X-Message-Number: 31317
Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2009 00:58:22 -0700
From: Kitty Antonik Wakfer <>
Subject: Re: #31274: Re: CI Merchandise suggestion [benbest]
References: <>
I am forwarding Paul Wakfer's response to Ben Best's reply.
On 12/17/2008 03:00 AM, CryoNet wrote:
> CryoNet - Wed 17 Dec 2008
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message #31274
> Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:52:12 -0500
> From:
> Subject: Re: CI Merchandise suggestion
>
> This is a belated reply to some of Paul Wakfer's
> comments in reply to me in CryoMsg 31202 (posted 28 Nov 08):
>
> http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=31202
>
> Ben Best wrote
>>> Your short suggestion raises many issues, Doug.
>>>
>>> Your use of the word "solipsistic" is telling. Literally
>>> the word is inappropriate because it refers to epistemological
>>> isolation from the world. In an ethical context it has the
>>> connotation of being even more isolated from concern about
>>> others than the more appropriate terms "egoistic" or "egotistic".
>>>
>>> Your basic point seems to be that it is more socially
>>> acceptable to present radical life extension ("reaching for
>>> physical immortality")
>>>
>
> Paul Wakfer wrote:
>> Please try to refrain from use of the word "immortality" even in the
>> sense of "reaching" for it. What life extensionists seek (are
>> reaching for) is a lifespan which is both unbounded and constantly
>> increasing in total lifetime happiness.
>>
> OK, I accept the chastisement.
>
Good, except that it was a "request" rather than a "chastisement' -
there is a major difference in meaning and intent.
> Ben Best wrote:
>>> from a humanitarian than from a selfish
>>> point of view. That may be true, but it seems inappropriate
>>> to me.
>>>
> Paul Wakfer wrote:
>> Anyone who thinks long range, views widely and evaluates hir choices
>> and actions by integrating them with hir entire current and probably
>> future environment will not only be constantly trying to optimally
>> increase hir lifetime happiness (the ultimate purpose of life
>> whether or not s/he knows it), but will also realize that hir
>> lifetime happiness can be optimally promoted if and only if all
>> others in society are also enabled to each optimally increase hir
>> total lifetime happiness and all are actually doing so. In short,
>> there is no necessary conflict between egoism and humanitarianism.
>>
> The conflict is generally perceived, and this is what Doug Skrecky
> was reacting to. In discussing marketing issues, public perceptions cannot
> be dismissed as being irrational.
1) There is no such thing as an entity called "public", which has the
ability to "perceive" in any manner similar to the perception
capabilities and actualities possible to individual humans and I
maintain that such usages have promoted muddled thinking by a large
majority of humans. Correctly attributing perceptions only to
individuals also has the advantage of enabling more accuracy of
information transmittal by some method of quantifying (such "a few",
"some", "most", "the vast majority", etc) the number of humans which one
opines (or has polled to determine) to have the one or more perceptions
related to one's statement.
2) Given that your use of "public perceptions" is merely a (bad)
shortform for "the perceptions exhibited by the majority of humans" (or
some such), then my criticism still stands because your statement of
contrast ending with "from a humanitarian than from a selfish point of
view" was a statement about a fact concerning social behavior
differences rather than about a perception of such behavior differences.
3) My statement above did not "dismiss" the importance or reality of the
individual perceptions involved, but merely stated that they were
invalid perceptions.
4) With respect to marketing, success does not require the acceptance as
valid that which is not. Good marketing should both acknowledge invalid
perceptions and give reasons why they are mistaken.
> They must be acknowledged and
> dealt-with.
Exactly, but as I just described.
> Wrong-headedness is a fact of reality.
>
Not quite. It is a real and important negative characteristic of many
past and current humans. However, it is by no means an immutable or
essential characteristic of being a human. There are some humans who
display very little "wrong-headedness" (although this notion needs to be
rigorously defined, or its determination will greatly vary between
individual evaluators), and people are, in general, capable of modifying
their behavior.
> Ben Best wrote:
>
>>> Aubrey de Grey has succumbed to the humanitarian
>>> approach -- by his own admission as the result of his marketing
>>> efforts and his speaking to journalists -- in his references
>>> to how many people die every year when describing the
>>> potential benefits of SENS.
>>>
> Paul Wakfer wrote:
>
>> At the beginning it was far worse than that. Aubrey was accusing
>> everyone who opposed research, the goal of which was the termination
>> of human death from aging dysfunction, of actions morally equivalent
>> to promoting, aiding and abetting a holocaust every 2 months. (The
>> number of people dying on Earth every 3 months is about equal to the
>> number estimated to have been killed by the Nazi perpetrated
>> holocaust.)
>>
>> "Once it is seen that opposing curing
>> aging equates to advocating that humanity perpetrate an entire *holocaust*
>> every two months, quite a few arguments against life extension seem to
>> fall bby[sic] the wayside."
>> http://groups.google.com/group/sci.life-extension/msg/77ec90823df432e5
>>
>> However to his credit, I have not seen any sign of this sort of
>> language for the last few years after I strongly rebuked Aubrey for
>> such illogical and morally outrageous hype (even though he appeared
>> to not understand or agree with me at the time).
>>
> Although he does not refer to a holocaust, in Chapter 2 of
> ENDING AGING (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312367074/)
> Aubrey paints a picture of human decimation, with the implication
> that indifference has horrific results:
>
> "Around 150,000 people die each day worldwide -- that's nearly two per
> second -- and of those, about two-thirds die of aging. That's right,
> 100,000 people. That's about thirty World Trade Centers, sixty Katrinas,
> every single day. In the industrialized world, the proportion of deaths
> that are attributed to aging is around 90 percent -- yes that means that
> for every person who dies of all causes other than aging added together,
> be it homicide, road accidents, AIDS, whatever, somewhere around *ten*
> people die of aging."
>
You have apparently missed my point that, in prior language, Aubrey
effectively equated not supporting antiaging research with promoting,
aiding and abetting murder.
I see nothing at all wrong with your quoted statements of fact from
Aubrey's book (given that they are factually correct).
> Ben Best wrote:
>
>>> One reason I think the "humanitarian" approach is
>>> inappropriate is because only a tiny fraction of humanity
>>> shows any interest in radical life extension.
>>>
> Paul Wakfer wrote:
>
>> Actually, they can generally be quite easily turned away from this
>> immediate culturally indoctrinated response, by a few simple pointed
>> questions starting with:
>> Do you want to die tomorrow?
>> Do you want to die next month, next year, etc?
>> If not, then just when do you wish to die and why?
>> Then one convinces them that aging dysfunction and suffering is no
>> longer necessary.
>>
> Not many people will opt to die tomorrow or even next year,
> but for most people the concern about future decades quickly
> diminishes. Call it highly discounted future value.
You appear to have missed the point of my method. You start with
tomorrow and go forward in time to show the person that there is no
logical dividing point in time from the present at which s/he will
suddenly switch from wanting to stay alive to wanting to be dead. Once
this is done, and as it is being done, the person will be much more
likely to agree with your reasons for thinking that aging dysfunction
and suffering are no longer necessary.
> And when
> they have concern, it is mainly concern that they might suffer
> in old age, not about death.
>
Which can be allayed by providing research information from the
literature, as I have pointed out. However, in my experience many people
also seem to have a fear of being dead, which is good wrt persuading
them to adopt cryopreservation, but highly irrational since death is
total non-existence and the absence of any being that can feel anything.
> Ben Best wrote:
>
>>> The vast majority
>>> think that radical life extension is unnecessary for religious
>>> reasons. Many of those people believe that it is an evil
>>> attempt to thwart God -- or an expression of atheism. (The
>>> "medical model" of cryonics is hard to sell.) And the vast
>>> majority of atheists have no interest, either.
>>>
> Paul Wakfer wrote:
>
>> Since neither you nor I have interacted with "the vast majority of
>> atheists", I suggest that the above statement is at best a
>> hypothesis based on your limited experience.
>>
> Induction from a sample to a population is always a hypothesis,
> but it many cases the hypothesis is well founded. I believe that
> I have had many representative samples that allow for a good induction
> allowing generalizations about the population. You believe that my
> sampling methods are lousy (despite the fact that you only have
> a small sampling of my experience) and have formed a hypothesis
> about my sampling. Your induction about my sampling is a poor
> hypothesis, I say, but I am not going to argue this point.
>
Ben, why is it that you always think that people (particularly me) are
"attacking" you (to use your word for it)? I know full well that you
have had much more experience with atheists than I, particularly with
those of the humanist ideology. I was simply rejecting your all
inclusive, factually posed statement, "And the vast majority of atheists
have no interest, either", by pointing out that it cannot be known as a
fact and is only a hypothesis - to which you readily agreed. In no
manner was I criticizing your sampling methods and conclusions from your
experiences with a non-majority of all atheists.
> Ben Best wrote:
>
>>> I have had
>>> extensive experience trying to promote cryonics to humanists
>>> and atheists with virtually no success. The main problem is
>>> not that they don't think that it will work -- they simply
>>> don't have an interest in it, and often think that it is
>>> socially undesirable.
>>>
> Paul Wakfer wrote:
>
>> To counter this, one needs an ethical philosophical basis that
>> totally integrates self-interest and humanitarianism. See my essay
>> "Social Meta-Needs
>> <http://selfsip.org/fundamentals/socialmetaneeds.html#Maslow>: A New
>> Basis for Optimal Interaction" at:
>> http://selfsip.org/fundamentals/socialmetaneeds.html for a basis of
>> the only such consistent and complete philosophy of which I am aware.
>>
> You need to test your theory of how well this works
> with a large sample of humanists and atheists.
Of course. However, the philosophical basis that needs to be conveyed is
far too fundamentally different from current cultural mores among
humanists, or any other segment of current society, to enable any such
quick effect. It will only be promoted by patiently waiting for it to
be appreciated and understood by the rare mind who is already tuned to
it. Such people will then attempt to persuade others - of which I think
humanists will, in general, be more amenable to such persuasion.
> My own sampling
> experiences leads me to believe that you will not have much
> success.
Since you have not been using my "ethical philosophical basis that
totally integrates self-interest and humanitarianism" (or likely any
ethical basis of anyone but yourself, for that matter), your sampling
can have no relevance to my statement. However, for the above explained
reasons, I agree that I will not have much immediate success with the
approach that I described. But again that does not imply that others, by
using their own unique methods with humanists, would not succeed in
persuading more to become life extensionist's and cryonicists.
> Thought experiments are no substitute for real experience.
>
Yes, but one person's real experience is also not a total determinant of
another's, particularly when the nuances of human interaction are so
multifaceted.
[snipped the rest]
--Paul Wakfer
MoreLife for the rational - http://morelife.org
Reality based tools for more life in quantity and quality
The Self-Sovereign Individual Project - http://selfsip.org
Self-sovereignty, rational pursuit of optimal lifetime happiness,
individual responsibility, social preferencing & social contracting
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