More on My Apparent "Deathism"

Transhumanist Giulio Prisco continues to perplex me utterly, writing: "Dale DOES think this [death] is a good thing. Read again the Eganesque ““we people are all of us finite beings, forever prone to disease, accident, violence, betrayal, novelty, and fantasies about shiny robot bodies or angelic digital ones and so on rest on deep confusions about the actually embodied status of mind.”

Maybe there is a language issue here, because it is utterly mystifying to me that anybody would see this as a statement of exaltation on my part.

I honestly don’t know anybody who thinks death is a particularly enticing prospect, and to the extent that so-called "Technological Immortalists" seem to have convinced themselves that the primary barrier standing in the way of their achievement of imperishable techno-bodies or whatever is some prevailing “Deathism” in mainstream culture I must say this seems to me a rather flabbergasting (not to mention ultimately rather elitist) misreading of the world.

Obviously, I don’t think death is a “good thing” so much as, you know, a factual thing... like our social interdependence and the inherent vulnerability of that interdependence is a factual thing, like finitude is a factual thing.

I definitely think consensual healthcare is a good thing in general and I think such healthcare is a matter of providing people longer healthier lives. I have stated this truism so often by now (honestly, this seems to me to be the sort of utter commonplace that should go without saying in the first place, but clearly with Superlative technocentrics certain things must be said over and over and over again) I will admit it has become a bit befuddling at this point to confront stubborn incomprehension about my position at such a basic level still happening even with people with whom I have painstakingly and joylessly danced endless turns of this particular dance already.

I will say that denialism about death is a bad thing, like all forms of irrational denial tend to be. And there is no way for me to sugarcoat my honest judgment that there is a widespread denialism about mortality in much of the techno-immortalist sub(cult)ure or “movement.” My various commenters may indignantly insist that they do not personally suffer from such deranging and diminishing attitudes, and I'll have to just take their words on it, I have no interest in arguing about it at the moment. (These arguments tend to take the form "I know you are, but what am I," and are not necessarily very illuminating after all.)

Prisco says that living 120 years is good but 121 years is better. (No one ever has lived so long and so this is a matter of speculation, as it happens, but we'll just bracket such niceties for the moment.) Be all that as it may, I must admit that I don’t see things quite the way he seems to do. And perhaps this attitude is the one that is getting decried as "deathism" by my critics.

You see, it seems to me that a year well lived is worth a dozen lived in bitterness or regret. It seems to me there are far worse things in the world than dying, chief among which for me would be killing (but there are others). The rather brute organismic prolongation of lifespan that preoccupies no small amount of techno-immortalist discourse ultimately seems to me a rather shallow and fearful business.

No doubt I will be passionately assured by commenters that there are richer variations of techno-immortalist robot cultism available and for all I know these commenters may indeed have found their various ways to such perspectives. Come what may, I do think it is simply weird to attribute a dastardly “deathism” to me simply for my relatively cheerful reconciliation to the fact of my mortality, to the meaningfulness of actually lived mortal lives, and to my judgment that many things are worse than mortality, and so on.

Finally, about the phrases “immortality,” “living forever,” “killing death,” and so on. Giulio Prisco insists that he means by these terms something he is calling "indefinite lifespan." All I will say is that if you don’t actually mean "immortality," "living forever," "killing death," and the rest, then I honestly recommend you stop using those words to say whatever it is that you do mean. If “indefinite lifespan” isn’t supposed to mean immortality (even possibly on the sly) then it is actually utterly bewildering that you would use a word so freighted with transcendental religiosity and irrational passion to describe what you take to be a proximate practically achievable engineering outcome. (An assessment that puts you at odds with scientific consensus.)

I think techno-immortalists should take a hard look at what work their terminological choices are really doing for them psychologically, culturally, and from a promotional standpoint. Believe me, I have taken such a long look, and (obviously!) I don’t like what I see.