From: marin@ssc.net.au
Date: Fri Dec 01 2000 - 00:35:06 MST
could someone please repost the reference to the original review?
review of a book by broderick?
which one? where find?
thanks,
michael
zeb haradon wrote:
> >From: "Randy Smith" <randysmith101@hotmail.com>
> >Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org
> >To: extropians@extropy.org
> >Subject: Re: as others see us
> >Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2000 13:47:08 -0600
> >
> >Wow. Tremendous post. What a perfect example of eactly what we are up
> >against.
> >
> >> Though I admire the depth of vision and imaginative genius on display in
> >>this work I have many problems with its philosophical underpinnings.
> >>Broderick, and the scientists he discusses, seem to have little conception
> >>of old age and death as necessary parts of the human life cycle.
> >
> >I am stunned almost speechless by the depth of the gulf between his
> >thinking
> >and ours. When I hear someone who is apparently educated and well-read make
> >this statement, and realize that the vast majority of humans share his
> >viewpoint, I wonder if we have any real chance to win them over, ever.
> >
> >Perhaps the old saying about how new ideas win acceptance--the holders of
> >the idea paradigm simply die out, leaving the field open for the new
> >--is completely correct.
> >
> >
>
> The tone of the review was more that of someone trying to convince himself
> of what he's saying.
> The kind of attitude expressed is not surprising and it's easy to see how it
> comes about. As long as people have existed, death has been inevitable (and
> even with billion year+ lifespans, it is still something which will
> eventually happen). Those who accept this hideous inevitability as "a
> neccessary part of life", thus desirable, probably were the ones better at
> coping with their own morality, and the deaths of others around them. I saw
> this documentary, "Sick: The life and death of bob flanagan,
> supermasochist", about a guy with Cystic Fibrosis, constantly in pain since
> childhood, who became a masochistic performance artist, doing things on
> stage which would kill me if I did them. It's the same mechanism, you try to
> turn something you can't get away from into something you love, something
> you wouldn't give up for the world, a neccessary part of the grand cycle of
> life.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
> Zeb Haradon (zebharadon@hotmail.com)
> My personal webpage:
> http://www.inconnect.com/~zharadon/ubunix
> A movie I'm directing:
> http://www.elevatormovie.com
> _____________________________________________________________________________________
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