From: Max More (max@maxmore.com)
Date: Tue Dec 21 1999 - 13:27:45 MST
At 05:52 PM 12/20/99 -0800, John Grigg wrote:
>I was somewhat taken aback by what Max More said about being realistic and
>facing the possibility of his own death. I can see his point about the
>difference between optimism and dogma. Still, coming from Max it somehow
>surprised and shook me.
Good! That was the intention. I don't want to reduce *practical* optimism,
but I do want to ward off the feeling that we will all live indefinitely
without making any effort to make it happen. I noted that enthusiasm can
become unrealistic and even dogmatic. What I see more commonly is
superlongevity enthusiasts who are doing *nothing* to improve their own
chances of making it.
I see many still smoking excessively, not exercising, and not eating
healthily. Of course, much of this can be attributed not to unrealistic
beliefs but to "weakness of the will"-- a fairly useless expression that
combines cognitive distortions and suppression of awareness with
neurochemical and genetic factors that make it hard to put one's values
into action. ("I don't exercise because my noradrenaline levels are too low
to feel motivated enough...")
I'm not recommending *focusing* on the fact that you may well die in the
next few years or decades. I *am* concerned that extropians do not slide in
the direction of thinking that their own survival is certain or highly likely.
>I believe that cryonics and not life-extension medicines will be what will
>get the over age thirty crowd to see "over the horizon" as they want to.
>Saul Kent has said that this coming year he will attempt serious
>fundraising among wealthy and middle-class cryonicists. Considering the
>window of time needed to do the research(even when well-funded) to perfect
>suspension I think we need to rally around him and see that he is successful.
Recognizing the very real chance that you may be facing death should only
encourage the flow of money and effort into improving the process of
cryonics suspension or biostasis. Unfortunately, I see the same phenomenon
at work in *some* cryonicists--they seem to be sure that cryonics will
work, do not take care of their health, and do not push research for better
preservation techniques. Frankly, the idea of being frozen under current
technology scares me. I would like to hear more about Saul's fundraising
efforts. I've been focusing on other areas in superlongevity, so I would be
grateful for any updates on this that I don't get in Cryonics magazine.
Stay optimistic, stay realistic, stay healthy.
Onward!
Max
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:06:10 MST