From: Brent Allsop (allsop@fc.hp.com)
Date: Mon May 03 1999 - 12:08:43 MDT
Extropians and Cryonauts,
I've been enjoying the NBC miniseries about Noah that started
last night. I think this Noah story could become a powerful tool in
the promotion of cryonics and extropy and would like to see cryonic
people talk about this story more. (Hey, could we contract a toy
company to make some toy dewers and characters that fit inside? ;)
Towards this end I'm reposting hear an article of mine John de
Rivaz published in his "Longevity Report".
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Everyone's familiar with the Noah story right? The one where
Noah tries to warn everyone about the impending, yet avoidable doom,
trying to get everyone to help build arks so that they might survive
the flood. But, unfortunately, no one listens to him, (for what
reasons?) and he and his family, along with the animals he has
collected, are the only ones that survive. I was in a Lutheran Church
last Saturday (for a friend's wedding) and I noticed a brightly
colored (with rainbow) picture of the inhabitants of the ark coming
forth upon the finally dry (and cleansed?) land. It was a large mural
covering an entire wall in the children's nursery. It's probably a
good thing I resisted the temptation to add a few dead and rotting
bodily remains with an ink marker, that surely would have been left
over from what, if it really occured, was one of the most devastating
and destructive catastrophes during the history of mankind.
But anyway, I wondered what the chance will be that, maybe
1000 years from now and more, one of the stories we all tell our
children (and make children's toys about and paint colorful depictions
of on the walls of nurseries with...), is how Robert Ettinger, and
others, tried to warn and convince the world of the doom they could
have avoided by simply taking proper actions. The story would be very
similar in that only a relative hand full of people would heed his
warning and would make the eternal life saving effort, mostly because
of ancient religious ideas contained in stories like that of Noah and
the flood... I can imagine toy dewers with little dolls representing
people and their pets nicely fitting inside along with the toy arks
and their animals... (and cheesy animated videos...? Nahh!)
Obviously, some of the actual survivors will be on hand to retell the
story first hand, giving it infinite more significance, as compared to
Noah who is now, if he was more than a cheesy animated character, long
dead and gone.
Religion seems so completely ironic to me, as a cryonaut, in
so many never ending ways. Wouldn't it be humorous if it wasn't so
tragic?
Brent Allsop
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