I hate to preach here, but google "anti-aging" and "hedonistic imperative" and find out what TRULY is just a matter of time, and if we get rid of politicians like GWB it MIGHT come soon enough so men like me, friends of mine my age, i.e. those of us with maybe 50-60 years left can benefit from it., Imagine in 200 years from now where we'll be bio-medically. Heart and liver transplants and ligament replacements will be seen as medieval and rudimentary -- just plant the necessary gene and turn it on and regrow the sumbitch! Or if we can, on a genetic level, figure out how to naturally fire the neurotransmitters in our brains to constantly feel ecstasy and joyfulness without needing external stimuli i.e. yoga, or eating mass amounts of chocolate, or shooting up heroin or smoking meth, imagine how our post-darwinian ancestors 2-3-400 years from now will view techniques done and pharmaceuticals handed out like candy in the year 2005. Imagine how we view medicine from 1805. Imagine how some random person from 1805 would view something so simple we take for granted everyday, like cable TV, or indoor plumbing! How dastardly and irresponsible we are if we don't look to perfect the biological program that might allow us to live to be 400 or 500 years old and live GOOD and HAPPY lives, not fighting through the muck we do now. I was fitted with new splints yesterday to help with my wrist drop which meant it was me and this lady-specialist together for an hour and i just talked her ear off about anti-aging and the hedonistic imperative and she asked a lot of questions and i answered her with such glee and explosion it was like I was a newly converted JW getting an hour of (incidental) field service in. I'll probably slow it down, but right now it's a concept I like to think about - humans producing paradisaic conditions and religion and her promises finally falling flat on her face! Edited to add: Remember in Star Trek IV the movie how McCoy was arguing with the 1986 doctor about how to properly treat Chekov for his head injury and he yelled, "My god, man! Drilling holes into his head isn't the answer! You have to repair the artery!" And he did so by waving a machine over Pavel's head. Maybe we'll also get that far in science, but it won't be science fiction. It was funny too see McCoy characterize the hospital as practicing "medievalism" and you know, 20 years ago when that film was made (god, I'm getting old) and even what we do now as medical practice, 200 years in the future will be seen as absolute butchery. I have a lot more to say but I just woke up from 13 hours of good sleep and have a ton to do. But I'll be around, and my email is [email protected] and yahoo id is fractured_fibula if you want to say hi. Thanks for reading and a special hi to all my old friends out there, and it was great to talk to Eduardo for an hour on the phone yesterday. :) One more edit, if ya wanna see what this morning I just did to myself aesthetically, here's a pic. :) (That's a Clockwork Orange t-shirt) http://members.aol.com/cygnus97/pics/me81105.jpg
I felt like a JW! plus my usual edit, and pic!
by Cygnus 6 Replies latest jw friends
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Sunspot
Well good marnin' TO ya, Cygnus! I'm happy to see you sounding so chipper! Hope the new splints will help and bring some relief from all the pain you've been undergoing.
hugs,
Annie
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Sunspot
Uh-oh! Looks like you went a round or two with that giant runaway razor that's been attacking good lookin' men in the northeast! (you're still adorable though )
Too bad my daughters are both spoken for! (and my grand-daughters are way too young!) LOL!
hugs,
Annie
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Cygnus
Yeah I shaved my head earlier this year and loved it (5 years ago I had hair halfway down my back). It's so damned hot, I decided what the hell, do it again. Only this time with bad hands, wrists and fingers it took me about an hour, and quite a bit of bleeding.
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Sunspot
Only this time with bad hands, wrists and fingers it took me about an hour, and quite a bit of bleeding.
Oucheeeeee!
It didn't sound like a very good experience despite this horrid heat! I'm getting noticeably more and more irritable the longer this goes on! Twenty days of 90+ heat with this awful humidity (and it's not quite the middle of AUGUST yet....is taking its toll on a lot of people.
I remember you with the long dark hair---that's why I was so surprised when I clicked on your picture!
hugs,
Annie
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BrendaCloutier
Nice to "see" you Cygnus. Geez I remember when Christian Barnard did the first heart transplant, how awesome that was! And now it's fairly common. I also remember the JW drama with the heart talking with the brain, and the JW new medical idea that the "mind" was held in the heart. I also remember "them" (whoever "they" were) saying how so-and-so had a heart transplant and they just werent the same person so it must be true! And that was only.... 40 years ago? I look at the stuff they do now in amazement. -
tetrapod.sapien
hey cygnus!
i agree. we are on the verge of a bio and nano revolution. if it pans out the way that technology is headed, and we can increase the amount of liberal, humane and secular-thinking rich people, we just might have some sort of weird techno utopia on our hands. it would be great! don't get me wrong. but, also as likely is that we really continue screwing up the earth ecology with no remorse and any technologies that would benefit us now, will not mean much in 20 years when they are developed.
however, as an optimist, i have good reason to be quite hopeful regarding the civilization changing possibilities of biogerontology and nanotechnology.
it's ironic, that we are taking charge of evolution, biologically, and tonnes of people still don't even think that evolution is a fact! if i were a mean dictator, i might just say: "fine, you creationists can live out your life with freedom of thought, but you cannot take advantage of any technologies that are aided in development by evolutionary biology (or evo devo)".
true intelligent design may be upon us!
cheers,
TS
