Conference hydra::dejavu

    
    
    Well, there would be a lot more weekends ;^) and warm snuggley
    evenings.  Then there be enough time to take that round the world
    sailing voyage I have always wanted to do.  Think of all the new
    people to meet.
    
    L.

    Do you think folks would finally learn to take their time? B^)

    I'd write a note in DEJAVU soliciting help to keep the 
    retirement age at 62/65.
    
    Joanne
    

    WHAT THE???
    

>                   |   Imortality is 666 days away.  |

What?
You mean immortality is suspended for 666 days?
Why did they do that?

:-)
Arie

	My first reaction was that I'd extend my life as long as possible,
    provided I could remain in reasonably good health and not have to
    depend on others to take care of me.  But after thinking about it, I'm
    not sure.  If life extension would be for everybody, then I'd go for it
    like a starving bass.  However, if it would mean outliving everyone I
    love (like Dorian Gray, Lazarus Long, the Highlander, and countless
    other fictional characters), I'm not so sure.

	Now I have to figure out if that means that I define myself only
    through my relationships with my loved ones.  I don't care much for
    *that* idea.

	Therefore, my considered opinion is that it beats the hell out of
    me.  And I mean it, too.


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    In other conferences I quote someone as saying "What the Thinker
    thinks, the Prover proves." What we think will and should happen quite
    frequently becomes the perceived reality.
    
    I think that as humans gain longer lifetimes we will find ways to cope
    with the problems generated. We simply have more time to adjust. And
    more of us will adjust together.
    
    The next great frontier is not space. It's that great untried and
    not-well-known frontier between the ears.
    
    If we think we can live happier, heather longer lives, we will. If we
    think we will suffer pain and suffering we will find ways to accomplish
    even that.

    I'm still reading "Ramses the Damned."  I'll let you know if I'd
    stick around once I'm finished.  (On the other hand, think of all
    the reading I could get done!  And there'd be time to finish all
    those projects I've put off forever and forever...)
    
    --Karen

re: .7

   How true.  EVERYTHING that exists or ever existed first existed as a 
   single thought.

   Terry

    Has anyone given any thought to the problem that leaps to my mind
    immediatedly: what would we do about population? It seems to me that
    there would have to be *very* draconian population controls in a world
    where all deaths are accidents.
    
    	Jon

    Reply to .10, Jon,
    
    Long time no type too...
    
    As I've said before with longer lives we get MORE time to learn to
    adjust. And more time to find an appropriate technological or medical
    answer to pressing bio-sphere questions.
    
    Already now, not in some projected future, in China we see Draconian
    brith control measures _without_ life extension. It's already happened
    in India.
    
    Past modes of approaching problems sometimes work and sometimes don't,
    but with more time we can see a little clearer.

     Here is a short quote from UNDOING YOURSELF TOO. This book includes
 some interviews of different people and articles on the subject of
 immortality.
     
     "In the feudal and industrial eras, Management (Social controllers)
 used the fear of death to motivate and control individuals. Today,
 politicians use the death-dealing military and police and capital
 punishment to protect the social order. Organized religion maintains its
 power and wealth by orchestrating and exaggerating the fear of death."
     
     "Among the many things the Pope, the Ayatollah and fundamentalists
 Protestants agree on: confident understanding and self-directed mastery of
 the dying process is the last thing to be allowed to the individual.  The
 very notion of CYBERNETIC POST-BIOLOGICAL INTELLIGENCE or consumer
 immortality-options is taboo, sinful."
     
     "Religions have cleverly monopolized the rituals of dying to increase
 control over the superstitious. Throughout history the priests and mullahs
 have swarmed around the expiring human like black vultures. Death belonged
 to them."
     
     "The monopolies of religion and the assembly lines of Top Management
 (social controllers) process the dying and the dead even more efficiently
 than the living."
     
     "We recall that knowledge and selective choice about such gene-pool
 issues such as conception, test-tube fertilization, pregnancy, abortion is
 dangerous enough to the church-fathers."
     
     "But suicide, right-to-die groups concepts, euthanasia,
 life-extension, out-of-the-body experiences, occult experimentation,
 astral-travel scenarios, death/rebirth reports, extra-terrestial
 speculation, cryogenics, sperm banks, egg banks, DNA banks, personal
 empowering Artificial Intelligence Technology--anything that encourages
 the individual to engage in personal speculation and experimentation with
 immortality--is anathema to the orthodox Seed-Shepards of the feudal and
 industrial ages."
     
     "Why? Because if the flock doesn't fear death, then the grip of
 Religious and Political Management is broken. The power of the gene-pool
 is threatened. And when control loosens in the gene-pool, dangerous
 genetic innovations and mutational visions tend to emerge."
     
     "Some believe the Cybernetic Age we are entering could mark the
 beginning of a period of enlightened and intelligent individualism, a time
 unique in history when technology is available to individuals to support a
 huge diversity of personalized lifestyles and cultures, a world of
 diverse, interacting social groups whose initial-founding membership
 number is one."
     
     "The exploding technology of computation and communication lays a
 delicious feast of knowledge and personal choice within our easy grasp.
 Under such conditions, the operating wisdom and control naturally passes
 from the aeon-old power of the gene-pools, and locates in the rapidly
 self-modifying brains of individuals capable of dealing with and
 ever-acceleration rate of change."
     
     "Aided by customized, personally-programmed quantum-linguistic
 appliances, the individual can choose their own social and genetic future.
 And perhaps choose not to die."  

     UNDOING YOURSELF TOO, pages 186-189, TWENTY-TWO COMMON SENSE
 ALTERNATIVES TO INVOLUNTARY DEATH, an article written by Arnold Blum, Aka,
 Tim Leary, Ph.D. & Eric Gullichsen. 

    Re: .12

    Firstly I should say that I agree wholeheartedly with your
    main theme that we should understand our relationship to
    death more fully, but...
    
>     "Among the many things the Pope, the Ayatollah and fundamentalists
> Protestants agree on: confident understanding and self-directed mastery of
> the dying process is the last thing to be allowed to the individual.  The
> very notion of CYBERNETIC POST-BIOLOGICAL INTELLIGENCE or consumer
> immortality-options is taboo, sinful."

    The authorities of these religions don't actually say much about
    death itself, but the underlying religions are all quite clear
    about it. You 'go to heaven' after death (if you've been good).
    I don't actually think you can construe that as
    "...very notion ... immortality-options is ... sinful".

John D.

    Reply to .13, John,
    
    The so called "sinful" part is questioning their authority and power.
    And they require all their people to follow their program until death.

    re .11:
    
    I disagree that we get more time. I think we get no more, if not less.
    There are a couple of big dangers. The population bomb itself is one of
    them, but while serious in the long term, it's not in the short term.
    In the short term, the danger comes from the jealousies of the poor
    people of the world (especially if they can't afford the longevity
    drugs), who may rise up and murder the long-lived rich folks.
    
    	Jon

    
    I will only stick around if Dave Barry decides to.
    
    Life just wouldn't be worth living otherwise.
    
    Cindy

    The over-population problem automatically goes away because when
    humans conquer death, they will also be able to move to immense planets
    -- perfect new environments without the limitations of finite boundaries,
    ownership, religion, historical feuds, and other afflictions of the
    human spirit that cause it to promote death.  
    
    These immense planets will allow humans to multiply fearlessly and
    conduct activities without the restraints we now have.  Humans will be
    able to experiment, learn freely, and evolve into many different
    forms, with and without physical requirements.  Some forms will choose to
    rest after a length of time.  Others will not.  -Form-,
    -combination/form=...- ,  -cessation- , and -cessation/reversal
    will be options on the menu.  Nothing will be irreversible.  Death
    will not exist.  Forms and combination forms will be personal
    creations, art-forms if you like.     
    
    Beyond death, humans will be able to See (in the largest sense, imagine
    and produce simultaneously) wondrous realities. 
                                                                  
    Julie