[extropy-chat] William Safire edging toward transhumanism

[Damien Broderick]

Amazing! The NYT's conservative is embracing a sort of transhumanist agenda 
and new job:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/24/opinion/24safire2.html?th

< We're all living longer. In the past century, life expectancy for 
Americans has risen from 47 to 77. With cures for cancer, heart disease and 
stroke on the way, with genetic engineering, stem cell regeneration and 
organ transplants a certainty, the boomer generation will be averting 
illness, patching itself up and pushing well past the biblical limits of 
"threescore and ten."

But to what purpose? If the body sticks around while the brain wanders off, 
a longer lifetime becomes a burden on self and society. Extending the life 
of the body gains most meaning when we preserve the life of the mind. >


<I had no pretensions about becoming a scientist (having been graduated 
near the bottom of my class at the Bronx High School of Science) but did 
launch a few publications and a Web site - 
<http://www.Dana.org>www.Dana.org - that opened some channels among 
scientists, journalists and people seeking reliable information about the 
exciting field.

Experience as a Times polemicist made it easier to wade into the public 
controversies of science. Dana philanthropy provides forums to debate 
neuroethics: Is it right to push beyond treatment for mental illness to 
enhance the normal brain? Should we level human height with growth 
hormones? Is cloning ever morally sound? Does a drug-induced sense of 
well-being undermine "real" happiness? Such food for thought is now 
becoming my meat. >


< But how many of us are planning now for our social activity accounts? 
Intellectual renewal is not a vast new government program, and to secure 
continuing social interaction deepens no deficit. By laying the basis for 
future activities in the midst of current careers, we reject stultifying 
retirement and seize the opportunity for an exhilarating second wind.

Medical and genetic science will surely stretch our life spans. 
Neuroscience will just as certainly make possible the mental agility of the 
aging. Nobody should fail to capitalize on the physical and mental gifts to 
come. >