[extropy-chat] ENOUGH again

[Bruce J. Klein]

Damien, I wonder if McKibben hopes to outshine Kass. Reference more quotes:

Quote McKibben interview concerning "Enough":

---It is clear that these revolutionary technologies are being driven by 
people with immortality, or something very near it, on their minds. In 
genetic engineering circles, much talk in the last year has centered on 
the promise of longer lives. As Danny Hillis, a computer scientist, 
says, "I’m as fond of my body as anyone, but if I can be 200 with a body 
of silicon, I’ll take it." One odd thing is that it is precisely this 
same class of thinkers — hyper-rationalist scientists, who have long 
sneered at religion as the refuge of the weak — who can’t face the fact 
of their own mortality. But clearly their own discomfort with mortality 
goes so deep that they will risk not only the dangers that come with 
genetic engineering, but even the loss of meaning that will attend this 
post-human future."---  http://resurgence.gn.apc.org/issues/mckibben212.htm

Also, quote Ron Bailey's review of "Enough":

---But something worse than mere genetic engineering fills McKibben 
"with blackest foreboding": the prospect of physical immortality. "It 
would represent, finally, the ultimate and irrevocable divorce between 
ourselves and everything else," he asserts. "The divorce, first of all, 
between us and the rest of creation."

Without mortality, no time," writes McKibben. "All moments would be 
equal; the deep, sad, human wisdom of Ecclesiastes would vanish. If for 
everything there is an endless season, then there is also no right 
season. The future stretches before you endlessly flat."--- 
http://www.reason.com/0310/cr.rb.enough.shtml

Bruce Klein
Chairman, ImmInst.org ~ For Infinite Lifespans
http://www.imminst.org