…and the resistance to it. I think he’s right that it’s not based on science or logic, but philosophy. Some people (including Isaac Asimov) think that death is necessary, almost to the point of ultimately worshiping it. Of course, some of it could be a recognition, conscious or otherwise, of the supreme disruption to many accepted institutions that it would entail, including pensions, life-time appointments, death taxes, etc.
And I hate when they use the word “immortality.” I think an eternal life would be far worse than death, but that’s not the goal; it’s simply living as long as we want to continue to live.
Update a couple minutes later]
Sort of related: GM Salmonella cures cancer. Cool. But the anti-science left will oppose it because GM.
“One of the most surprising outcomes of this study is that these patients reported being ‘happy’ despite being physically locked-in and incapable of expressing themselves on a day-to-day basis, suggesting that our preconceived notions about what we might think if the worst was to happen are false. Indeed, previous research has shown that most locked-in patients are actually reasonably satisfied with their quality of life,” he added.
Two pieces of good news in one. The human brain is an amazing, almost incomprehensible thing.
…we have to be ready for that debate. There is a moral case to be made for settling space by humanity, warts and all, and we have to be prepared to make it.
I think that many in the space community underestimate the depth of this cultural divide. And they’ve already deployed the race card against human expansion into the solar system.
Bob Zubrin reviews Ron Howard’s National Geographic series, and Elon Musk.
Patricia and I had dinner with Leonard and Barbara David Saturday night in Austin. He’s on a book tour for NatGeo for his new book that accompanies the series.
A liberal society is one in which everybody has free-speech rights. A society in which some people have free-speech rights and some do not, depending on the self-interested whim of people with political power, is a totalitarian society realized to a greater or lesser degree. Heinrich Heine’s advice on the connection between the treatment of books and the treatment of human beings is always and forever relevant.
As I wrote recently, Trump has never read the Constitution. She hates it.