<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">There is only us. There are no others to consider the complex and ethical issues. There are no ordained ones of church or academia that we may turn over the responsibility to. History is largely in front of us. We have so much potential freedom to write what we will there. We cannot duck deciding what to write. The world is being made new. We can make it a faster less forgiving copy of the old natural world if we wish or are too afraid or haven't the energy to consider what we wish to create. The real possibility of indefinitely long life adds more to the equation than any expert in pre-emortality ethics and military history can address. We can't solve such things here but we can begin to talk about them and attempt to include them in our thoughts about what is and is not a good course of action in keeping with our deepest goals.<DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>- samantha</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"><DIV> <BR><DIV><DIV>On Jul 9, 2005, at 2:26 PM, c c wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV>...However it concerns something <EM><U>too</U></EM> deep, it would take a treatise to reply to it, for brevity's sake we are limited to amateur-chat on the war, we're not current or ex military personnel, we dont know what is going on at the highest or middle levels, and as you've mentioned before you don't know what is transpiring on the ground in Iraq. I'm reading your message over & over, but we can't go any farther with your message below than we can with any other message. All our messages are discrete academic chirpings from those who don't know all that much about such complex and complicated ethical issues. Or even the historical background; there's too much to go into.</DIV> <DIV> Let's get a first-rate ethicist with an extensive background in defense to sign up for extropy-chat and then we might go somewhere, wherever than 'somewhere' may be. But, somehow, I really and truly doubt it. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><BR><B><I>Samantha Atkins <<A href="mailto:sjatkins@mac.com">sjatkins@mac.com</A>></I></B> wrote:</DIV> <DIV>>If I were to express my abhorrence in a similar way then I would wish <BR>>that you and those who agree with you would be at ground zero if such <BR>>a thing was done. But since I understand what you apparently miss I <BR>>would not wish that on you. What you are missing is that all "those. <BR>>people" are all potential immortals. Exactly why do they deserve to <BR>>miss eternity for some real or imagined stupidities of their <BR>>(relatively) *very* early childhood? We who have not learned yet to <BR>>truly understand indefinitely long life or understand its requisites <BR>>are willing to kill all too easily.<BR><BR>- samantha</DIV><DIV> <BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><HR size="1"> <A href="http://us.lrd.yahoo.com/_ylc=X3oDMTE0bG4ybmRjBF9TAzk1OTQ5NjM2BHNlYwNtYWlsdGFnBHNsawNhdWN0aW9ucw--/SIG=10vb8ief1/**http%3a//auctions.yahoo.com/">Sell on Yahoo! Auctions </A> - No fees. Bid on great items.<DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">_______________________________________________</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">extropy-chat mailing list</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat">http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat</A></DIV> <BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>