Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Ayn Raelian Robot Cultist Max More Responds

Upgraded and adapted from the Moot, "Max More" (conceivably, after all, an online impersonator) said:
Predictably you throw around "faith" and other lying terms, rather than attempting to address the actual evidence that cryonics has a reasonable chance of working and that you are not dead in any final sense at the point of "clinical death" -- as I argued in a chapter of my doctoral dissertation. I know my comment is a waste of time and that you are only preaching to your "minions".

Predictably you throw around "faith" and other lying terms... you are only preaching to your "minions". Once again, I notice, you make recourse to the old standby, "I know you are but what am I," and in the space of a single paragraph! Most impressive, if also rather embarrassing.

Although you are eager to assume the high ground of "reasonableness" and "respect for evidence" here, actually reasonable people who respect evidence know well that it is the one who makes the extraordinary claim who has the responsibility to provide the extraordinary support.

The marginality of the claims of cryonics charlatans from consensus science is abundantly clear from the publication record (outside the noisy circle-jerk of True Believers whomping up glossy brochures for the rubes, natch), not to mention from a glance at the proportion of actual scientists in relevant fields who have signed up for your techno-transcendental resurrection scheme.

I seem to recall that your dissertation was not written for a biology department -- any more than mine was, but then I don't pretend to speak as a scientific expert now, do I?

Look, believe whatever you need to about your scary mortality if it gets you through the night, but don't expect me to condone the pretense that your faith is scientific, a proper basis for policy or practical conduct, or more "reasonable" than any other faith-based utterance one hears in the public square. I'm an atheist myself, but I don't much care about the private perfections (theological, aesthetic, or otherwise) others pursue so long as they don't misapply their beliefs in scientific or political domains to the cost of good sense more generally, which is the mistake you are making -- and making for a living, I'm afraid, which is pretty bad I must say.

Good luck to you.

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