Re: Stewart Brand's The Clock of the Long Now

From: Brian D Williams (talon57@well.com)
Date: Wed Jan 17 2001 - 07:57:12 MST


From: Stewart Brand <sb@gbn.org>

>>Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
>
>>Of course.
>>Silly me.
>>"I'm not a thousand years old; I'm a thousand years young!"

>More like a thousand years weary, jaded, tired, bored, suicidal.

>It's not even interesting being pretty and strong if everybody is
>pretty and strong.

>A thousand years wise might mean something. What, remains to be
>seen. The fiction writers so far assume a great interest in
>either aesthetics or history in coming methuselas. Might be.

Heinlein dealt with this in "Time Enough for Love", and had a
pretty good solution. Live a life, then rejuvenate and live a new
life as someone else.

I see effective parallels in my own life. I would love to "turn-
back-the-clock" and go to med school and maybe bioengineering or
nanotechnology, but being 43 and needing to keep a roof over my
head imposes limitations. Still I would probably make the
investment if I knew I was going to live to be 150, much less 1000.
Of course those tired of living can always remove themselves.

>Do read Sterling's HOLY FIRE.

Re-read it about once a year or so, love it.

Brian

Member:
Extropy Institute, www.extropy.org
Adler Planetarium www.adlerplanetarium.org
Life Extension Foundation, www.lef.org
National Rifle Association, www.nra.org, 1.800.672.3888
Ameritech Data Center Chicago, IL, Local 134 I.B.E.W



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:56:20 MDT