[extropy-chat] Comments on Annalee Newitz's Neofiles interview

[Giu1i0 Pri5c0]

Annalee Newitz's Neofiles interview
(http://www.life-enhancement.com/NeoFiles/default.asp?ID=54) is very
interesting as nearly everything written by Annalee Newitz and RU
Sirius: here we have a clearly smart and progressive person who is
raising her middle finger (see the first picture and read the text)
against transhumanism. While the questions and comments of RU Sirius
make good sense, Newitz makes some good points but is inconsistent on
some others. Some comments:
Annalee is assuming that radical life extension is either impossible
or very, very far in the future ("it's not something that's likely to
happen soon, and I'm not counting on it. Therefore, it's definitely
not something I want to base my belief system around"). Here she is
ignoring or not taking into account current research results which say
that perhaps it is not going to be years, but probably it is going to
be decades rather than centuries. So she is guilty of the same sin she
accuses transhumanists of: "making a religion" of her firm opinions on
things she does not know enough about. She writes very good things
about the social side of infotech, but biotech is still more of a
science than of a social phenomenon: one has to research the facts
first. These days everyone "knows" what is a P2P network, not so for
telomeres.
She is seeing the world in black and white: you are either pursuing
useless dreams of immortality, or "focusing on what needs to be done
here and now to fix this shitty-ass planet". It does not cross her
mind that you could be trying to do both things. I am definitely in
favor of both quests and try to contribute to both. If I contribute
more to one, someone else will contribute more to the other. Please
save me from those who see only black and white children blocks, the
real world is much more complex than that.
"I'd rather make life better for people who live into their 70s.
Curing death is only going to be cool when everybody is living a cool
life". I know many people in their 70s and know that one thing that
would make their life really cool is not having to think about being
dead in a few years. Hope is one of those things that really make life
better.
But this is too much: she is in favor of gender reassignment but does
not wish to see the analogy with life extension "Getting gender
reassignment seems to me really different from life-extension, just in
terms of ethics". She is not seeing what she does not want to see:
that gender reassignment and life extension are exactly the same kind
of thing - using tech (which unfortunately not everyone can afford) to
repair nature's mistakes), and that in both cases demand and technical
development will lower costs and make such reparations more and more
affordable.