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November 15, 2005
Pointless Whining, Well Earned Smackdown
Via Fight Aging and Stephen Malcolm Anderson, an interesting interchange at Dean's World regarding life and its true worth. Read the whole thing. Samples follow, to tempt you over... I make no secret that I side with the anti-aging forces. Senescence is a horrible killer, a disease that should be fought with every available weapon. Thank you. Thank you. The choir likes what it's hearing. On the other hand, it seems there's a contrarian in every crowd. Jesse Hill had this to say... While I agree that the "God is against it" argument is exceedingly irrational, I would caution against throwing away our mortality on a whim. Isn't "Death is bad" just as simplistic?...a never-ending mortal life would be akin to being locked in Purgatory forever, never ascending to whatever life lies beyond death. Mr. Esmay responds to these timorous thoughts with a wee, well earned fisking of marvelous clarity and vigor, which I'll get to in a bit. But first, a few thoughts of my own. I've noticed that some people simply cannot accept any new enterprise, regardless of its value, without first carping about it. I don't know why this is so. Perhaps they think it makes them sound wiser, or more forethoughtful, or even more moral than the rest of us. An example comes to mind immediately... Or perhaps they're just honestly afraid. Change, any change, is perceived as a threat. It's kind of sad, really. So what is it, exactly, that Mr. Hill is trying to accomplish here? What's his freaking point? I'm just saying that there ARE some real negative aspects that I don't think should be overlooked. Great. That seems innocuous enough, though also somewhat pointless. What simple, concrete actions does he advocate? What should we actually do? I would simply like to see you speak a little of the sorts of problems that would be associated with an immortal human race. I can assure you there are many, and pointing them out doesn't make any of us have a "sick view of humanity" I don't think. We're just being pragmatic. So the problem lies in not thinking things through. We have to nail down all the possible show stoppers before we can decently indulge in the luxury of optimism. We're talking about fundamentally altering the human condition to a degree which has never been attempted before. Why? I mean, honestly, why? If we're going to do it anyway, what do we gain by sitting around and pondering the reasons not to do it? Yeah sure, problems will arise. Nobody is saying that they won't. So what? That life requires effort is more truism than revelation. What's that old saying? "Dying is easy. It's the living that's hard." Too right. And living longer will be harder, but still worth the trouble. While you might disagree with my specific 'negatives' I would ask that you concede that they do exist. Further, I'd like to you to explore them. Right now you sound entirely too enthusiastic... Okay, they exist. Happy now? There will be negatives. But I don't think Mr. Esmay sounds especially "enthusiastic" here. Exasperated would seem to capture it more accurately. And it seems entirely too presumptuous on the part of Mr. Hill to say that Mr. Esmay's post is not addressing the correct issues. I mean, really, is the man's writing talent on retainer to Jesse Hill? Must his writing conform in all particulars to Mr. Hill's expectations? I'm sorely tempted to quote Al Swearengen. I'm not asking to stall our efforts. I think we're a long ways off from 'immortality' anyway. Will we achieve it in my lifetime? I sure hope so! So we should look before we leap. What does that translate into in terms of specifiable action on our part? We should think about it? Really, really hard? Well, okay then! Cue the Jeopardy music! There...I've thought about it. Really, really hard. And what useful thing has been accomplished? Pretty near to nothing. Here's Mr. Esmays trenchant rejoinder to the semantic nullity of Mr. Hill's thoughts... Jesse, excuse me for the rudeness of a "fisking" style response, but you need to be fisked here: Once more with feeling. Thank you. posted by Justin on 11.15.05 at 06:55 PM
Comments
Oh yeah, all the aging baby-boomers are going to a have a great time being old in a world with few youths. It's counter-evolutionary to abort off-spring and the baby-boomers who created this counter-movement are going to experience over the next thirty years the reason why it was so stupid to encourage such a self-serving culture. Hardest hit will be the old ladies, females live longer. Either females today better have lots of money stashed away for tomorrow's golden years or there's going to be a lot of old hags screaming why there is none to care for them.
Our culture needs to promote healthy reproduction for another reason. As Western civilization counter-evolves, Islamists will be breeding. As the Western civilization population ages we will have fewer warriors to fight a huge population of young Islamists.
susan · November 16, 2005 08:22 AM Actually, I've been dead too, and I don't think I'll ever get over it. My sentiments are with Dean too. (And Steven.) Eric Scheie · November 16, 2005 10:19 AM Susan. Are you aware that your comment is not just one, but SEVERAL non sequiturs? I thought you should know. Alan. I'm afraid I've only thought I was dead. I turned out to be mistaken. J. Case · November 16, 2005 10:47 AM I don't think it a waste of time to think about some of the possible negative aspects and problems immortality would cause and try and think of solutions for them. Even if we get the problems wrong and/or the solutions we come up with don't work, the exercise itself would have some value. Dave Justus · November 16, 2005 01:43 PM I'm with Dean. Thank you for linking him and quoting him so abundantly. Sorry about my own site being so discombobulated. I don't know what the problem is. I'll have to talk it over with my brother. Steven Malcolm Anderson the Lesbian-worshipping man's-man-admiring myth-based egoist · November 16, 2005 04:31 PM So far, all of the objections to longevity have a slight problem: we don't have the option yet to live several hundred years... so there's no way of knowing if we'll like it or not. Advocacy has a similar problem: we can't really predict if it'll be good or bad til we do it. Personally, I'd like to have the option. If someone else doesn't *want* to live for 300 years, well, nothing stops them from checking out at 90-100. ;] I don't think that longevity or immortality will be either a great boon or a great tradgedy. It'll just be something that "Is", and we'll incorporate it into our reality as we have so many other universe shattering changes, and go on about the business of being human. Humans who live a bit longer. ;] The universe didn't shatter from all of those other shattering changes either, I'm minded. Ironbear · November 19, 2005 09:12 PM |
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