Re: Transhumanist Kids [was: Re: FW: Immortality ...]

From: Erin Jones (mute@pcez.com)
Date: Sat Nov 21 1998 - 16:33:04 MST


Hello. I would just like to say I'm 15 years old. My parents are
Christian but I'm athiest. Also, they don't even know what extropy is.
Never have talked to me about transhumanistic ideas or anything of that
sort! :) I found this list on my own. And I do concider myself an
Exptropian, the whole thing facinates me. I try to show my parents but
they don't even pay attention. LoL. Anyway, I just wanted to say that
nothing or no one has really influenced me... I set my own paths, my own
directions in life. :)
-Erin
Dan Clemmensen wrote:
>
> Scott Badger wrote:
> > Doug Baily:
> > >I've got three kids, one 5 years old, one 20 months old, and one 6 weeks
> > >old [...and the 5-year-old is a budding transhumanist...]
>
> > As part of a recent psychological evaluation of an 11 year old girl, I asked
> > her what she would say if she were given three wishes. I can only recall
> > two
> > of the wishes off the top of my head:
> >
> > (1) I wish everyone in the world were atheists, and
> > (2) I wish I were immortal.
> >
> > Hmmm, a transhumanist in the making. I did find out that her parents are
> > atheists, but don't know about their views on life extension. Anyway,
> > that's
> > the first time I've ever heard a child say things like that.
> >
> Spike, you really shouldn't solicit comments from parents about their
> kids. As a class we parents are capable of chewing up enormous amounts
> ov bandwidth on this subject. :-)
> My three kids are 8, 13, and 15, (all girls). We are nonreligious, and we
> discuss transhumanism at home. Kids readily accept and understand just
> about everything we discuss on this list. ( Well, the 8-year-old is
> not clear on all of the math.) The big problem is that we live in
> a culture that finds atheism and transhumanism to be nutty ideas. The
> problem as a parent is to teach the kids to be discreet and to respect
> other people's religion, without encouraging deceptive and secretive
> behaviour generally. Our approach has been to introduce mainstream
> judeo-christian bible stories to the kids as myths and legends, similar to
> fairy tales or greek and roman myths and legends, with the difference being
> that many people profess to believe that the bible stories are true.
> We point out that the greeks believed in their myths, too. This is a pretty
> good way to introduce some scepticism and critical thinking, also. The
> kids are doing OK so far.



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