[extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality

[Samantha Atkins]

On Sat, 3 Jan 2004 19:38:20 -0500
"Technotranscendence" <neptune at superlink.net> wrote:

> On Saturday, January 03, 2004 6:13 PM Dirk Bruere dirk at neopax.com wrote:
> > Another problem is defining what is meant by 'prevent'.
> > Does it mean speaking against?
> > Speaking against pursuasively?
> > Legislating against in a democracy?
> > If any of the above you are talking about
> > justifying terrorism and oppression.
> 
> I haven't read Mark's essay, but just from reading this thread, I fear
> some might interpret it very broadly to mean even such things as not
> subsidizing other people's life extension program.  For strict
> egalitarians, this might mean my failure to fund everyone else's life
> extension program constitutes my "deny[ing them] access to radical life
> extension technology."
> 

The flipside is more positive.  Ideally we can invent life extension technology that can be made available to all people.  It is good to work in this direction. But *any* life extension is better than none.

> I would hope that's not what Mark intended, but I can imagine others
> taking the argument in that direction.
> 
> However, I disagree with you [Dirk] here about the last instance.
> Legislating against something usually means initiating force.  Once a
> person or a group has initiated force, retaliating against such is not
> "terrorism and oppression" per se, but a just response -- depending on
> it being justly carried out.
> 
> I mean here that if the government of, say, Ruritania outlaws
> supplements, it is not wrong for Ruritanian life extensionists to
> disobey that law.  However, it would be wrong to, say, bomb Ruritania's
> whole population.  Specific acts against Ruritanian legislators and law
> enforcement agents, though, might not be un-libertarian and would have
> to measured against their justness and their likely consequences.
>

But having a first choice of killing said legislators and law enforcemnent would be wrong.   That they are highly mistaken or corrupt or whatever on this subject at the moment does not mean they should automatically forfeit immortality.   The big change is that we see all people as potential immortals, not immortalization of their current positions, but potentially immortal beings with capacity to learn, grow and self-perfect like ourselves.  If we really *get* this, I think we will begin to behave a bit differently.

 
- samantha