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

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Ayn Raelians Should All Go Walt

When the Ayn Randians whine about how the moochers are getting them down, I say, Go Galt! Enough with the threats already! Begone! Oh, do please go, forthwith, on your Superman Strike! By all means shrug off the shackles of your tax enslavement, build your cathedral to the predator gods for us to pine after in the dreamy distance as we slog the swamp of our muddled mediocrity, leave us all to languish and limp without your fountainhead of endless innovations and insights to bolster us anymore. Go Galt, I say again: It's not like anybody is going to miss you.

I feel much the same when the Ayn Raelians of the Robot Cult go on and on about how they mean to be uploaded into the cyberspatial sprawl, immortalized in shiny robot bodies or shimmery informational post-bodies. To them I say, Go Walt! Enough already with the sales pitch and on to the arrangements, all ye techno-heavenbound True Believers! By all means have your brain sliced and scanned and snapped, the sooner the better, and here's to your hoping the resulting picture of part of you is somehow you and somehow immortal to boot. Leave the rest of us to our sad surgeries and eventual burials or burnings while you are frozen, glassified, or otherwise hamburgerized to await the ministrations of the Robot God and his busy nanobotic angels. Go Walt, I say again: You're all going to die like the rest of us, anyway. It's not like it matters much how you're bagged for disposal.

4 comments:

slartibartfast said...

Let's hope it boots up, period.

jimf said...

> You're all going to die like the rest of us, anyway.
> It's not like it matters much how you're bagged for disposal.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show-"Chuckles Bites the Dust" Part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8EUykajYWo
(Season 6, Episode 7, 1975)

Lou: "When I go, I just wanna be stood outside in the garbage
with my hat on."
10:50/12:07

Ted, on his plans for cryonic suspension (and Mary's come-back):
11:17/12:07

Dale Carrico said...

Wow, that was awesome. Ted Baxter really is the perfect spokesdoofus for cryonics.

jimf said...

I think Jillian Michaels is hott!

"Suzanne Somers is a Bombshell (Daily Dose With Jillian Michaels)"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNemoNFoHUw

Suzanne discusses her new book _Bombshell: Suzanne Somers'
Secrets for Defying Aging_

Somers: "I interviewed this guy Ray Kurzweil. He's a famed futurist.
In fact, Bill Gates called him 'the smartest man on the planet'.
He's at MIT [he is? He went to school there.] And he said
'In the next 13 to 15 years, what they've developed at MIT
is something called "nanobots". . .'"

Jillian Michaels: "Right! I was reading about that in your
book! Please elaborate."

Somers: "They will inject into us little robot-sized blood
cells [sic. I think she meant 'little blood-cell sized robots'.]
that will roam through our body like little detectives.
If it sees arterial plaque it will vaporize it [shades of
_Fantastic Voyage_]. If it sees the islet cells turned on
and that person has diabetes it'll turn it off [I think it
goes the other way, but never mind.] If it sees the
cancer-protective genetic switches are turned off, it'll
turn them back on. So big diseases that are killing us will
not be a factor in a mere 13 to 15 years. And the cure is
not in drugs, and not in chemotherapy, and not in any of
the ways we're approaching that right now. And I said,
'Well, ah that's great, so I can just, you know, drink and
smoke and eat crap. . .'"

Michaels: (Laughs)

Somers: ". . . and he said 'No, you can't limp into it,
you've got to get there healthy.' So what more incentive
would people need than that? Just for the next 13 years,
you make good food choices, you exercise, sleep, manage
your stress, try to eliminate toxins, and, if you're of age,
balance your hormones. If that's all you have to do to
get access to this in the next 13 to 15 years, I think,
then it doesn't seem like such a big job. . ."