From: Reason (reason@exratio.com)
Date: Fri Aug 10 2001 - 20:31:53 MDT
---> Russell Blackford
> In short, *the President is being guided by an explicit and
> knowing enemy of
> transhumanism*.
>
> Sorry, but I have to say that I saw this coming. Then again, I'm an
> Australian. *I* didn't vote into power a guy who was likely to
> use Leon Kass
> as his bioethical guru (not that Gore would have been much better, I
> suppose, and not that the situation is so much better here).
>
> Anyway, we all have to understand that it's not just Kass. Kass's
> views are
> far more common than you think, and far more resonant with the community
> than transhumanism. The question is what to do about it. (Thanks
> for getting us focused on something important, zeb.)
Yes indeed.
I'm accumulating essay ideas for the Longevity Meme at the moment; stuff
aimed at the average everyday people in the street. As I was pondering the
latest ["Technologies of Life" -- I think that it's a sufficiently good
positive phrase to merit a good essay to propagate it in connection with
stem cell stuff, cloning, life extension, etc, etc], it suddenly occurred to
me that I'm living in a land run by people who actively want to murder me.
And everyone else. It's their position that we're all better off dying, and
they're prepared to put the effort into making that happen.
I think that most of the rest of you are in the same position.
Unless we make moves, get off our collective asses, organize, recruit,
popularize our movement, spread some better memes, we're all in trouble. As
I've said before, any given government is quite capable of retarding any
technology by at least a decade. None of us have decades to spare.
And that's without even stopping to consider that without high levels of
activism, the technology to save our lives may come too late. A lot of
people on this list are prepared to *assume* that we're going to get bailed
out. Is this something you really want to gamble your existance on?
Reason
http://www.exratio.com/
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