[extropy-chat] ENOUGH again

[Damien Broderick]

BTW, Mike Lorrey gets mentioned by name and url in Bill McKibben's book
ENOUGH, note 7, chap. 4. (For leafleting.)

And BTW2, McKibben is entirely clear in his wish to have us all die:

`But you *can't* "enjoy the gift of life" forever. Maybe with these new
tools you can *live* forever, but the joy of it--the meaning of it--will
melt away like ice cream on an August afternoon. It is true that nothing
short of these new technologies will make us immortal, but immortality is a
fool's goal. Living must be enougn for us, not living forever' (161).

My notion of joy is a little less sticky than ice cream on an August
afternoon, which is admittedly pleasant but not to die for, and I find
McKibben's insight into the spiritual misery and existential emptiness of
people 1000 years old entirely amazing. How can he *know* these things? And
how can he *know* that there will be no cure for the ailment he just *knows*
must afflict the optionally undying? I'm not saying he's wrong--I don't know
either. But his hubris in barring the gae in our face is breathtaking...
literally.

Damien Broderick