Scott Badger wrote,
Sorry to upset you, Scott, I'll refer to them
>Actually, I started this thread by asking those on the list to select the 5
Right, and I had answered that, "I can think of half a dozen
So, now I ask you: Why don't people with a talent or a gift
>Well, for one thing, reviving a few geniuses and recruiting their talents
Do any of those working on speeding up the process of building a better
human embrace the idea of cryonics? How come their names
>I think what I find most upsetting about your views on cryonics is that
seem
>unusually callous. Perhaps this is because you keep referring to those who
>are cryonically preserved as being dead. Cryonicists believe that these
>people are still alive. . . very sick, but still alive. Is using CPR or a
>defibrillator a waste of resources because the person is obviously dead?
>Suspension protocols are most appropriately thought of as emergency medical
>procedures designed to save someone's life. Emergency medical procedures,
>in general, have varying probabilities of success. We don't know yet what
>that probability figure is for cryonics but we believe that it is certainly
>greater than zero.
>people that they most wished would enbrace the idea of cryonics because the
>world could ill-afford to lose their particular gifts. There weren't very
>many responses to _that_ question. The issue of whether cryonic suspendees
>should be revived or not is one that you brought up, I believe.
can ill afford to lose, but they don't embrace the idea of cryonics...
...IOW, the very people who have talents or gifts that the world can ill
afford to lose, do not endorse the idea of cryonics.
If those people don't endorse cryonics, why should extropians?"
>just may speed up the process of building a better human. Besides, as has
>been mentioned, the biotechnology that will lead to reversible suspensions
>is going to progress anyway because there are a large number of medical
>applications besides reviving cryonauts.
>>Neither you nor I, but rather posthumans shall decide
IOW, you must die as a child to become an adult, because
Well, I guess you could say that it means "to make room
>I can understand how I might compare a "posthuman version of me vs. the
You got it.
>Uh-oh. The meme, "Death and birth eternally form the two sides of life."
Good question. In addition, if birth and death do not form two sides of
life, what does? Would you make life one dimentional and linear?
>Yes, grabbing the gusto is a good thing. I intend to grab it for a long,
I'll drink to that.
Cheers,
--J. R.
>>ultimately. Physically and finally, we will have to die as humans in order
>>to become posthumans. So, the only thing cryonics can contribute to
extropy
>>relates to how it might help to develop transhumans, i.e., how it can
>>displace humans with posthumans.
>
>What are you saying here? I must die in order to become a posthuman? The
>human race must die to make room for post humans? That's news to me.
>current version of me" to "the current version of me vs. a 1 year-old
>version of me". In a sense, the 1 year-old version had to "die" to make
>room for the current version of me. I realize that my developmental
>transitions have been pretty smooth so far, and I agree that future
>transitions may be much more quantum-like. Any transition from one state
to
>another involves the "death" of the earlier state, but is that the kind of
>death you're referring to?
>is a particularly virulent one, and helps explain many of your views. Am I
>alone in considering this meme to be more Yin-Yang, dualistic,
>polarized-thining nonsense? I also don't believe that cryonicists would
>advocate being frozen in a young and healthy state. It's true that I
>personally resent the fact that the state can prevent me from arranging a
>cryonic suspension while I'm still alive, though. I would want the option
>of assisted suicide with immediate suspension if I discovered, for example,
>that I had developed Alzheimer's or if I was terminally ill and in a great
>amount of pain. Why waste thousands and thousands of dollars and medical
>resources on palliative care that is only briefly delaying my deanimation
>when I plan on being suspended anyway?
>long time in many different forms.