From: Nicq MacDonald (namacdonald@stthomas.edu)
Date: Sat Dec 02 2000 - 22:26:11 MST
> If death were to become a subversive act (whether "ultimate" or not
> matters not at all), then subversion would disappear as subversives
> self-destruct. "Eerie"? Who cares... as long as we get rid of them.
Schopenhaur pointed out that taking one's own life is the ultimate act of
will- essentially the ultimate subversive act. Life extension really
doesn't change much of anything except duration- every entity will still
perish at some time. So-called "immortalism" just turns the journey towards
the inevitable into a length game. Remember folks, a computerized
consciousness would be vulnerable to EMP pulses, solar flares, gravitational
disturbances, and power outages. A star goes nova and your stuck in the
system? Goodbye. Pass too close to a black hole? Goodbye again. War and
strife won't come to an end- even transhumans will have their passions,
desires, and reasons for conflict. Although every major evolutionary step
(one in which the original entity is combined with others of a similar type
to create a superbeing and thus transcends the original form) results in an
increased life span, the step never results in immortality. In the long
run, we're still destined to be eaten by worms or sucked through a wormhole.
-Nicq MacDonald
"We do progress, but how? Not by the tinkering of the meliorist; not by the
crushing of initiative; not by laws and regulations which hamstring the
racehorse, and handcuff the boxer; but by the innovations of the eccentric,
by the phantasies of the hashish-dreamer of philosophy, by the aspirations
of the idealist to the impossible, by the imagination of the revolutionary,
by the perilous adventure of the pioneer. Progress is by leaps and bounds,
by breaking from custom, by working on untried experiments; in short, by the
follies and crimes of men of genius, only recognizable as wisdom and virtue
after they have been tortured to death, and their murderers reap gloatingly
the harvest of the seeds they sowed at midnight." -Aleister Crowley, "On
Original Sin"
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:32:10 MST