From: Ben Goertzel (ben@goertzel.org)
Date: Tue Feb 24 2004 - 11:01:37 MST
Of all the opposition to cryonics in the world today, that which is due to
the economics of the embalming and funeral-parlor industry is really a
vanishingly small percentage. The opposition is primarily based on
religious and philosophical concerns.
Thus, my statement may have been a mild overstatement, but was true in
essence.
Similarly, I think, it is likely for people to react against
techno-Transcendence for purely religious and philosophical reasons, quite
apart from any economic concerns.
Why are we not allowed to cryonically preserve our *living bodies* today?
Because the law considers it suicide.
Similarly, if I want to upload my living brain into a computer so as to
achieve what I may (depending on the details of course) consider a superior
existence, I won't be allowed to by current (religiously motivated) laws; it
will be considered as suicide which is illegal.
As for the populace's reaction to a benevolent AI, I imagine it will depend
a great deal upon the context at the time.
-- Ben G
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-sl4@sl4.org [mailto:owner-sl4@sl4.org]On Behalf Of Peter C.
> McCluskey
> Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2004 12:35 PM
> To: sl4@sl4.org
> Subject: RE: Positive Transcension 2
>
>
> ben@goertzel.org (Ben Goertzel) writes:
> >No one is done any harm if I voluntarily have my corpse frozen
> -- yet there
> >are a lot of people dead set on taking away my legal right to do so.
>
> The embalmers and funeral parlors who would otherwise have a better
> chance of getting paid to dispose of your corpse aren't harmed by
> the competition? If you have trouble seeing such a transparent motivation
> for special interest politics, you won't be able to anticipate the
> reaction to a benevolent AI.
> --
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> ------------
> Peter McCluskey | "To announce that there must be no criticism of
> http://www.rahul.net/pcm | the President, or that we are to stand by the
> | President right or wrong, is not only
> unpatriotic
> | and servile, but morally treasonable to the
> | American public." - Theodore Roosevelt
>
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