Exiles - Political, and Philosophical Observations

New Year's Resolutions

Many people today feel confused, despairing and loveless. This deep dissatisfaction is reflected in wide-spread unhappiness and mass-deaths due to suicide. We live in a world where religious tension and bigotry justifies current wars, where anti-pleasure politics is on the rise and where social injustice based on outmoded religious dogma and irrational politics, continues to exist. It is time for a scientific and life-affirming world-view. This world view is based on 8 Essential Realities: the Atom, the Cell, the Body, the Self, Reputation, Group, Norms and Laws.(1) In the short term Life Sciences will promote a way of living that recognises the 8 Essential Realities, through teaching, counselling, activism and celebration. From these 8 Essential Realities, guiding principles and projects are being developed.

the Cell

Traditional marriage practices are reducing human genetic potential by increasing health defects in babies and genetic diseases. Making it safe and easy to have a sex-affirming lifestyle, even in repressive environments, should be a priority. The reason for the growing practices of serial monogamy, casual sex and relating to more than one lover, is found in the genes. This new wave of free love is not a moral problem but a natural desire. New love and sexual tolerance would reduce genetic diseases and make for a sex-affirming lifestyle and society. This secure love would be free from the domination of traditional ideas that damn our natural desires as sinful, adultery and fornication. These constraints have no place in the modern world of choice and sexual expression.

Safe sex is a priority now that 40 million people worldwide have AIDS. AIDS will kill 70 million people over the next 20 years unless the rich nations of the world step up their efforts to curb the disease and unless we all have sex safely.

the Body

Saving women from sexual control and violence and increasing the status of women, so they can control their own sexuality, has got to be a priority for their sake and their children's sake. Worldwide, women are still subject to oppression. Woman still have to face forced marriages, the slavery of illegal prostitution, segregation from many activities like work, education and religion, and genital mutilation. One in five woman are raped, tortured, beaten and assaulted. Women are emotionally tormented, and exploited.

the Cell and the Body

The enormous waste of human resources has got to be stopped. Health, education, and basic needs must be available to all; not to mention avoiding wars and stopping the other destructions of humans. Escape from our current condition of mass-death, destruction and rapine waste is imperative if we and our children are to survive. Population growth is not the problem, the distribution of wealth is. The idea of overpopulation is a way of blaming the poor for environmental damage, instead of changing the lifestyles of the rich who cause it and do not suffer the damage. Resources are not scarce. See Revelle, R. The Resources Available for Agriculture. Sci. Amer. 235(3) Sept 76, p 165-178.

Scarcity and exhaustion caused by too many people are not the problems, rather the people in power who own or control resources are. It is the poor management of populations by corrupt and inept political systems that is leading to the collapse of the eco-system. The distribution of needs and wealth among are 6 billion people on Earth are unfair and unsustainable. Waste and pollution must be recycled or avoided, clean fuel and energies must be used. Other animals must not be needlessly hunted, eaten or destroyed by the human animal. The utter corruption and profound lack of vision in high places must be cleaned away and it's waste recycled. Despite the growing crisis, we do not seem to care.

In America, for example, the majority of Americans seem willing to allow the rush toward Armageddon to continue. This Biblical vision is guiding US policy at the moment. For example, Last spring Tom DeLay, soon to be House majority leader, told a church group that: "Only Christianity offers a way to live in response to the realities that we find in this world ” only Christianity." He also said he was on a mission from God to promote a "biblical worldview" in American politics. Another example is that of a Whitehouse advisor was recently fired for estimating the cost of War in Iraq would be 200 billion US dollars. The new one has suggested 60 b. Others have estimated as high as 1,200 b. It would take 6 b to start the colonization of Space using resources from the Moon. This would result in an expansion of livable area in near Earth orbit that would require a doubling of population every 7 years to take advantage of fully.

If resources like money go towards helping our race grow, rather than destroying it in environmentally disastrous wars, then more people are needed for industrialization of space, basic research, etc. Once we can colonise space, we need a growing population to fill available living areas and continue the expansion towards new worlds and freedoms. Our growing species will be sustained by the infinite resources of the Universe that gave birth to us. This expansion requires more sex, more children, better wealth distribution and total support and emancipation for women and children. As things are set up now, the most capable and gifted members of society are having the fewest children and the poor suffer high infant mortality rates due to lack of basic needs like clean water. If we must fight a war, let it be against the governments that choose to spend our money destroying our species and our home, rather than helping us grow and live beyond the limits of our basic needs and our imaginations.

the Self

Given the need for research and industrialization, meaningful roles for the population can be developed. Happiness, satisfaction and high esteem can be a general condition, not only for the 500 richest persons on the planet. We now know how to get into space, so it is time to make space colonisation a political issue.

Reputation

"Reputation is an externalized self. In the simplest case, it is merely the memories of experiences with that person within a social group. Reputation is of social value because it allows prediction of and, to a certain extent, control of individuals' behavior. In modern societies, the concept of a "legal person" has been developed. This concept can associate certain objects, accomplishments, obligations, and rights with a given physical person. Computerization has led to a vast expansion in the amount of personal data that can be acquired, stored, and mobilized in decision making. One of the earliest applications was the "credit rating," permitting the transfer of goods and services without immediate payment, thus formalizing a form of trust. Detailed information about people is now collected routinely, permitting one to know what products they use, how they spend their time, whether they have health problems, and so on."(2)

Reputation development means having the same security for soft qualities that we now only have for financial transactions. Online privacy and online security are the ways to maintain a reliable reputation.

Group

"The group is crucial to survival of the individual, both physically and as a social being, that is, as a body and as a self."(3) Therefore, a software system that can work in a networked environment, permitting spontaneous formation of groups is essential. Recent developments in mobile phone technology should facilitate networked social encounters away from the desktop. This can help people organise and meet new friends and lovers.

Support for group Norms and Laws via a storage system, etc. should be developed. This includes the question of minority group rights, that is, the social, economic, and political rights under the UN Charter, which the US has never endorsed. Scientific communication can be a basis for governance using computer-network based democracy. "A democratic system must incorporate both protections for individuals and mechanisms for coordination. Access to information is crucial for democratic decision making. If people withhold information, however, then even free distribution of available information will not ensure democracy. One problem is that people may be punished if they speak in opposition to power holders. More often, persons censor themselves because they fear that speaking out will damage their career possibilities. Finally, people may prefer to avoid the duplication of effort that occurs when many people write comments simultaneously in response to an event or statement. These problems of protection and coordination must be solved before direct democracy is feasible with large populations."(4)

the Atom

Basic social and scientific research should be supported on a grand scale, so we have a chance of surviving contact with advanced alien civilizations (the likely hood of which is high - one chance in 50,000 per year. Also, if we have been sent any message by our "Creator", it would have to be embedded in the fundamental physical parameters of our Universe. For example, it has been suggested that the endless sequence, pi, could encode a message. It is science that helps us understand life.

The Future

In the long term we - as a species - have no choice but to aim to survive a Gamma Ray Burst. A Gamma Ray Burst could happen at any time and destroy all life on the Earth's surface. Space is our safe haven where we can avoid catastrophic galactic events like this. Supporting space colonization and space travel in general will free us from the constant threat of being wiped out by a single Earth destroying event like a meteor strike, the Sun heating up or global environmental disaster brought on by corrupt politics or natural disaster. Space offers untold opportunities, resources, discoveries and choices.

A more complete understanding of the Essential Realities can be found at the home of the "Immortal" list which deals with immortalism as a practical philosophy. "That is, the attempt to achieve vastly extended life spans via technological means and the socio-political sources and impacts of such attempts.

"Discussion of faith-based approaches to eternal life (resurrection through belief in a god, reincarnation, time travel, near-death experiences as evidence of an afterlife, etc.) is specifically excluded.

"Technological advances form the foundation for discussion, but are not themselves the topic of the list. Thus articles concerning new developments in medicine, nanotechnology, information technology, and so on, are welcome, as long as they come from reliable sources, such as peer-reviewed journals. Such articles should include a citation to the source. These posts are likely to trigger discussion of social and political dynamics, which are the focus of the list.

"The most central topic of the list is how social conditions promote or retard the acceptance of immortalism as a life philosophy and what the effects of such a philosophy are on those who hold it. Thus, the coverage includes philosophy, law, sociology, psychology, gerontology, anthropology, political science, thanatology, and religious science (the study of religions). Only specific topics within these subjects are relevant. For example, existential psychology is directly relevant:

'The attempt to escape from death anxiety is at the core of the neurotic conflict . . . . The neurotic life style is generated by a fear of death; but insofar as it limits one's ability to live spontaneously and creatively, the defense against death is itself a partial death (Yalom. [1980]. Existential psychotherapy. NY: Basic Books. p. 146.)'

"This quote illustrates that discussion is not only concerned with life extension, but also the impact of immortalist beliefs on the quality of life."(5)

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