In response to Mr. Greg Burch,
I am interested in which cross-section of society you wish to target
with your campaign. Are you interested in including the whole population, or
just the few who are willing to strive for these wonderful advances in health
and longevity? You wrote the following:
"Although this cultural barrier has probably not yet thrown up any real
impediment to progress toward advances in human longevity or other kinds of
augmentation, the time will come fairly soon when it will."
According to research conducted by the authors of the book, The Bell
Curve, people from every race, creed, sex and religion that fall wihin the
top 5% of the IQ curve have been quietly congregating. During the past One
Hundred years, certain neighborhoods, schools, professions, and companies
have naturally attracted this cognative elite(cognative elite is the term
used in THE BELL CURVE for those scoring in the top 5% on IQ tests) in the
natural march towards evolution.
After carefully reading several hundred responses to the Extropian
mailing list, it is my estimation that both the Transhuman and Extropian
groups are examples of the hypothesis The Bell Curve presents. In other
words most people on this list would fit THE BELL CURVE'S definition of the
cognitive elite.
My point is this: If the majority of the population has been unaware of
a social trend that has been occuring for at least One Hundred years, and you
feel they will cause unnecessary and uninformed impediments for your
suggested movement, why waste time bringing their attention to such a
project? If so many are asleep at the wheel of life, why try to encourage
them to support the "Advances in human longevity"? This suggestion may sound
terriably elitist, and I do not intend it to be so, but this type of
innovative thinking has historically been quelled from many secters. Maybe
it is time for those who wish to acquire health and longevity to do just
that? Let the people who are satisfied with the "natural human life-span"
continue to live with their comfortable thinking.
There is a need to bring these advances to light in Magazines, books
and other such material for those seeking it, but those that seek out this
form of information gathering would beless likely to cause as much strife as
those who would "Just happen to hear a news blurb" about the suggested topic.
Thank you for any response to this inquiry,
Ron Harrison
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