Quotes from this article: http://www.forbes.co...among-us-today/
In my reading over the weekend, I came across this article by Thomas Frey, in which he tries to imagine a near-future world where death is no longer an option.
This is simply absurd. Thinking that in 20 years, the technology will exist to “switch bodies” into a younger clone will be a possibility is to completely ignore the state of technology today.
Frey goes on to some other equally scientifically dubious propositions, all of which boil down to the idea that we’re just a handful of years away from developing immortality. There’s a rather large collection of individuals on the Internet with the same belief, many of whom I’ve corresponded with. But there’s no evidence to believe that we’re even close of extending the life span of the average person to the age of 120, much less forever.
But no matter how much we struggle, or avert our gaze, the truth is, we’re all going to die. Accepting our own mortality is the beginning of wisdom and maturity.
My response: (also posted in the article, add yours there too)
Frey isn’t saying that will happen at that time, he is inviting you to imagine it. Don’t worry, there is plenty of not imaginings of scenarios like this going on. We move toward helping to support the scenarios that we think the future holds. More people need to understand that scenarios like that with creating new bodies and all can be in our cards. Why would you approach this as though he is saying that it will happen at that specific time?
The side that thinks they are going to win is more likely to win. Whatever percentage of you isn’t preparing to win, is preparing to lose, and we can’t afford to put a half effort into this life or death cause. We have to go all in. Many in every generation think that the big picture that life facilitates exists to provide them with a snap shot and to let them indulge in some baubles and excursions. Many people think that humanity has arrived where we have been headed - but we are still on our way. You stop periodically and smell the roses along the way; you don’t set up camp in the rose field at the expense of humanities continued pioneering of existence. There is no time for perpetual excursions and bauble juggling. You exist to unlock the mystery of the big picture.
We don’t have to know that we can get there to go there, but we do have to go there to get there. Don’t worry too much about specific forecasts of 2045, or 2035, 30 more years, or whatever you hear, the goal of indefinite life extension gets here in proportion to the collective speed at which the world goes to get there, so worry about allowing the world to understand that this is possible in our lifetimes, and that we are going there to see. This isn’t about immortality, this is about indefinite life extension. You will still likely die one day, but at an indefinite time.
We might live on indefinitely, accepting that is the beginning of wisdom and maturity.
As the late great Alan Harrington wrote, “We must never forget that we are cosmic revolutionaries, not stooges conscripted to advance a natural order that kills everybody.” As Francis Bacon once said, "But by far the greatest obstacle to the progress of science and to the understanding of new tasks and provinces therein is found in this - that men despair and think things impossible."
