LongeCity Newsletter
July
2015
Podcasts, morality & teamwork
Since its founding, LongeCity has featured interviews with those from different walks of life with an interesting take on life extension. Over the years, veteran broadcaster Justin 'Mind' Loew has welcomed many notable guests: researchers, advocates, physicians and business people from within the life extension community and skeptics alike.
This month's guest, Dr. Laurie Zoloth, professor of religious studies, medical humanities and bioethics at
This makes for a very intriguing interview, since many in the LongeCity community know that Mind’s own position is markedly different. So he challenges our guest -politely and without going into an argument- to better explain her position. It emerges that in fact, Zoloth sees the preservation of life as the highest moral good from a Jewish bioethics perspective and in this she argues against the well-documented view of Leon Kass, sometimes called the "president's philosopher" to George W. Bush.
Thus, in a few minutes of interview the podcast contributes to the ethical debate about life extension being "only for the rich", illustrates how this may in fact be a debate about political and economic ideologies, and that commentators, even when they start from the same position (an espousal of life as the highest good/ Jewish bioethics/ conservative ideology), can come to very different conclusions.
With such broadcasts, LongeCity delivers on its mission by recapitulating the state of the debate; educating those new to the field; signposting those wishing to learn more to further sources; but also by perhaps helping to advance the field with new contributions.
Although LongeCity values the discussion and advancement of scientific topics most highly, Mind reminds us at the close of the podcast feature that moral questions can have important practical implications.
Not everyone shares the LongeCity mission and we are inviting those with knowledge in the field to share their references to chart the moral arguments 'against'.
When considering the great podcast content, one cannot help noting its poor audio quality - something went awry in the recording this time. This illustrates another important point: For years Mind has led the podcast from his basement-come-interview-booth at home pretty much single-handedly.
Recently we reinforced our call for assistance, looking for producers and editors and thankfully a team is now forming for just this purpose. With capable editing help, the Zoloth interview could be rescued from inaudibility and we hope that together we can further increase the quality of past and future broadcasts.
If you would like to contribute to this effort, please get in touch.
Sponsor: MitoQ.com
This newsletter & some of the work of Longecity was supported by MitoQ.com
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Caliban
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