Comments on Existence is Wonderful: Avoiding Past Mistakes in Longevity Advocacy

Thanks for the nice post!Free PS3

2007-09-13T04:21:27.200-07:00

Thanks for the nice post!

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awkward epiphany: Yes, I think I understood your...

2007-01-30T22:12:21.069-08:00

awkward epiphany:

Yes, I think I understood your post -- my response was mainly a reaction to the idea that perhaps autistic people have "interesting" lives in the sense that disaster victims have "interesting" lives. And, to the statement that:

I'm sure the people who actually struggle with these conditions would do anything just to be normal.

since it really isn't true. At least not for me. And normality certainly doesn't mean an end to suffering; I frequently find it ironic that so many people think that "cures" should be forced on people like me when we're children, despite the fact that I am probably the most joyful-about-existence person I know. I've met a lot of very miserable "normal" people! (You probably have as well, judging from your comment.)

Normal just means average, and I think that the world at large has the potential to be a lot better than average. I'm sure that my neurological configuration is part of what led me to transhumanism; I see the status quo as a dreadfully limiting and horizon-constricting force.

There's nothing redeeming about normality simply because it's normal; a lot of "normal" human behavior is pretty awful (e.g., dishonesty and bullying) and a lot of "normal" things that happen to people (e.g, age-related death) are patently uncivilized.

Thanks for commenting, at any rate; I'm always curious to see people from different backgrounds and perspectives showing up here!

whoops, i wrote that incorrectly....the article IS...

2007-01-30T13:29:57.120-08:00

whoops, i wrote that incorrectly....the article IS about preferring the perspective of an autistic person...sheesh.

hey anne, i just wanted to make sure that you knew...

2007-01-30T13:29:08.505-08:00

hey anne, i just wanted to make sure that you knew my post "I'd Prefer to be Mildly Autistic" was about not preferring the perspective of an autistic person over your every day joe schmo. Normal is my enemy number one and I'm often ashamed of the ways in which I'm a slave to it.

did you read this article: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/26/60minutes/main2401846.shtml

Back in the late 1970's and early 1980's I read a ...

2007-01-28T07:38:01.100-08:00

Back in the late 1970's and early 1980's I read a lot of the literature by figures popular in the libertarian-space colonization-futurist counter-culture, including Robert Anton Wilson, Timothy Leary, F.M. Esfandiary (FM-2030), Gerard K. O'Neill, Buckminster Fuller, Robert Ettinger, Alvin Toffler and Durk Pearson & Sandy Shaw. (Wilson even quotes from I think about all these people in his writings.) Most of what they wrote about "the future," namely, the early 21st Century, just hasn't worn well. Who builds geodesic domes these days? What happened to commercial supersonic jet travel? Why can't I move onto a space colony? Why hasn't fundamentalist religion gone away? What happened to the alleged explosion of "higher consciousness" the crazier ones back then predicted?

None of those speculations maps the reality I see around me today. If anything, one of the more visionary figures from those decades, F.M. Esfandiary, probably should have changed his name to "FM-2130," because the kind of world he speculated for the year 2030 seems a lot less likely now than it did 20-30 years ago.

BTW, Anne, you might like to read Greg Klerkx's essay, "The transhumanists as tribe":

http://www.demos.co.uk/files/File/BH-5.pdf

Klerkx refers to the 1970's-style transhumanism as a "spent cultural force" because it originated in the context of utopian movements from the 1960's and 1970's that pretty much faded away when it became clear that they couldn't accomplish their goals of social transformation. Whether the post-1990's version of transhumanism fares any better depends in part on the non-yuck social integration of transhumanist thinking (the internet certainly helps in getting these ideas wide exposure, if not acceptance), as well as on the success of biotechnology in improving healthy longevity in a cost-effective way.