-born twin (a perfect social companion and family member) through cloning. For that matter, romance, aided by technology, might help solve the population problem by enabling "two people in love" to literally become one. If we can turn back the clock, why couldn't we find a way to merge and solidify instead of constantly dividing and multiplying? All this is far out for Cryonet. However, would anyone want to spend an eternity as a prisoner in a paralyzed body like Christopher Reeve did for years? Would one want to live on forever with terrible arthritis pain or irritable bowel syndrome? No, the quality of life is just as important as its duration. Cryonicists should simply want to be brought out of suspension, have their illnesses corrected, the aging process reversed and to live on in the body they know with all its capacities for pleasure restored. Cloningly yours, Randolfe Wicker Randolfe H. Wicker Founder, Clone Rights United Front www.clonerights.com Spokesperson, Reproductive Cloning Network, www.reproductivecloning.net Correspondent, Stem Cells Club, www.stemcellsclub.com Advisor, The Immortality Institute, www.imminst.org 201-656-3280 (Mornings) Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=24943