[ExI] Extrope Robert Bradbury Has Died

spike spike66 at att.net
Thu Mar 3 06:44:01 UTC 2011


 

 

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Max More
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2011 10:18 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] Extrope Robert Bradbury Has Died

 

Damn.

 

Robert, as some of you old-timers will know, was a former director of
Extropy Institute. He was an extremely smart guy and a major advocate of
(and practical entrepreneur for) life extension and other transhumanist
goals.

 

I'm not only extremely unhappy to hear of his sudden and unexpected death,
but also distressed that he had no arrangements for cryopreservation (to the
best of my knowledge). That's quite surprising and, frankly, appalling given
Robert's understanding of the technology and future possibilities. This is
especially distressing because Alcor has people in Florida, where he died,
who could have started the transport and cooldown on very short notice.

 

Robert had his oddities but was always intelligent and probing and on the
side of life. All we can do for him now is remember him. It's something, but
it's very little, for he is gone forever.

 

--- Max

 

"David Kekich told me that Robert had not signed up for any cryonic
suspension in any form."

 

This is all very dismaying. I was not a close pal of Robert's, but he wrote
a lengthy and excellent piece on his invention, the Matrioshka Brain or
MBrain, for my anthology YEAR MILLION, and I quoted him extensively in THE
SPIKE; he was a ferment of ideas, with an apparent grasp of diverse
technical fields. On one occasion he generously used frequent flyer points
he'd accrued in excess to help me fly to the States from Australia to attend
a Foresight conference. I gather he burned through a substantial inheritance
15 or 20 years ago trying to get a life-extension research organization to
takeoff point, but it was too early and he wasn't Aubrey. A side effect
might have been later problems with finances that probably prevented his
signing up with Alcor.

 

He'll be missed.

 

Damien Broderick

 

 

 

 

Last time he was here (about 3 years ago, for I recall his saying he had
turned 50) Robert and I discussed cryonics briefly.  His position on it was
that he was a tepid believer in it, and might make arrangements if he had
sufficient advance notice of his imminent demise.  The number of people with
this attitude may be larger than those who actually wear a bracelet.  I
don't know how to create a business model to deal with that population.  

 

If our fondest hopes with nanotechnology come to pass and fulfill their
early promise, it might be that for those carrying the cryonics meme,
getting incurable cancer is the best thing that can happen.

 

spike





 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20110302/722d25c5/attachment.html>


More information about the extropy-chat mailing list