Resources
books/films of note: shouldmaybe read before dead
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THE POSTMORTAL, by Drew Magary
Penguin Books, 2011 (400 pp.)
"Immortality will kill us all"
"They want to live forever, but they don't think about what they're going to have to live with. What they'll have to carry with them." ... "You got me. I don't want to die. I'm terrified of death. I fear there's nothing beyond it and that this existence is the only one I'll ever posses. That's why I'm here." ... "But again, this is no cure for death, even if everyone is calling it that. It's merely a cure for aging." [location 158-190, Kindle Ed.]
Magary has written a brilliant postmodern Penguin Island (Anatole France, 1908), a frightening 22nd century Cantical For Libowitz (Walter M. Miller Jr., 1960). Philosophically dark and telling. Who wants to live forever in this wasteland? --Bridgette, The KillWare Chronicles
Thanks to business consultant Colleen Kragen (LnkedIn) for suggesting this fascinating if disturbing source text. Brava! at amazon.com
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The Lamaze Of Dying
by Amy Getter
ABC Publishing, 2010 (89 pp.)
available from amazon.com / Amy Getter Hospice Diary Blog / K. D. Kragen Review (pdf)
"I re-read something I had written years ago, after the death of my mother. It was titled, “Not just the daughter”, and I remembered the first-hand experience I had, as a family member, of hospice persons presenting themselves as the expert, and myself being reminded to be a daughter, and not a nurse. I knew then, as I know now, that experiences give us insight, but no one is an expert in someone else’s death." --Amy Getter, "Another Day To Listen" (blog entry Dec. 2013)
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Letters From The Land Of Cancer, by Walter Wangerin
Zondervan, February 2010 (208 pp.) at amazon.com
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The Art Of Dying, by Rob Moll, InterVarsity Press, June 2010 (200 pp.) at amazon.com
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FORBIDDEN PLANET. 1956. Fred McLeod Wilcox, director. Anne Francis, Walter Pidgeon, Leslie Nielson. IMDB Forbidden Planet
Dr. Edward Morbius: "In times long past, this planet was the home of a mighty, noble race of beings who called themselves the Krell. Ethically and technologically they were a million years ahead of humankind, for in unlocking the mysteries of nature they had conquered even their baser selves, and when in the course of eons they had abolished sickness and insanity, crime and all injustice, they turned, still in high benevolence, upwards towards space. Then, having reached the heights, this all-but-divine race perished in a single night...."
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BLADE RUNNER. 1982. (Based on Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, 1968) Ridley Scott, director. Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young. IMDB Blade Runner
Tyrell: "The facts of life... to make an alteration in the evolvement of an organic life system is fatal. A coding sequence cannot be revised once it's been established."
Batty: "Why not?"
Tyrell: "Because by the second day of incubation, any cells that have undergone reversion mutation give rise to revertant colonies, like rats leaving a sinking ship; then the ship ... sinks."
Batty: "What about EMS-3 recombination?"
Tyrell: "We've already tried it - ethyl, methane, sulfinate as an alkylating agent and potent mutagen; it created a virus so lethal the subject was dead before it even left the table."
Batty: "Then a repressor protein, that would block the operating cells."
Tyrell: "Wouldn't obstruct replication; but it does give rise to an error in replication, so that the newly formed DNA strand carries with it a mutation - and you've got a virus again ... but this, all of this is academic. You were made as well as we could make you."
Batty: "But not to last."
Tyrell: "The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long - and you have burned so very, very brightly, Roy. Look at you: you're the Prodigal Son; you're quite a prize!"
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ALTERED CARBON. 2018. - Laeta Kalogridis
(series appeared on netflix.com, a "Netflix Original," in 2018)
“Altered Carbon” is a new Netflix series. Cyberpunk (“Blade Runner” 1982 “Neromancer” William Gibson, "Arachne” Lisa Mason) techno-dystopia hopelessness of the human existential nihilistic decent into greed and madness, with a predictable postmodern Film Noir undercurrent (“Dark Passage” Humphry Bogart & Loren Bacall, “The Naked City,” maybe “Cities Of The Red Night” William Burroughs).
One of the things Altered Carbon cautions against is what Kalogridis sees as humanity's very real obsession with immortality - one she's afraid will have unforeseen consequences as technology continues to build toward something that may wind up looking very like the fictional cortical stack.
"It's a disruptive technology that much of Silicon Valley is - if you ask me - unhealthily focused on," she said. "Anything that you invent that is disruptive, any new technology that is created, I can guarantee you absolutely there will be unintended consequences - and annoying people who say, 'Well, who could have seen that coming?'"
"Imagine what could go wrong - all you have to do is apply human nature to it," she continued.
Interesting that Kalogridis sees our culture's life-extensionist ideology and mythos an “unhealthy focus.” I’m impressed. As in one of the major themes of The KillWare® Chronicles – the ultimate human reality, and maybe irony, is the narcissism of life-extensionism.
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Source: Gamespot - gamespot.com/articles/why-theres-so-much-nudity-and-violence-in-netflixs/1100-6456578/; “Under the surface,” by Michael Rougeau (gamespot.com/profile/mrougeau/) on Feb 9, 2018 14:23 PM.
articles of note: shouldmaybe read before they take me away
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"Messages from the Edge: Suicide Notes on Social Media" - How Facebook turns the left-behind into horrified witnesses. by Halee Gray Scott [ posted 1/25/2016 ] - Her.meneutics, Christianity Today Magazine
"As social media becomes a mainstay in our day-to-day lives, recent research probes the relationship between our online activity and suicide. Studies indicate that social media can intensify depression and suicidal behavior, especially among girls. The more we submerge ourselves in the faux-reality of carefully crafted posts and curated photographs, the greater our risk of depression and suicide due to social isolation andsocial comparison. Researchers have also discovered evidence of the Werther effect—copycat suicides—due to stories shared over Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr."
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"Chasing Methuselah" by Todd T. W. Daly
Christianity Today Magazine, posted 12/30/2010 08:57AM
"The more fundamental question is whether human aging is a malady in need of a cure. Should we treat aging as a disease?" (p. 2) "But what about the aging process, which inevitably ends in death? To ask whether aging is a disease is, essentially, to ask whether we should develop technology to attenuate the aging process." (p. 3)
And if that's good for me, why shouldn't it be good for my dog? my cat? my tarantula?
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/january/6.18.html
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"How To Die" by Bill Keller
The New York Times Opinion Pages, Op-ed Columnist, pub. 7 October 2012
Excellent editorial on the work of the Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying Patient and, generally, attitudes in the medical community and the press toward end-of-life. Thank you Bill Keller!
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/08/opinion/keller-how-to-die.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&
Liverpool Care Pathway website (no longer active): http://www.mcpcil.org.uk/
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_Care_Pathway_for_the_Dying_Patient
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MORE COWBELL, LESS MORTALITY.
"Disrupting the Reaper: Tech Titans’ Quest for Immortality Rages Forward"
Silicon Valley's war on death continues—as does the uncomfortable, spreading psychology of those rich enough to fight it.
by Jacob Banas / futurism.com / October 12th 2018
"EVERYONE DIES.... But a handful of uber-successful Silicon Valley entrepreneurs have been trying for years to reconfigure death against its given as an immutable truth — and now, they’re pushing harder than ever before.
"Google cofounder Sergey Brin, Oracle chairman Larry Ellison, and (but of course) Elon Musk are approaching their supposed respective demises with the same gusto the average person might a home remodeling. The members of this informal club are set on stretching the limits of the human lifespan, from about 120 to 1,000 (or more). To them, admitting that they’ll die (or die on a typical timeline) is akin to accepting defeat.
Source: https://futurism.com/live-forever-silicon-valley?utm_source=Digest&utm_campaign=62f1ff10c0-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_10_12_05_38&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_03cd0a26cd-62f1ff10c0-248721061&mc_cid=62f1ff10c0&mc_eid=9f22306db6
Futurism.com is "the publishing arm of Futurism, a media company based out of New York City, and partnered with Singularity University as of 2019. Our mission? To bring you the world the news, products, and narratives of tomorrow, today. Our other divisions include our advertising studio, Futurism Creative; and our feature production arm, Futurism Studios."