From: O'Regan, Emlyn (Emlyn.ORegan@actew.com.au)
Date: Sun Apr 18 1999 - 19:24:00 MDT
On Damien Broderick's new book, "The Last Mortal Generation":
I just finished reading it - very enlightening, thankyou Damien! In
fact, it's how I found out about transhumanism, then extropians, then
this list.
I especially loved the chapter about Black Holists, mostly for the tone
of the discussion. I'm not usually one for wholesale bagging of people,
but when the execution is so artful...
---- Actually, I'll ask an unrelated question of people at this point. I decided quite a while ago that I would like to live a bit longer than three score and ten. I was convinced that science will be able to deliver this before it becomes an issue for me. Then I found out about Damien's book, because I'd been using the same phrase (last mortal generation), and someone pointed me to the book. I have found that this has occupied my thoughts more and more, and so my conversation. In fact, I'm probably becoming an immortality bore. The problem I have is, that when I'm blabbing away about living in the last generation of mortals or the first generation of immortals, depending on luck basically (and a lot of people's hard work, sorry to all you out there), I suddenly get quite embarrased if I'm talking to or am nearby an elderly person. How, after all, can it sound? I'm in my late twenties, and talking about how it's a travesty that people die, a pointless waste, and a violation of human rights which must be rectified, probably in the later half of next century, so I'll have to hang on tooth&nail to life until my mortality problem can be fixed up. Blah blah blah, I'm sure many of us go on with the same stuff. How insulting is this to a person of, say, 80 years? Really, I'm writing them of, as part of the doomed past, so near and yet so far. It makes me feel like a heel, and yet my opinions about immortality (I love the loaded words) has not changed. What does one do? Keep it to oneself? Go on regardless? Tell such a person "Sorry you are going to die, bummer eh"? What do other list members think about this? I'd be *especially* interested in the opinions of older members. Emlyn
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