From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@ricochet.net)
Date: Tue May 29 2001 - 22:04:35 MDT
"Harvey Newstrom" <mail@HarveyNewstrom.com> wrote
>Will people want to suppress their sexuality even when it
>becomes obsolete? Sex is too much fun.
Until there is an alternative, sexuality shouldn't be
suppressed, ....because it **is** fun. (Shouldn't be
suppressed except in inappropriate circumstances, of
course.) You seem to imply that the fun be given up
as well.
>Will people want to suppress their anger? Or will
>they always feel justified when they are angry?
Again, these two questions seem unrelated. The answer to
the first is "yes", because (if they can be just as effective
without it), then anger serves no useful purpose and isn't fun.
>Would people want to remove their fear of death?
Probably, because the "fear" won't be necessary. It will be
possible to realize that staying alive is simply in one's
best interest.
>It may be that we discover... that only tortured souls strive
>to produce art, seek news worlds to explore, or fight for our
>own space.
Not likely. Many extremely happy people have been just as
good at producing art, and other extremely happy people have
been great explorers and so on. You're echoing the hideous
rationalization for suffering that people have used for
centuries, and which we need to challenge whenever it surfaces.
>I do want to purge myself of the monkey-DNA, because it
>controls so much of my behavior. But I may find that it
>also controls my goals, and that without my neurosis, my
>love of life, quest for knowledge, or abhorrence of the
>mundane may also be cured.
>
>Just a possibility to keep in mind.
That's giving up too easily! There is no logical linkage
between the vast bulk of the things we treasure and the
things about ourselves that we despise. A proof consists
in the observation that people exist who have those things
we treasure and who do not have those things we despise.
But even if empirical evidence did suggest otherwise, it
should not diminish our incentive one iota to have the best
of all worlds.
>It was my fear of death that got me signed up for cryonics
>and onto a life-extension diet.
Whatever it takes :-) It's possible that from a logical
standpoint it might have occurred to you that it was better
to be alive than to be dead, but I know that almost everyone
finds that really hard to swallow as a general principle.
>I know it is a design flaw, but I find that:
>
>When I have it good, I enjoy the good life, but when I have
>it bad, I struggle to make things better!
Design flaw? You've lost me.
Regards,
Lee
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