Alcor's announcement about Wesley Du Charme

Alcor's 94th Patient

Wesley du Charme (Wes, A-1614), a member for nearly 14 years, was recently diagnosed with end-stage pancreatic cancer after battling brain cancer for an extended period of time. After determining that additional treatments would be futile and the time required for treatments would only reduce the likelihood he would be well enough for travel, Wes and his wife packed their bags and flew to Arizona. The flight was challenging for Wes, given his condition, but he said that getting close to Alcor was worth the effort.

Wes was admitted to Hospice of the Valley and after five days as an inpatient, Wes took a turn for the worse. Having just completed Yumi’s cryopreservation, Alcor was back on standby with little recuperation time. On April 15th, about 30 hours after Yumi was pronounced, Wes became Alcor’s 94th patient. Again, the Alcor standby team was on-site and began stabilization immediately upon pronouncement, arriving at Alcor with the patient only 32 minutes later.

Strict Fathers shouldn't support "end times" beliefs.

Regarding: Waiting for Armageddon.

The Strict Father Model (SFM) recognizes that we live in a harsh world, and that we need discipline to survive and thrive in it. The Dispensationalist nonsense spread by many American churches interferes with learning this discipline because it discounts the near future to zero, for no good reason. End times beliefs fit organically into the world views of people who want immediate gratification instead of improving themselves, working efficiently, saving and investing for the future and so forth -- basically the outlook of lower-class people who often end up on public assistance at the expense of Strict Father producers.

A better theology, from a Strict Father perspective, would teach that we have to make our own livings in this world because we have no reason to expect a god to end secular history in our lifetimes, or within the lifetimes of an indefinite number of generations to come. It would also counter the pernicious Prosperity Gospel, which appeals to the same weaknesses as end times beliefs.

Regarding the rapture belief associated with a lot of end times thinking, has anyone noticed the irony that the biggest hustlers of this superstition in our lifetimes -- Hal Lindsey, Tim LaHaye and Pat Robertson -- have all reached their 80's by now without getting raptured? The actuarial tables have a greater likelihood of predicting their futures than any amount of bible prophecy. Lindsey, especially, sold heaps of his most famous book (and presumably earned heaps of money) promoting an imminent rapture in the 1970's. Assuming he believes what he has preached for the past 40 years, does he look at his aged face in the mirror now and wonder why he has wasted his life waiting for a visit from the rapture fairy?

Elders' alleged wisdom

I turned 50 years old last November, which I also reckon as 600 months; and for the first time in my life a man younger than me serves as the current American president. An older friend and I discussed one time how, when we grow up, we learn to view American presidents as august and venerable figures simply from the fact that they had so many years' advantage over us in life experience. As we mature, and the age differences between us and the men who become our presidents shrinks to negligence, that aspect of presidential authority no longer inspires such respect. Then we have to evaluate the current presidents' performances and judgment from the view point of approximate age equality, if not age superiority, and decide what status they deserve in relation to us according to other criteria.

I've noticed that I've started to do this regarding elders outside of politics. Because the realistic life expectancy in developed countries still averages ~1000 months (though three of my grandparents made it to near or slightly past ~1100 months), the percentage age differences between me and the "seniors" I know continues to shrink. Why should I respect someone now just because he or she has lived a few dozen months longer, especially when I see so many elders who've made bad choices in life and apparently haven't learned from them?

I had that reaction while reading the current issue of Alcor's Cryonics magazine (not yet online), the paper copy of which I received in the mail the other day. It bears the misleading date of 3rd Quarter 2009, and features a few articles about cryonics pioneer Curtis Henderson, suspended by the Cryonics Institute (CI) in 2009 instead of Alcor. Curtis, like Marce Johnson, another trailblazer from the paleo-cryonics era (who unfortunately didn't get cryosuspended), had a suspension membership with Alcor through the early 1990's, then left Alcor and joined CryoCare (which should have called itself the Children's Crusade) after the Cryo Wars, even though a resident of New York he derived no geographic advantage from doing so. After CryoCare imploded, Curtis then made suspension arrangements with CI.

I vaguely remember standing in the same room with Curtis at an Alcor meeting somewhere in the Southland before the split, but I don't think I ever spoke to him. Therefore he doesn't really belong on my list.

Because I lack an emotional investment in Curtis from not having known him, perhaps I can view him somewhat more objectively than his friends. Alcor's leaders credit Curtis as a valuable resource because his experiences as a cryonics pioneer who failed at keeping people in suspension showed Alcor what not to do; today's cryonics organizations have benefited from the study of Curtis's mistakes.

Fair enough. I believe in letting other people make my mistakes for me. But Curtis still made those mistakes, and his choices may have deprived the people he temporarily cryosuspended of the chance to benefit from the superior trauma medicine of Future World. So why did he have such a high reputation among certain cryonicists?

I also have it on good authority that Curtis might have referred some potential cryonauts to Bob Nelson, or even transferred ones already cryosuspended to Nelson for storage in the crypt he kept at a cemetery in Chatsworth, California. Yet Curtis somehow emerged unscathed from Nelson's Chatsworth Scandal, as we call it in cryonics history. If I have gotten the facts wrong, or interpreted the situation wrongly, please correct me.

I don't want to dispute whether Curtis deserved the high regard many long-time cryonicists held for him. I just don't understand the basis for it, given what I've read about him. He seems like a poor candidate for a cryonicist sage.

Make-believe transhumanism doesn't cut it.

Michael Anissimov, an enthusiastic but still 20-something (in other words, life-inexperienced) transhumanist, writes that "Transhumanism Has Already Won."

Why does he think that? Because of the popularity of the make-believe portrayals of transhumanist ideas like in the film Avatar:

Billions of people around the world would love to upgrade their bodies, extend their youth, and amplify their powers of perception, thought, and action with the assistance of safe and tested technologies. The urge to be something more, to go beyond, is the norm rather than the exception.

"Billions of people"? Just like the "billions of people" who have consumed space-travel franchises over the past 40 years, often named Star-Something, or Something-Star-Something? That fad hasn't translated into a demand for real manned space exploration and settlement. Why would the market for transhumanist fantasies prove any more effective in making people demand the real thing?

I will take Michael's claim seriously when I see evidence of a transhumanist turn in the culture, and I mean something tangible, like a big increase in cryonics sign ups, or a political movement to push for changes in government policies to favor transhumanist goals, comparable to the Tea Party, but arising organically, not through astroturfing.

The accompanying photo to Michael's post also made me laugh:



Talk about supporting negative stereotypes of the kinds of men attracted to transhumanism. Transhumanist guys need to upload into avatars to find girlfriends?

"Turning into Gods" advertisement

TURNING INTO GODS - 'Concept Teaser' from jason silva on Vimeo.

The film maker commits an error by using Timothy Leary, of all people, as a kind of narrator for his theme of "exploring mankind's journey to 'play jazz with the universe.'" Nobody rational these days believes the LSD cult's delusions of grandeur. I've met LSD advocates, including the decrepit Timothy Leary himself a few years before his death in 1996, and their claims of the world-transforming effects of LSD don't impress me.

Leary also published nonsensical predictions about "the future," namely, the mysterious far-future decade of the 1990's, in the same vein as his buddies Robert Anton Wilson and F.M. Esfandiary. You can find an example or two here (PDF). How can any Leary fan not feel embarrassed now by reading the following from his hero, who BTW refers to himself in the third person?

In The Immortality Factor by Osborn Segerberg Jr., we find that predictions from scientists about when immortality will be achieved have steadily moved closer to the present. A 1962 panel predicted immortality in the late 21st Century; a 1969 panel the end of this century; etc. Already the 1973 prediction by Timothy Leary and L. Wayne Benner, naming 1990, begins to seem conservative. We can probably have eternal life in the 1980s if public consciousness is raised High enough to demand it.

My advice to the film maker? Leave Timothy Leary out of your project. Do your homework to find living people who can articulate your vision with a basis in reality. Otherwise the words you endorse with your name could come back to embarrass you in a few years, as has already happened to the guy who made the Zeitgeist films.

Ray Kurzweil could have picked a better role model.

From Is genius immortal? Tech god Ray Kurzweil is a modern-day Edison. Now he's battling to stay alive — forever:

No disrespect to the man who let there be electric light, but Ray Kurzweil is Thomas Alva Edison on steroids.

That might not be evident on a visitor’s first trip to his Kurzweil Technologies, a sleek yet modest office in Wellesley Hills, which is rather ordinary looking for the headquarters of a futurist who’s striving to live forever. Still, the 62-year-old inventor is aware of the Edison comparisons, and flirts with them himself. In the second-floor lobby of this building overlooking I-95 South is an early 20th century Ediphone — essentially the world’s first tape recorder (as well as a hulking piece of office furniture).

“Edison’s a model of the way I like to work,” says Kurzweil, a lean and tan tech kingpin, who, in his spare time, collaborates with Google co-founder Larry Page on finding feasible ways to convert the whole planet to solar power. “He’s the best example of a saying I like to repeat: ‘Failure is just success deferred.’ Edison didn’t give up [on the light bulb] after a thousand filaments didn’t work, or after a thousand failures. He learned that persistence pays off. People actually declare their own failures — they give up at some point. But if you have the right goal — if you persist with it, and the goal is worth pursuing — then generally you can succeed.”

Yet Edison's contemporaries criticized him for his inefficient problem-solving strategies, even though he shoved most of the workload onto poorly paid assistants while taking the credit when they stumbled across feasible solutions. Nikola Tesla reportedly said, "If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search. I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labor."

The TRIZ theorists from Russia have likewise criticized Edison and similar Western inventors for trying to invent through random searches, when, they claim, they've discovered efficient algorithms for inventive problem solving which save a lot of time and effort, rather like the approach Tesla may have had in mind.

So I have to wonder if Kurzweil has given any thought towards more efficient problem solving than just the Edison-like, brute-force approach he's written about based on pattern recognition and faster computers.

"Despite the worry it is good to be alive. It is good to be alive. It is even worth waiting for."

From "Transitions," by Mike Darwin (1984), inspired by his visit to a cemetery:

As I glide on in the gathering darkness I am aware of the sweet scents around me. The jasmine is in bloom; the white flowers are pale specks in the rosy light. As I race down curving lanes it comes to me that it is good to be alive. Deep sorrow rushes over me for those who have vanished here and lost their lives.

Are there words to say what they are missing? Is there a price for a summer evening with a full moon and jasmine-scented breeze? I am filled with the urge to shout at them, to shake their dusty bones and rotting flesh and tell them to wake up, to stop missing out on being alive! But it is hopeless for they aren't really here. I wonder how much longer I have before I join them. Will I be frozen when I die? For the love of life and all that's in it will I survive? I wonder and I worry. It mars the glorious realization that it is good to be alive. I don't wonder at all at what it's like to be dead. I know what it's like to be dead. It isn't like anything at all. It is just not being there anymore. It is not feeling the sweet promise of being alive, it is not feeling strong legs move a bicycle swiftly forward, it is not dreaming of standing on Mars and watching its moons race madly across the jet black sky. Most of all, it's losing not just what you've been, the memories and loves and hopes we carry with us, it losing all we could have been. It's not just the loss of a finite past with all the security it carries with it, it's losing all of that which is yet to be. An infinity of thoughts and dreams and worlds and new ideas wait out there for us -- if we live. Those, poor, poor people who've vanished into dust around me will never know the things I'll know, the thoughts I'll think -- if I live. . .

I hope that in my lifetime molecular machines will be made which will free me from this evening's worries. As I ride along I fantasize about a drop of cloudy liquid on my tongue full of virus-sized machines. Machines small enough to multiply inside my aged and damaged cells. Machines smart enough to bring order to chaos. Machines strong enough to turn age to youth and death to life. If only I can last till then.

If I am forced to wait in liquid nitrogen my sole concern is that the wait be long enough. That I can wait until the era of molecular engineering. I worry only at the patience and the judgment of those who follow. I worry only at the common sense of a world in love with death. I worry about a world with cemeteries. A world where memories fall to ash in furnaces and mouldering earth. I worry at a world where children never get to walk on Mars.

Despite the worry it is good to be alive.

It is good to be alive.

It is even worth waiting for.

And to think I just recently discovered Walt Whitman.

I find it hard to believe that someone could have published this in the U.S. in the middle of the 19th Century:

This is the female form;
A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot;
It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction!
I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor—all falls aside but myself and it;
Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, the atmosphere and the clouds, and what was expected of heaven or fear’d of hell, are now consumed;
Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it—the response likewise ungovernable;
Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands, all diffused—mine too diffused;
Ebb stung by the flow, and flow stung by the ebb—love-flesh swelling and deliciously aching;
Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of love, white-blow and delirious juice;
Bridegroom night of love, working surely and softly into the prostrate dawn;
Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh’d day.

I have some photos to illustrate this poem; but I wouldn't want to embarrass these women, so they'll stay on my hard drive for now. ;)

Religions do outlast their welcomes.

More evidence for my skepticism of Austrian economics

Lew Rockwell, "[a] champion of the Austrian School of Economics," advocates the renunciation of American citizenship, based on a prediction of "impending doom":

Renouncing American Citizenship

This shows that Austrian economics doesn't exist as a disinterested field of inquiry into human behavior, despite its literature's "economic science" rhetoric. Austrian economics continues to exist, apparently through something like astroturfing, because because it rationalizes a political agenda based on often contrived grievances and promoted through scare tactics.

Left Lakoffians don't understand the power of their own ideas.

This essay, predictably written by a Nurturant Parent broad, promotes a conspiracy theory about the origins of the Strict Father Model (SFM):


Putting Lakoff's Work in a Larger Context

"Conservatives," wrote Lakoff, prefer "a strict father family" model. In this kind of family, "the world is seen as a dangerous place and the father functions as protector from 'others' and is the parent who teaches children absolute right from wrong by punishing them physically (painful spanking or worse) when they do wrong. The father is the ultimate authority; children are to obey, and immoral practices are seen as disgusting."

Republicans claim that this model is based on "traditional family values." Actually, they are patriarchal values rooted in the subjugation of women, for it is not just the children who must yield to the authority of the father, but the mother as well.

Patriarchy is a system with a long history, predating written records, but it remains a powerful contemporary force throughout the world.

Patriarchs instituted the practice of marriage many millennia ago in order to subordinate women whom they saw as a valuable commodity by giving every man the right by law to absolute dominion over a wife. In patriarchal marriages, the father is more than a mere "protector." He is a property owner. And in many countries, a wife today has no more rights than a slave. Women and girls are sold into marriage or prostitution, traded for other goods, or simply given away. A wife is viewed as valuable property because along with the domestic services that she provides she is able to produce children, especially sons, and the progeny belong to the property owner.

This woman clearly hasn't absorbed the insights of evolutionary theory. Men in prehistory did not create patriarchy, also known as the SFM, because they wanted to bully and exploit women; natural selection led to patriarchy, without any conscious design, because it gave our ancestors economic and reproductive advantages in the harsh world we all live in. Patriarchy's power to endure, which this woman acknowledges, shows that it has something pro-survival going for it. And many women apparently thrive in Strict Father structures, as I noted yesterday.

The well meaning, but misguided, effort to deny and fight this aspect of human nature could very well undo the benefits it has bequeathed us, which I suspect includes our tendency to build up capital faster than we deplete it.

Things you realize after the fact

In my late teens and early 20's, I felt strongly attracted to a couple of women who bypassed me and went on to form Strict Father marriages with other men.

One of them married a "reformed Baptist," which I guess means "Calvinist," preacher, had five children with him, and has stayed married with him since 1982. (You'd have trouble finding a more Strict Father-oriented religion originating in Western societies than Calvinism!)

The other married an engineer, had six children (!) with him, and has stayed married to him since 1983. Like the first woman, she loves Jesus and has organized her life around her church membership, only in a Methodist congregation.

Their early and long-lasting marriages, conventional religiosity and fecundity signal to me that these women felt organically drawn to Strict Father structures, despite coming of age during a time of feminist propaganda, which never penetrated far into Oklahoma's culture any way.

I wish I had understood my implicit world view better at the time, and used it to court these women who apparently thought in ways I would have found agreeable. I might have had more success in getting one of these obviously reproductively fit women to become my helpmate, but for my long-term projects, not for her short-term ones. I had already decided in my teens that I wanted to go the cryonics route, so with an early start on reprogramming one of these women, assisted by her inclination to submit to Strict Father authority, I might have gotten my way by now in cultivating a cryonics-compliant wife.

A recent Ralph Merkle interview

You can find a more critical view of Merkle's career and accomplishments here, here and here.

RALPH MERKLE INTERVIEW.mp3

Does "boredom" have an antonym?

Someone writing under the name of Hank Hyena recently published a post about the dangers of boredom to individual survival, in a transhumanist context.

The essay made me wonder about the dangers of something like the opposite of boredom in a life-extended future which could also threaten individual survival. For the lack of a better term I guess I could call it "hyperstimulus."

Off the top of my head I can think of two recent examples: Computer game addiction, which in South Korea has reportedly led to some deaths from literal neglect of food, water and sleep.

And the reported, but I hope short-lived, despondency some people claimed they experienced after watching Avatar and then realizing that they can never live on that movie's fictional exoplanet Pandora. I haven't seen this movie, but from reading that sort of reaction to it, I suspect I won't care to. (Did some people feel that way 30 years ago after seeing the Star Wars movies?)

Come to think of it, the Twilight nuisance also has characteristics of a hyperstimulus to some female brains, though I don't know if immersion in Stephanie Meyers's fantasy world has left anyone suicidal because she can't go to Forks High School and date Edward Cullen. (I don't understand Twilight's appeal; I just make note of it.) It wouldn't surprise me if some young women have felt that way, however.

If some people can't handle hyperstimuli from media like World of Warcraft, Avatar and possibly even Twilight now, what could happen to similarly vulnerable people in the future if, for example, creators of entertainment media expose the early versions of their products to test audiences and observe their reactions with the tools of neuroscience? Would the data generated by these measurements allow the creation of even more engaging fantasy experiences which could cause some people to behave in self-destructive ways because of these fantasies' contrast with a seemingly inadequate reality?

Metaphors have consequences

Do societies based on the Strict Father Model tend to build capital, while societies based on the Nurturant Parent Model tend to deplete it?

If so, then it would empirically support my conjecture that the Strict Father Model (SFM) arose through evolution as a pragmatic survival strategy in a harsh world. The SFM gives its adherents an economic advantage, and therefore a reproductive advantage, over Nurturant Parent squanderers, not because some mean men consciously set it up that way.

Another reason not to engage in compulsive hoarding

Materialistic people liked less by peers than 'experiential' people, says new CU-Boulder study

People who pursue happiness through material possessions are liked less by their peers than people who pursue happiness through life experiences, according to a new study led by University of Colorado at Boulder psychology Professor Leaf Van Boven.

Van Boven has spent a decade studying the social costs and benefits of pursuing happiness through the acquisition of life experiences such as traveling and going to concerts versus the purchase of material possessions like fancy cars and jewelry.

"We have found that material possessions don't provide as much enduring happiness as the pursuit of life experiences," Van Boven said.

I don't understand the explanation of the study. Did it examine the conditions for making people like you, or did it examine the effects of possessions versus experiences on how feel about your life? These sound like two distinct aspects of the human condition to me, considering that you can find satisfaction without worrying about what others think of you (an insight supported by cognitive behavior therapy, not to mention some ancient schools of philosophy).

I dislike traveling myself, but I do see the value in the subset of experiences called "skills acquisition." I've started what I call my "Lazarus Long List," based on the famous quote from Heinlein's Time Enough for Love, where I write down the the things I'd like to learn how to do, rather like Zora Colakovic's list.

Ironically I don't think Heinlein did several of the things he attributed to Lazarus.

Change a diaper? Heinlein didn't have any children that I've heard of.

Plan an invasion? Well, anyone can "plan" something. Tuberculosis ended Heinlein's naval career in the 1930's, so he never saw any action in a war.

Butcher a hog? Heinlein could have done that, given his redneck background.

Conn a ship? Heinlein could have done that in the U.S. Navy, but not in the astronautical sense intended here.

Design a building? Yes, Heinlein did leave tangible evidence of that ability.

Write a sonnet? Hell, any middle school kid can do that once he learns the rules.

Balance accounts? A trivial thing, which many people can do, though you wouldn't know that from all the people who've gotten into financial trouble lately.

Build a wall? Heinlein could reportedly do that.

Set a bone? I can't rule out the possibility that Heinlein knew how to do that; his Naval training might have taught him some heavy-duty first aid. But how often in the 20th Century did non-medical and non-military people in the U.S. have to set bones?

Comfort the dying? That goes without saying.

Take orders, give orders? Again, Heinlein served in the U.S. Navy.

Cooperate, act alone? Did Heinlein consider these skills unusual or something?

Solve equations? Heinlein did have training in engineering, mathematics and physics, so yes.

Analyze a new problem? Don't most of us go through life having to do that on some level?

Pitch manure? Refer to Heinlein's redneck background.

Program a computer? When did Heinlein ever do that?

Cook a tasty meal? Some people have the ability to ruin otherwise edible ingredients when they try to cook, but in general most of us can produce something in the kitchen that other hungry people will eat.

Fight efficiently, die gallantly? Heinlein never got into a shooting war, much less a civilian firefight; and he died in bed from senescent pathologies, so here he engages in wishful thinking.

Specialization is for insects? An odd assertion from someone who inserted lectures about economics into his novels. Don't most economics textbooks start out with an explanation of the "free lunches" we get from the division and specialization of labor?

I don't seem like such a bad guy now, by comparison.

Somehow I feel vindicated by this:

ah yes, the husband is out on a another date with his girlfriend....

I offered this woman a Strict Husband * alternative, which might have given more structure to her indisciplined existence. I certainly would have put a stop to her compulsive hoarding (apparently a common behavior among cryonicists), and made her save money.

* My Strict Husband Model, a variant of the Strict Father Model for guys who want to marry but not have children, "places strong value on discipline as a means to survive and thrive in a harsh world."

My dream about Methuselah Cat

Last night I had an uncharacteristically vivid dream where I encountered a talking cat (who looked a lot like Khan). He told me that he thought he was born in 1973, which in the year 2010 would make him an unusually old specimen of Felis silvestris catus indeed; and that by now his life felt boring and meaningless, aggravated by the fact that he had no veterinary reason to expect his health to decline any time soon. His longevity also somehow accounted for his ability to talk. Apparently a life-extended cat could learn things from lengthy human association, without requiring a cognitive Uplift, which other cats don't live long enough to acquire.

I wondered what I could offer such a strange organism to restore his passion for living. Apparently he no longer derived satisfaction from relationships with other cats, for obvious reasons. So that left relationships with people, but he had problems with those, as well. Does he still derive pleasure from a good brushing? Suppose we found a way to create other Methuselah cats. Would he want to hang around to serve as their mentor and teacher, so that they learned how to talk to humans? Would some kind of long-term, and dare I say, altruistic, project break this Methuselah Cat out of his depressive self-absorption and restore him to good emotional health, at least by feline standards?

Come to think of it, my mind may have generated this dream as a result of reading this essay. I've also recently read The Conquest of Happiness, by Bertrand Russell, and one of Albert Ellis's self-help books, from both of which I've extracted numerous quotations on 5" X 8" index cards. I also keep Time Enough for Love handy for toilet reading, so that has probably contributed to the mix of ideas for dream poesis.

Wesley Du Charme's cryotransport

While Wesley had published a book about cryonics back in 1995, and he had appeared in a profile in Cryonics magazine in 2008, I remained circumspect about his imminent suspension because I didn't know if he wanted it advertised.

Apparently he did:

Psychologist believed the future can still be his after death

I may have exchanged an email or two with Wesley a few years ago, but I never got to meet him until Sunday, April 11, just days before his suspension. His wife Skippy had brought him from Idaho to a hospice in Scottsdale, near Alcor. Dave Pizer and I drove down from Mayer to see them. I just had time to introduce myself to Wesley and shake his hand, and he seemed mentally coherent to me, despite the cancer in his brain. Then I tagged along while Dave showed Skippy a house belonging to a cryonicist living nearby, where she could have stayed until Wesley's deanimation. After looking at the house, Dave dropped Skippy off at the hospice, without seeing Wesley again. Before heading back, we had lunch at a Chinese restaurant in Scottsdale.

I found the experience more interesting than emotionally disturbing. I could tell that Wesley's mortality salience bothered Dave, however; he talked on the way back about the kinds of wonderful things he thought could happen in the future.

I guess I can add Wesley to my list now.

One of the "Jesus who?" kids

This article from a year ago has a passage which made me laugh:

Most religious groups in USA have lost ground, survey finds

Like Gautier, the Rev. Kendall Harmon, theologian for the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, blames social mobility.

"Mobility means your ideas are more challenged and your family and childhood traditions have less influence, particularly if you are not strongly rooted in them. I see kids today who have no vocabulary of faith, and neither do many of their parents."

Harmon recalls, "A couple came into my office once with a yellow pad of their teenage son's questions. One of them was: 'What is that guy doing hanging up there on the plus sign?' "

Hostile audiences for Passion plays

I wonder if audiences in the "Jesus who?" era will mock Passion plays. Will hecklers shout "Finish him!" like in Mortal Kombat? Or will they make geeky jokes based on the Hellraiser movies?

I wish I could have met him under better circumstances.

Wesley Du Charme Profile

The disadvantages of "Richie Rich" living

Re: Miami businessman Nevin Shapiro charged in Ponzi case

Too many people who fantasize about, or aspire to, great wealth, tend to focus on the "Richie Rich" aspects of it, like this swindler: Mansions, expensive cars, high rolling entertainment, bling (Shapiro reportedly gave someone "diamond-studded handcuffs"), etc. Even if you've acquired your fortune legally and ethically, you could still attract unwanted attention to yourself through irrational spending.

While you can certainly buy those things with enough money, they don't illustrate the real advantages of wealth, and in fact could interfere with these advantages if you waste too much money on status-advertising toys, namely:

• the ability to afford, without fear of bankruptcy, the subsistence and health care of you and your loved ones in case of injury, illness or disability;
  
  
• the ability to get you and your loved ones out of harm's way (harm coming in the forms of natural disasters, wars, social breakdowns, suboptimal living conditions, sudden health hazards and predatory governments);
  
  
• the ability to control the use of your time and the people you associate with;
  
  
• and, the ability to live according to natural cycles so that, for example, you don't have to buy those "energy drinks"advertised on TV to stay awake at the office. With financial independence, you could choose not to work, take naps when you felt like it, and go to Fight Club every night of the week.
  

The last example, BTW, shows the counterproductive degree of commodification in our society. Those commercials for energy drinks make me think of how some celebrities check themselves into hospital because they suffer from mysterious maladies called "dehydration" and "exhaustion." Apparently a celebrity who feels out of sorts from these conditions can't find relief by drinking a glass or two of water and getting a good night's sleep, like an ordinary person without millions of dollars at his disposal. Instead he or she has to spend tens of thousands of dollars at a hospital to get rehydrated and rested. The energy drink serves as the poor man's version of the celebrity's hospital treatment for "exhaustion," if not "dehydration."

(I realize that these stories about celebrities probably use "dehydration" and "exhaustion" as code words for drug overdoses and such. I just interpret them literally to show their absurdity.)

Any way, long ago I decided that if I ever legally made the sort of money this grifter pulled in, I would live way below my means and keep a low profile while I let the cash pile up in my investments. I agree with Henrik Ibsen's financial philosophy, which he reportedly summarized as, "Better to sleep well and not eat well, than eat well and not sleep well."

Marc Faber, Austrian economics' doomsday cultist

Governments Will 'Bankrupt Us': Marc Faber

Current economic policies are not sustainable and the world faces doom because "the governments are taking over", said Marc Faber, editor & publisher of The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report.

"They will all bankrupt us and expropriate us, but it may not happen tomorrow. They'll give us something to play with, until the whole system breaks down...they'll just print money and print more money," he said on CNBC Thursday.

"What I object to the current government intervention in so-called 'solving the crisis', (is that) they haven't solved anything. They've just postponed it."

Faber warned that the "ultimate armageddon" would be much worse the next time around, as "governments will go bust", which would lead them to print more money.

I bet Faber discounts the likelihood of "ultimate armageddon" based on global warming, because that prediction comes from a rival doomsday cult.

A Simonist interpretation of fiat money

Julian L. Simon writes the following in The Ultimate Resource (I don't recall which edition):

As economists or as consumers we are interested, not in the resources themselves, but in the particular services that resources yield. Examples of such services are a capacity to conduct electricity, an ability to support weight, energy to fuel autos or electrical generators, and food calories.

The supply of a service will depend upon (a) which raw materials can supply that service with the existing technology, (b) the availabilities of these materials at various qualities, (c) the costs of extracting and processing them, (d) the amounts needed at the present level of technology to supply the services that we want, (e) the extent to which the previously extracted materials can be recycled, (f) the cost of recycling, (g) the cost of transporting the raw materials and services, and (h) the social and institutional arrangements in force. What is relevant to us is not whether we can find any lead in existing lead mines but whether we can have the services of lead batteries at a reasonable price; it does not matter to us whether this is accomplished by recycling lead, by making batteries last forever, or by replacing lead batteries with another contraption. Similarly, we want intercontinental telephone and television communication, and, as long as we get it, we do not care whether this requires 100,000 tons of copper for cables, or a pile of sand for optical fibers, or just a single quarter-ton communications satellite in space that uses almost no material at all. And we want the plumbing in our homes to carry water; if PVC plastic has replaced the copper that formerly was used to do the job - well, that's just fine.

So if fiat money cheaply provides the "services" of gold (as a medium of accounting and exchange), without having to use or increase the physical supply of gold, then, according to Simon's criteria, this represents economic progress.

Fiat money and "the ultimate resource"

The Atlas Society has links to essays by Objectivists expressing the usual disdain towards environmentalism. One of them discusses alternative ways of overcoming the limits of finite resources, and references the late Julian L. Simon, with whom I exchanged some correspondence in the early 1990s. (Ironically, Julian told me that he didn't hold Ayn Rand's philosophy in high regard.)

So I wonder: If Objectivists, like their non-admirer Julian L. Simon, celebrate human ingenuity (which Simon called "the ultimate resource") in producing new supplies of resources, increasing the productivity of existing resources and finding cheaper substitutes for scarce resources, why do they express such hostility towards the invention of fiat money? If anything shows the power of man's mind to find a cheap substitute for a scarce resource (in this case, gold), fiat money certainly does.

I draw the comparison with ephemeralization, one of Buckminster Fuller's useful ideas (out of a body of mostly bad or inert ideas). Fuller pointed out that a communications satellite weighing a few hundred pounds replaces the services of many thousands of tons of copper used in transoceanic cables; not only that, but the satellite increases the functionality and capacity of communications. Fiat money does something to the storage of value and the medium of exchange analogous to what that satellite does to communications.

So why all the indignation about fiat money?

Well, an Objectivist might argue, fiat money gives the state too much control over the economy.

So? Fiat money also has value because the state punishes people who steal it. What if the state announced that it would no longer investigate and prosecute thefts of anything made of gold? That would remove the state's "interference" in the ownership of gold, as Objectivists and Austrian economists want; but it would also destroy much of the value of gold literally overnight. You certainly couldn't get insurance for things made of gold, or use gold as collateral for a loan, if the state no longer recognized your property rights in it. Property rights require political construction and an enforcement mechanism by the state as a third party to have any meaning.

The libertarians I've encountered tend to get channeled into arbitrary beliefs like the one about the evils of fiat money, no doubt because they discover libertarianism at a young age and want to internalize the ideology of their adopted "tribe" as they seek approval from, and try to gain status among, their libertarian tribal elders. Given my odd neurology, I don't see the point of that behavior, at least not any more, when the beliefs conflict with logic and empirical evidence.

I still appreciate many of the libertarians' goals, but I don't see why I have to buy the whole package. I like capitalism when it produces useful or pleasant things, and I don't like it when it produces harmful or ugly things. I haven't fallen in love with Ron Paul. The Austrian economists' recurring doomsday cultism makes me laugh because it sounds like the christian "end times" propaganda I've heard since the early 1970s. I don't consider the Federal Reserve System a source of evil in the world. And I don't understand why libertarians adhere to Malthusian arguments for gold while rejecting them for other resources.

Still waiting for hyperinflation.

You just can't make this stuff up.

I did not mischaracterize Objectivists when I wrote the other day about their hostility towards preserving forests. I receive email from The Objective Standard, and today got one written by Objectivist Craig Biddle which says:

Because Earth Day is intended to further the cause of environmentalism—and because environmentalism is an anti-human ideology—on April 22, those who care about human life should not celebrate Earth Day; they should celebrate Exploit-the-Earth Day.

Exploiting the Earth—using the raw materials of nature for one’s life-serving purposes—is a basic requirement of human life. Either man takes the Earth’s raw materials—such as trees, petroleum, aluminum, and atoms—and transforms them into the requirements of his life, or he dies.

Why, then, do the Dominicans, with their commitment to preserving the forests on their side of Hispaniola, have a higher standard of living than the Haitians, who "exploited" their forests right up to the Dominican Republic's border?

Another reason British cryonicists should relocate while they can.

Nine out of ten expats are so glad to be gone

The survey, carried out among 1,306 Britons in 12 countries, examined quality of life factors including transport, entertainment, food, crime, housing, schools and healthcare alongside pay levels. It found nearly nine out of ten praised their work environment and work/life balance, and felt their quality of life was better than in Britain.

The countries with the lowest quality of life were those in the Far East and Middle East: China, Singapore, Hong Kong and the UAE. In each of these countries a majority of British workers said they intended to return home to retire.

Those in France, Portugal and Spain, the U.S. and Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa were less confident their earnings would continue to rise but they were more likely to stay on after their retirement.

Cryonicists as compulsive hoarders?

Re: Hoarding: Buried Alive

I haven't watched this show on TLC, but I know several cryonicists who engage in compulsive hoarding. I have a tendency to do that myself, though I could get better control over my stuff if I could spend more time in my place to straighten and organize, instead of having to sit in the office much of the day.

In fact, I have to wonder if compulsive hoarding shows up more often in cryonicists than in the general population. Does it have something to do with cryonics' goal of radical life extension?

For example, the screen writer and cryonicist Dick Clair reportedly did the following in the years leading up to his suspension in 1988, according to his writing partner Jenna McMahon:

After signing on with Alcor, McMahon says, he developed an intense fear of flying. "He was so worried that his body would get destroyed and there'd be nothing to freeze." He obsessively saved "every scrap of paper, letters from grade school, drawings, even copies of letters he wrote to his parents and friends." Clair filled the garage, two bedrooms and the dining room of his Toluca Lake home with boxes, filing cabinets and shelves loaded with his papers—journals, notebooks, napkins, clippings and boxes of audiotapes. "His whole life is in those boxes," says McMahon, who says Clair left instructions for Alcor to microfilm every document. "He planned to use them to help reconstruct who he was after he woke up from being frozen."

I think the incidence of compulsive hoarding among cryonicists deserves some kind of formal study. The results might shed light on finding more of the people who would sign up for their own cryotransport.

Well, this leaves me ambivalent.

No hooking up, no sex for some coeds

So, should I celebrate this as a trend back towards the Strict Father society? Or should I point out that I lived in that sort of college environment in the early 1980's (the University of Tulsa), and I did not like it? I'd think that Strict Fathers would prefer young men to develop their characters by learning to resist sexual temptations, instead of removing the temptations, and therefore the opportunities to exercise judgment about them, altogether; so in a sense I guess I've had to live with an immature character, at least in that area.

Of course, I also didn't find any sexual opportunities during the three semesters I studied at Washington University in St. Louis (the fall semester of 1978 through the fall semester of 1979), even though the cultural mythology remembers the 1970's as a sexually liberated and swinging time, especially on college campuses outside of the Bible Belt. From hindsight it looks almost as if I lived in the control group (no sexual opportunities, and therefore no opportunities for the personal growth they can provide) of the Harrad Experiment.

She thanked me for the birthday present. :)

The Action Heroine's Handbook

An interview with Max More, from about a year ago.

I wonder what Max thinks about his previous futurology now, given the arrival of his "middle age," so called, and the reality check that most Extropian goals still remain elusive, if not infeasible.

"My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure."

Ironically the "impure" of heart could get an even bigger augmentation of strength, according to recent research:

Being naughty or nice may boost willpower, physical endurance

In a second study, participants held a weight while writing fictional stories of themselves either helping another, harming another, or doing something that had no impact on others. As before, those who thought about doing good were significantly stronger than those whose actions didn't benefit other people.

But surprisingly, the would-be malefactors were even stronger than those who envisioned doing good deeds.

"Whether you're saintly or nefarious, there seems to be power in moral events," Gray says. "People often look at others who do great or evil deeds and think, 'I could never do that' or 'I wouldn't have the strength to do that.' But in fact, this research suggests that physical strength may be an effect, not a cause, of moral acts."

Years ago I joked that you could best deal with the prospect of the "evil transhuman" by dedicating yourself to become the First One. It turns out that the intention to do "evil" may actualize normally latent or underused human abilities after all!

This also sheds light on the advantages of the Strict Father Model (SFM) over the Nurturant Parent Model (NPM). The SFM incorporates a clearer and more rigorous set of moral beliefs than the NPM; this probably results in tangible rewards for Strict Fathers like higher incomes, better reputations and greater net worth.

Some ironies of Objectivist propaganda against Earth Day.

One, the Objectivists' bible, Atlas Shrugged, shows a Malthusian die-off of the American population as the solution to the problem of maintaining a good business climate, a solution which bears more than a little resemblance to the scenarios advocated, or at least predicted, by some human-hostile environmentalists like Jay Hanson. Yes, we have to wipe out all those altruistic, religious, socialistic people with kids so that the selfish, atheistic, capitalistic, child-free adults can have an environment fit to live in -- until they all die without descendants and leave a planet empty of people, like in that human extinction porn on the History Channel.

Two, Objectivists dismiss the idea that we face resource constraints which limit what we can do to improve the material quality of human life. Human ingenuity in the free market will somehow find ways to discover or create new resources, increase the productivity of existing resources, etc. -- basically the late Julian L. Simon's argument, though Julian told me in personal correspondence in the early 1990's that he didn't hold Objectivism in high regard. Yet they also want to chain the world's economy to an essentially fixed quantity of gold (since mining can add little to the supply at this point). They don't like how human ingenuity got around the constraint of a tight gold supply through the inventions of fiat money, fractional reserve lending and central banking.

Three, and I credit a friend of mine for this insight (who shall remain anonymous), Objectivists ridicule, if not condemn, people who advocate preserving forests instead of cutting them down immediately to serve human needs. The Haitian people have behaved like Objectivists in this regard, and as a consequence of deforesting their country, they have destroyed its ability to retain topsoil and control flooding. This has contributed to the country's generally impoverished and unlivable condition, even before the Port-au-Prince earthquake. By contrast, the Haitians' neighbors on the same island, the Dominicans, have preserved much of the forests on their side, and as a result they enjoy a much better standard of living.

But I doubt Objectivists will see the cognitive dissonance in their dogmas on the environment and economics, and then think their way towards more defensible positions, considering how Ayn Rand, nearly 30 years after her demise, still tends to attract followers with Dunning-Kruger tendencies.

Beta male aversion at work.

Women like this one really piss me off:

My Middle-Class Existence Hangs by the Thread of Subsidized Childcare

These feminist broads have kids without planning for them financially, then exploit the political process to make the rest of us pay for them.

When the Strict Father counter-revolution finally happens, we will return to shaming and humiliating these female parasites, to discourage other young women from following such a socially harmful example.

Facebook awkwardness

What do you do if one of your Facebook "friends" writes like a schizophrenic? I have one who keeps posting about aliens who live in cities on the moon, and how women communicate with him telepathically that they don't want to put out for him.

Astroturfing Austrian economics

I suspect that Austrian economics would have faded into obscurity decades ago if Ludwig von Mises had to get a real job in the U.S. as a refugee from Nazi Germany. Instead some American businessmen apparently bribed New York University to give Mises an office, pretend he had a position there as a "visiting professor" and act as a conduit for the salary they paid him. This sounds suspiciously like "astroturfing."

Mises's special treatment seems all the more striking when you consider that most immigrants to the U.S. in that period, even college educated ones, had to make their livings the hard way. They would have gladly taken jobs in, say, the garment business as an alternative to the hardships and likely violent deaths they fled from in Europe.

Ayn Rand, for example, migrated to the U.S. from the Soviet Union a few years previously, and while she received help from relatives already established in the U.S. (whom she never properly acknowledged or thanked), she still had to earn her keep through her own efforts. Nobody gave Rand a stipend so she could write her breakthrough novel The Fountainhead, contrasted with Mises's subsidized leisure to write his Human Action.

Have many American universities corrupted themselves in this way? Suppose some American businessmen used this technique to get universities to legitimize professors of woo-woo like homeopathy, ufology or Intelligent Design. I suspect Austrian economics has more in common with those fields than its fans would care to admit, especially considering the high incidence of Dunning-Kruger behavior I've noticed in people drawn to this fringe economic doctrine (for example, people who combine Austrian economics with beliefs in doomsday predictions, medical pseudoscience and conspiracy theories).

And for the ultimate irony, consider that Austrian economists say that consumers have the final authority in telling entrepreneurs what to produce. Why, then, does Austrian economics continue to exist when the market (for example, the economics departments in private universities) consistently rejects it? Instead of liquidating Austrian economics like a failed business so that its resources can find more productive uses, businessmen like the Koch brothers subsidize it so that its literature stays in print and its propagandists can stay employed, all in defiance of market signals.

Does Kahlan Amnell rip off Wonder Woman?

Kahlan, at least in that stupid Legend of the Seeker series, has some woo power to "confess" people so that they have to obey her and tell the truth; the effects of "confession" resemble the effects of Wonder Woman's lasso.

TV's Kahlan also displays ass-kicking abilities like Wonder Woman's, or at least Xena's, something that I don't believe women in the real world could pull off if they got into street fights with most men (though I make a possible exception for Zora Colakovic).

So, did Terry Goodkind model Kahlan after Wonder Woman?

BTW, Wonder Woman's creator, psychologist William Moulton Marston, had an interesting life. He invented an early form of polygraph, and he allegedly lived in a polyamorous triad with two intelligent women who both bore his children. Of course, if some rural Mormon guy does that, he gets portrayed as a redneck, religious kook and possible sex offender; apparently religious and class prejudices play a role in the social interpretation of polyamory.

Marston's fantasy about letting "strong" women run things looks less appealing now than it did in the 1940's. In practice that trend results in a situation where women refuse to put out for beta males, pursue alpha male cads as sperm donors, and then use the political process to make us pay for their bastard children through taxation. And we wonder why so many young beta males in developed countries, faced with this environment created by women, turn into hikikomori.

In other words, a certain kind of feminine "empowerment" produces what Mike Darwin calls a "red-hot skillet" outcome. It looks good to some over the short run, but the costs pile up over the longer run and eventually the burns show up on the hands.

The Lakoffian Strict Father Model, by contrast, would probably produce a better social environment. Men didn't invent patriarchy to rationalize male power or subject women unjustly; patriarchism arose as a pragmatic survival strategy in a harsh world.

Talk about a TU Stepford broad.

Amy Freiberger got her bachelor's and MBA from the University of Tulsa in the 1990's, then just had to come back to run TU's Alumni Association:





Hey, Amy: Stop living like Jim Carrey's character in The Truman Show. A whole world exists outside of Tulsa.

Ironically I don't think Amy has gotten married by now, in her late 30's. She has that sexually frustrated "cougar" look about her.

I also have to wonder if she returned to TU to find work because of career failures in the real world, despite her degrees. She and I might have more in common than she realizes.

Jacque Fresco, petty grifter?

I certainly get that impression, though Fresco's pocket change bears no comparison to what those Prosperity Gospel hustlers haul in every Sunday from spreading not dissimilar woo:

TVP ex 1970-1980’s member speaks

And to think I used to find Fresco's ideas intriguing. I read his book Looking Forward (PDF) in the early 1980's, and I even talked to him on the phone a few times in the 1980's and 1990's.

In terms of Fresco's "futurist" outlook, I can also see why he and FM-2030 would have gravitated towards each other. (Fresco told me on the phone in the 1990's of his friendship with FM.) FM could have written Looking Forward if he had a longer attention span. Yet to the best of my knowledge, FM made a living from sales of his writings, public speaking, teaching and consulting work, instead of dubious real estate deals.

A paper I wrote back in high school.

I found this bit of juvenilia in my storage locker a few months back. I remember writing it as a teenager, though I don't recall the year or for what class. Mr. Owen's sophomore history class in 1975-76?

Any way, it seems to illustrate the continuity of my mind across the decades. I still write that way now to a large extent.

NEW ATLANTIS ARTICLE.pdf

I don't see the point of staying at a place like this.

If you have a decent place to live; all your bills paid for the month; your fridge and pantry full of food; and you have money left over, why would you want to use it to stay somewhere else overnight? That extra money should go into savings.

That doesn't mean you can't go out with some friends to see a movie or something. Those kinds of activities don't have to cost much money.

Why does Kolob look like Giedi Prime?

Compare Giedi Prime:






with Kolob (the planet just at Jesus' finger tips from this perspective):

I can understand the temptation to give Jesus at least one wife.

Jesus would gain status as an alpha male by demonstrating that women want to put out for him. Otherwise Christians have to explain why they worship a 2,000 year old male virgin.

My cousin, the Tulsa Republican Club's "Republican of the Year."

Benge addresses potential Oklahoma challenge to health reform

Oklahoma Speaker of the House Chris Benge said Friday that the Republican-controlled House will continue doing all it can to resist Obama Administration initiatives in health care, the environment and energy.

"He promised change, and I think that's one campaign promise we can agree he has kept," Benge told the Tulsa Republican Club luncheon at the Summit Club. "From my perspective, it's been a change for the worse."

The club named Benge, who represents west Tulsa and parts of Sand Springs, its Republican of the Year award.

Clergyman: A bad career choice.

If you insist on becoming one any way, at least save up an F.U. Fund (cash equal to a year's living expenses, and preferably more than that) in case you "lose your faith" and have to find a reality-based livelihood. Otherwise you could become trapped in an absurd situation for financial reasons, like the clergymen Dennett discusses in this podcast.

DANIEL DENNETT ON UNBELIEVING CLERGY.mp3

A Mike Darwin quote which continues to impress me.

(Though, of course, if I eventually become wise myself, I might change my opinion of it.)

From 1987, Mike Darwin's essay "Soft Options":

A question I'm often asked when speaking about cryonics to an "educated audience" is, "What direction do you think human evolution should go in." That's a really complex question, and the audience of course is expecting answers like: "I think we'll be smarter, have needle-threading organs installed, be able to see in the infrared . . . ." They are often surprised when I reply with something to the effect that I think one major change will be in terms of giving people better long-term judgment. A better ability to extrapolate well and see the consequences of their actions and then act on them. In other words, to appreciate emotionally what they may already understand intellectually.

Few people have trouble understanding that they cannot pick up a red-hot skillet with their bare hands: they will get burned. It will hurt. They may be unable to work. . . . Such understanding is simple, basic, and easy to grasp. Unfortunately, the further someone gets in time from getting burned as a consequence of their actions the more likely they are to pick up the skillet.

From an evolutionary perspective this kind of attitude makes sense. Most bad consequences happen pretty quick in the day-to-day business of living. Most decisions need to be accordingly quick and dirty. Unfortunately, things are changing. . . have been changing for some 10,000 years now. Human beings are engaging in far more complicated activities than they have in the past and they are dealing with far more powerful technologies than they have had to deal with in the past. Decisions we make now, today, can forever alter the course of civilization, or even of life itself on this planet. The problem is that while the time scale of our ability to act and influence events powerfully is rapidly expanding, our ability to appreciate the consequences of deferred feedback do not appear to expanding nearly so fast. An awful lot of us will pick up a red- hot skillet providing we don't have to be concerned about being burned until 20 years later.

In a way what we need as an "evolutionary advancement" is an increase in intelligence. But it is not the kind of intelligence measured by IQ tests. It's something more. It's something more akin to good judgment and thoughtfulness rather than idiot savant ability to perform feats of calculation, information storage and retrieval, or puzzle-solving unrelated to the issue of not getting burned -- or staying alive.

The rest of the essay rewards reading, though Darwin's reference to dealings with the Soviet Union shows a lack of perspective, in light of what happened to that state just a few years later. (The people who ran the Soviet Union picked up plenty of "red-hot skillets" of their own, which contributed to their regime's rapid downfall.)

Given's Darwin's description, I get the impression that he has something in mind like a low time preference as a component of "better long-term judgment."

What will cryonicists in Europe do if Iceland's volcanic eruption lasts for weeks?

I posted this on Cryonet yesterday:

Not quite the mobility crisis I had in mind.

This gives us a taste of what could happen to air travel in an oil supply emergency.

Aubrey de Grey on "Equal Time for Freethought," April 4, 2010.

I edited out the anti-Easter parts.

AUBREY DE GREY ON WBAI.mp3

Cryonauts I have personally met.

Off the top of my head, I recall having met and talked to the following people now in cryonic suspension:

1. Jerry Leaf.

2. Paul Gentemen.

3. FM-2030.

4. Mae Ettinger.

5. David Zubkoff.

6. Thomas Donaldson.

7. Jackson Zinn.

I might have left one or two out, but not intentionally. I got to know David Zubkoff well because he had worked with me in Wrightwood for about a year; and I met and talked to Jackson Zinn on several occasions because he also came to Wrightwood when he needed a cheap place to stay while on business in the Southland. I can't say I knew the others deeply.

Filling up the world with partially wise elderly.

Occasionally I see news accounts of studies which purport to show that elders develop some sort of "wisdom" that appears less often in younger people. And perhaps many of us do acquire or cultivate useful perspectives on life which get into wisdom territory, like the ability to resolve social conflicts or to manage our emotions better.

I don't disparage those sorts of skills in the least. But other, perhaps more crucial, forms of wisdom seem in short supply, like the ability to run societies without creating recurring economic crises or making other stupid collective decisions (often the result of short-range thinking encouraged by democratic politics).

Essentially I wonder what would happen if we filled up the world with elderly people, based on current demographic trends, but they display only partial wisdom, and not necessarily the most valuable kinds. My experience with my grandparents doesn't seem that encouraging. (I refrain from evaluating my parents' wisdom because I lack enough perspective.) Three of my grandparents made it to their low 90's (including my ailing maternal grandmother, who lives in the same nursing home where I had to move my father); and while those three seemed like basically decent people, I could tell even as a child that they didn't have much going for them.

For example, it never occurred to me while growing up that I could go to one of my grandparents for advice, because I realized that they didn't know much that I would find useful. We don't all have uncles, fathers or grandfathers like, say, Warren Buffett, and most of us don't turn into sages with the passing of the years; but society might work better if more of us could steer ourselves in that direction. If we have trouble developing wisdom organically, perhaps we could discover ways to add it as a "plug-in" through advances in neuroscience.

I'd like to end with what an online philosophical reference says about wisdom:

A brief survey of four general approaches to understanding the nature of wisdom has left us with a promising, general, answer to our question. The basic theory we are left with is:

S is wise iff

1. S has extensive factual and theoretical knowledge.
2. S knows how to live well.
3. S is successful at living well.
4. S has very few unjustified beliefs.

Clearly, every one of these conditions needs some careful explanation. However, this theory has all the benefits of the other theories and it lacks all the problems of the alternatives. It is a step in the right direction, and a promising start for further discussion on this thorny question.

Russell Rischard, 1960-2008

A few months back I googled to see what I could find about a friend from high school named Russ Rischard, the other National Merit Scholar from my East Central High senior class (1978). I had attended his wedding to a woman named Kim, back in 1985, but I hadn't spoken to him for several years.

To my disappointment I found that Russ, SSN 440-72-6006, had died in May 2008, a few months short of his 48th birthday. The accounts I've read don't make it clear whether he had suffered from a known illness, or had committed suicide.

Poor Russ. I wish he had gotten cryonically suspended. I never did understand the appeal of his Creative Anachronism obsession, but I remember him as an intelligent, decent and fun-loving guy who had little trouble hooking up with women before he settled down with Kim.

I look forward to Ronald Bailey's debunking of Austrian economists.

That would provide balance to his recent critique of Bill McKibben's book, though I doubt Bailey would take on that assignment because he knows that Austrian economists' fans feed him by buying and advertising in Reason magazine.

For some reason nobody holds Austrian economists to account for their history of bad predictions about hyperinflation and economic collapse. Yet how many Austrian economists dismiss environmentalist doomsday scenarios as Chicken Little stuff? They believe in a doomsday just as much as, say, global warming obsessives; only they want it to support their world view, dammit!, not those other guys' crazy beliefs!

Why wouldn't Lazarus Long sound like a redneck?

I've found a free audio version of Methuselah's Children, where the reader changes his voice for each character's lines. To my surprise, he makes Lazarus Long sound like a redneck.

Well, why wouldn't Lazarus talk like a redneck? The character grew up in Kansas City in the early 20th Century; despite his vast experience and book learning, he seems emotionally uncomplicated; and he speaks in a folksy way in Heinlein's novels. Somehow a redneck Lazarus Long makes sense.

Problems with Gilmartin's "profile" of the love-shy, and other matters.

Regarding the Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love-shyness

I guess I qualify as "love-shy," but Brian G. Gilmartin's profile doesn't fit me in several ways. Unlike Gilmartin's findings about the "love-shy", one, I've had a good relationship with my father; two, I've had male friends, both while growing up, and as an adult; three, I grew up with a sister; four, I have plenty of cousins (one of them currently serves as the Speaker of the House in Oklahoma); five, I've even had a few female friends; six, I've had steady, if not particularly well-paid, employment; and seven, I even had a sexual opportunity with a woman once, in my mid-30's (which didn't work out for complicated reasons, and which from hindsight looks like a freak accident given the overall pattern of my life).

I've done well to have avoided a long term relationship with that woman any way, because I've discovered recently that she engages in compulsive hoarding. She probably also wasted a lot of money in the process of building up her "collection," because she now complains of financial difficulties after the man she married announced that he wants to divorce her. I gathered early on that she doesn't respect male authority, which has probably contributed to her indiscipline. If I stood in her husband's position, like a good Lakoffian Strict Father I would have told her not to buy all that crap in the first place.

Unfortunately I'll probably cross paths with this woman again. She lives in metro Phoenix, and she apparently still has suspension arrangements with the same cryonics organization I belong to. I would have had an easier time getting shed of her as a "hostile wife," but ironically cryonics played a role in hooking up with this woman in the first place.

Speaking of cryonics and relationships, I have it on good authority that the libertarian writer Kerry Howley has written an article which covers this in some way. Howley has submitted the piece for publication to the New York Times Magazine, but she doesn't know when it will appear.

Welcome to our mysterious, far-future year 2010!

I have it on good authority that we should all have become immortal by now:

Up Wing Priorities