| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"maff" |
| Date: |
17 Nov 2006 04:09:58 AM |
| Object: |
Towards immortality |
Towards immortality
http://snipurl.com/12eau
Alun Anderson
From The World in 2007 print edition
The growing power to change human nature
Science can be a little scary. Its potential to transform life itself
has led to predictions that we might re-write our own genetic make-up
or merge our minds with machines. But 2007 will show that it is not
these sci-fi possibilities that are of immediate concern. Real
possibilities of changing our human nature are creeping up from a less
obvious direction. More and more drugs developed to treat disease are
turning out also to offer the potential to "enhance" the cognitive
powers of healthy people, and to push human life expectancy much
further, perhaps to 115 years and beyond.
The potential to alter our nature and lifespans elicits strong
reactions. The transhumanists-a loose coalition of scientists,
technologists and thinkers who seek opportunities to enhance the human
condition-see change as desirable. Human nature, says Nick Bostrom,
an Oxford University philosopher and advocate of transhumanism, is "a
work in progress, a half-baked beginning that we can learn to remould
in desirable ways...we shall eventually manage to become posthuman,
beings with vastly greater capacities than present human beings
have." Others argue that we will never have sufficient wisdom to make
ourselves more than we are. Francis Fukuyama of Johns Hopkins
University describes transhumanism as one of "the world's most
dangerous ideas". But whatever you may think, the possibilities for
changing your nature by direct biochemical intervention are arriving
now.
Going it alone
Marvin Goodfriend and Eswar Prasad
November 17, 2006 01:10 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/marvin_goodfriend_and_eswar_prasad/2006=
/11/what_monetary_policy_does_chin.html
China's remarkable growth has been financed recently by a rapid
expansion of money and bank credit that is producing an increasingly
unsustainable investment boom. This renews concerns that the country
may not be able to avert a replay of the painful boom-and-bust cycle
such as the one it endured in the mid 1990's.
Monetary policy is usually the first line of defence in such
situations. But China's monetary policy has been hamstrung by the
tightly managed exchange-rate regime. This regime prevents the central
bank - the People's Bank of China (PBC) - from taking appropriate
policy decisions to manage domestic demand, because interest-rate hikes
could encourage capital inflows and put further pressure on the
exchange rate.
Candid cameras
Dan Glaister
November 16, 2006 11:47 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/dan_glaister/2006/11/candid_cameras.html
Could YouTube, the internet, online video and all that malarkey
actually make a difference? That is the question police and public must
be asking themselves in the light of three incidents to have emerged
this week in Los Angeles.
Forget police oversight commissions and the bulky, lethargic
bureaucracy of officialdom. YouTube is up and running faster than a cop
with a primed Taser, and it makes embarrassing viewing for Los Angeles
law enforcement in all its guises.
Milton Friedman: a study in failure
Richard Adams
November 16, 2006 11:40 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/richard_adams/2006/11/post_650.html
Milton Friedman, who has died aged 94, was not the most important
economist of the post-war era - that title belongs to the brilliant
Paul Samuelson - but he was certainly the most controversial. Yet
despite his views being championed by so many politicians on the right,
it may come as a surprise that Friedman's career as a policymaker
largely ended in failure.
Given his status as a long-standing hate figure, the assumption by many
of the left is that his agenda was cemented into place during the
Reagan and Thatcher administrations in the early 1980s, especially
Friedman's well-known view that inflation is solely influenced by
changes in the money supply. But very few of Friedman's most cherished
proposals were ever put in to practice. Of those that where - such as
monetarism - almost all turned into failure.
Counting your chickens
Peter Melchett
November 16, 2006 06:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/peter_melchett/2006/11/post_648.html
The most surprising thing about the discovery that free-range eggs are
not always what they seem is that it's taken a case of out-and-out
fraud to bring this to anyone's attention. "Free range" has proved an
incredibly effective marketing tool. If you start with the horrendous
conditions of industrially farmed chickens crammed into tiny battery
cages to lay eggs, or shut up in their tens of thousands, in massive,
dark, airless sheds to provide chicken meat, almost anything is going
to be a great deal better. But free range very successfully feeds off
the horrors of industrial chicken production. It conjures up an image
of healthy happy hens scurrying around lush grass fields, pecking at
grass and insects, with the sun on their backs.
The reality is rather different. Certainly, free-range chickens have
the possibility of leaving their shed, and of wandering around in the
open air. But the sheds are generally large buildings, holding many
thousands of chickens, and the land outside is often only partly grass,
and more often close to the building will be bare earth or mud, gravel
or chippings. There is no evidence that every "free-range chicken" has
been outside the shed it's reared in until slaughter; but there is
evidence that some free-range chickens do not go outside. This may be
because they simply can't get to the entrances due to the number of
chickens in the building. It may be because they don't want to go
outside without cover, food, grass and insects. It may be because some
birds guard the entrances and prevent other birds leaving the building.
And it may be because chickens that have spent all the early part of
their lives in a building are effectively engineered not to be capable
of going outside.
Cirque de c=E9l=E9brit=E9
Michel Rocard
November 16, 2006 04:43 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/michel_rocard/2006/11/frances_president=
ial_reality_s.html
The Socialists' nomination of their presidential candidate is an
important step on the road to the election, which is set for April 22
2007, with a second-round runoff two weeks later. All candidates should
be known by the end of January - the deadline for printing the ballots.
So, by that point, France's four main political parties, two on the
left and two on the right, must prepare their party manifestos and
choose candidates.
That, at least, is how the system is supposed to work. In practice,
while the official campaign is supposed to last only two months (long
enough in a democracy, in which candidates have to endure an
unrelenting media barrage), the jockeying of potential candidates,
together with the media's appetite for a horse race, helped kick off
the real campaign almost a year and a half ago. So today's public
debates have a somewhat surreal character, because the policies on
which the candidates will stake their campaigns are not yet developed.
In their absence, personality and style, not political policies, have
proven decisive. I am not sure this is good for democracy, but that's
the way it is.
A race against time
Robert E Hunter
November 16, 2006 03:05 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/robert_e_hunter/2006/11/the_eus_turn_in=
_afghanistan.html
Time is running out for success in Afghanistan. The Nato summit in Riga
which takes place on November 28 and 29 may be the last chance to pull
that country back from the brink.
Nato assumed responsibility for providing security for all of
Afghanistan in October. While about 8,000 of the 20,000 US troops in
Afghanistan operate independently, the rest have joined the most
ambitious military venture in Nato's history, the International
Security Assistance Force (Isaf).
The myth of civil society
Jeremy Seabrook
November 16, 2006 02:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jeremy_seabrook/2006/11/the_myth_of_civ=
il_society.html
A prerequisite for development, according to western donors, charity
professionals and dispensers of aid, is the fostering of a vibrant
civil society. Civil society includes all groups and organisations
which, independently of government, unite people in a common purpose;
it comprises diverse actors and participants, including faith and
community groups, non-government organisations, environmental
pressure-groups, trade unions and others concerned with social
improvement and reform.
By encouraging the expansion of civil society, especially in countries
with authoritarian or dictatorial governments, the story goes, spaces
will be created for a wider, more ample democratic debate. This will
lead to greater pluralism and make rulers more accountable, transparent
and less liable to corruption.
What lies beneath
Michael Meacher
November 16, 2006 01:48 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/michael_meacher/2006/11/michael_meacher=
..html
What's the greatest problem facing the world today? It's not the war on
terror, nor is it law enforcement. Yet the Queen's speech has just one
sentence on climate change. The bill will anyway probably not include
annual targets which is the one thing that would make the government's
climate change programme much more effective - while terror and law
enforcement have eight separate bills or projects.
Of course the government must give absolute priority to protecting the
security of the nations against terrorist or any other threats. But
endlessly ratcheting up the controls over every aspect of our national
life, in the process undermining the very civil liberties and freedoms
that the whole policy is supposed to be protecting, will never deliver
real security unless we address the underlying motives. If we are tough
on security, equally we need to be tough on the causes that generate
our insecurity. And there is no doubt that the rage that drives
terrorist activity is prompted by the horrendous daily carnage in Iraq,
the refusal to condemn the indiscriminate bombing of Lebanon and the
widespread perception among Muslims of a grossly imbalanced policy
favouring Israel to the neglect of the Palestinians.
A project of dispossession can never be a noble cause
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1950034,00.html
Israel's liberal intellectuals lament the malaise that grips their
country - but refuse to face up to the ethnicide at the heart of it
Ahdaf Soueif
Friday November 17, 2006
The Guardian
Before Donald Rumsfeld departed from the Pentagon, the "Transformation
Group" he headed worked with an Israeli army team to develop ideas for
controlling the Palestinians after Israel withdraws from the occupied
territories. Eyal Weizman, an Israeli academic who has written about
this cooperation, tells us that they decided to do this through an
invisible occupation: Israel would "seal the hard envelopes" around
Palestinian towns and generate "effects" directed against the "human
elements of resistance". We saw this concept being implemented in Beit
Hanoun last week when the Israeli army killed 19 sleeping people with a
missile attack.
The East India Company rides again
http://business.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1948521,00.html
China's attitude to Africa has many of the hallmarks of old-fashioned
European imperialism, writes Salil Tripathi
Wednesday November 15, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Chinese and Indian companies are increasingly venturing beyond their
borders - but their approaches to foreign investment are very
different.
Less than 10 days ago, Beijing held an economic summit it described as
the economic equivalent of the Bandung declaration of 1955, which saw
the birth of the non-aligned movement.
That was a slight exaggeration. China hosted more than 40 African
states, promising them aid - $2bn (=A31.1bn) has already been offered -
investment and debt write-offs in return for access to African
resources.
Clear victory for Royal in race to be president
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1950382,00.html
=B7 French socialists give firm endorsement
=B7 Pledge to change the face of country's politics
Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
Friday November 17, 2006
The Guardian
S=E9gol=E8ne Royal's battle to become the first woman president of France
begins in earnest today, after the Socialist party last night
overwhelmingly endorsed her as their candidate in next April's
election.
The "madonna of the opinion polls", whose personal battle against a
domineering military colonel father and the perceived sexism of her
party's old guard has fascinated France even more than her policies,
secured a decisive victory after a rancorous US-style primary.
Bush to face the ghosts of America's last failed war
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1950152,00.html
Thirty-one years after the US army left Saigon, President Bush flies in
for a visit dogged by the unlearned lessons of history
Suzanne Goldenberg
Friday November 17, 2006
The Guardian
On the morning of April 30 1975 a young corporal in the army of North
Vietnam drove a tank through the streets of an unfamiliar city wreathed
in smoke and resounding with gunfire, and stopped at a set of
wrought-iron gates. Corpses lay on the pavement, and in the distance a
lone helicopter rose above the US embassy and turned towards the river.
The soldier, Nguyen Van Tap, paused: could the gate be electrified?
Then he gunned the engine and crashed into Saigon's Independence
Palace. Moments later, Mr Nguyen's lieutenant, Vu Dang Toan, took the
surrender of the South Vietnamese regime barricaded inside.
European states offer Middle East peace plan without UK
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1950148,00.html
Spain, France and Italy go it alone with initiative Ceasefire and talks
deal will be put to EU summit
Brian Whitaker and agencies
Friday November 17, 2006
The Guardian
In a sign of growing frustration at diplomatic inaction as
Israeli-Palestinian violence escalates, Spain, France and Italy
yesterday unveiled a five-point peace initiative, taking Britain by
surprise.
Downing Street confirmed last night that it had not been consulted and
had no prior knowledge of the plan, which envisages a leading role for
Europe in ending the conflict. Foreign Office sources said they had
first learned of it from a news item on the BBC.
Wanted: man to land on killer asteroid and gently nudge it from path to
Earth
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1950167,00.html
=B7 Nasa evokes Hollywood in effort to avoid catastrophe
=B7 Mission would bridge gap between moon and Mars
David Adam
Friday November 17, 2006
The Guardian
It is the stuff of nightmares and, until now, Hollywood thrillers. A
huge asteroid is on a catastrophic collision course with Earth and
mankind is poised to go the way of the dinosaurs.
To save the day, Nasa now plans to go where only Bruce Willis has gone
before. The US space agency is drawing up plans to land an astronaut on
an asteroid hurtling through space at more than 30,000 mph. It wants to
know whether humans could master techniques needed to deflect such a
doomsday object when it is eventually identified. The proposals are at
an early stage, and a spacecraft needed just to send an astronaut that
far into space exists only on the drawing board, but they are deadly
serious. A smallish asteroid called Apophis has already been identified
as a possible threat to Earth in 2036.
Democrats vow to stand in the way of sending more troops
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1950154,00.html
Debate in US
Julian Borger in Washington
Friday November 17, 2006
The Guardian
The new majority leader in the US Senate, Harry Reid, said yesterday
the Democrats would do everything they can to stop George Bush sending
more troops to Iraq.
Mr Reid believed the president would not be able to find 20,000 US
reinforcements for "one last push" in Iraq, a plan reported in the
Guardian yesterday, because the armed forces were already stretched too
thin.
"I'd rather doubt he'd do that, because we don't have the troops," said
Mr Reid, who will become the most powerful figure in the Senate when
the newly elected Congress convenes in January. "We don't have a single
non-deployed army unit that is battle ready."
Al-Qaida 'planted information to encourage US invasion'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1949927,00.html
Richard Norton-Taylor
Friday November 17, 2006
The Guardian
A senior al-Qaida operative deliberately planted information to
encourage the US to invade Iraq, a double agent who infiltrated the
network and spied for western intelligence agencies claimed last night.
The claim was made by Omar Nasiri, a pseudonym for a Moroccan who says
he spent seven years working for European security and intelligence
agencies, including MI5. He said Ibn Sheikh al-Libi, who ran training
camps in Afghanistan, told his US interrogators that al-Qaida had been
training Iraqis.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/6155736.stm
Democrat Speaker in first defeat
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1990390.ece
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
Published: 17 November 2006
The Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi suffered an embarrassing rebuke from her
own party when the candidate she had strongly endorsed for the second
most senior post in the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives
was defeated.
Ms Pelosi had lobbied publicly for her ally John Murtha, the veteran
Pennsylvania congressman. But he was soundly beaten by Steny Hoyer, an
old foe of hers, for the job of majority leader. Mr Hoyer won by the
surprisingly large margin of 149 votes to 86 in a vote among incoming
House Democrats.
Senior officers 'approved abuse of Iraqi prisoners'
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article1990436.ece
By Thair Shaikh
Published: 17 November 2006
Senior British Army officers were accused in court of officially
sanctioning the hooding and mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners in
contravention of the Geneva Conventions. At a court martial in Bulford
Camp, Wiltshire, in which seven soldiers are charged with abuse of nine
Iraqis, a witness said military lawyers ordered him to "condition"
prisoners for tactical questioning. One of the detainees, Baha Musa,
26, later died.
'State racism' as Russia bans foreigners from jobs
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article1990400.ece
By Andrew Osborn in Moscow
Published: 17 November 2006
The Russian government has been accused of state-sponsored racism after
it approved laws banning non-Russians from several key sectors of the
economy.
From January, foreigners will not be allowed to sell alcohol or
medicine, and from April they will be banned from working in the retail
sector.
LSE hit by bank plan to launch competing exchange
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article1987662.ece
By James Moore
Published: 16 November 2006
Shares in the London Stock Exchange fell sharply yesterday as the
company sought to hit back at the investment banks forming a rival
pan-European share trading platform.
The seven banks, under the banner Project Turquoise, said they planned
to slash the price of share trading - which could potentially benefit
the pension funds and savings of millions of Britons. However, the
London exchange claimed it had already sharply cut costs by the
equivalent of =A38.20 for every =A31,000 traded.
It came as Deutsche B=F6rse formally abandoned its attempt to merge with
the Paris-based exchange operator Euronext and attacked its rival for
"blocking all our attempts to build bridges" and wrecking the chance of
a "European [exchange] solution".
London Stock Exchange spokesman John Wallace said in response to
Project Turquoise: "Our investment in technology and trading services
continues to reduce the cost of trading markedly for all investors.
Over here and over there
http://www.economist.com/daily/diary/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3D8160028
Nov 16th 2006
From Economist.com
Our Jerusalem correspondent looks at ties with America
Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday
Thursday
I HAVE always found Washington, DC, a bit weird. It seems to run on
invisible tracks, like a computer game-a sort of life-size SimCity,
with a handful of easily classified Sims. There are the government
bureaucrats in suits, with the wary stares of people ruling over others
they have never met; the congressional staffers and research assistants
who fail to hide hungry ambition behind big smiles and smart casual
clothes; the think-tankers who wander around looking cynical and
world-weary; and the journalists who are either studiously smart or
defiantly dishevelled (I flip erratically between the two). All the
Sims run around fulfilling their pre-ordained roles and waiting for the
SimGod to give their universe a shake.
And they're off!
http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3D8172913
Nov 16th 2006
From The Economist print edition
The real election campaign gets under way
THE mid-term elections may have turned Capitol Hill upside down. But
when it comes to the race for the White House they have reinvigorated
the old order. Before the mid-terms the two front-runners-Hillary
Clinton and John McCain-looked as if they might be vulnerable to
challenges. Now they are further ahead than ever.
The mid-term elections gave both of them a chance to demonstrate their
bulging political muscles. Mrs Clinton raised more money than any other
congressional candidate-around $50m-despite the fact that she did
not face any serious opposition. She starred in 131 events in 57
cities. And she lavished resources on her fellow New York
Democrats-making some 45 appearances with her fellow New Yorker
politicians and donating $300,000 to the state party. John McCain was
likewise a ubiquitous figure on the campaign trail despite not running
for re-election. He raised $10.5m for Republican candidates and
appeared at 346 rallies, flying 137,747 miles in the process. Mr McCain
proved to be a much more popular figure than the president. Charlie
Crist, Florida's new governor, pointedly chose to skip a rally with the
Bush brothers in order to spend the day with Mr McCain.
Tilting at windmills
http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3D8168089
Nov 16th 2006 | LONDON AND SAN JOSE
From The Economist print edition
The clean-energy business is turning into the next big investment boom,
in which risks are lightly brushed aside
UNTIL recently, recalls Charlie Gay, a 30-year veteran of the
solar-power business, venture capitalists were far too busy catering to
captains of the information-technology industry to waste time on
"hippy-dippy tree-huggers" like himself. But now the tree-huggers
are in the ascendant and the IT barons are busy investing in
clean-energy technology.
Among them is Vinod Khosla, a celebrated Silicon Valley financier. He
is touting ethanol as the next big thing. Applied Materials, where Mr
Gay works, has branched out from flat screens and computer chips into
solar cells. Sun Power, the solar subsidiary of Cypress Semiconductor,
is now worth almost as much as its chipmaking parent company.
Hamas carries on with the dance
http://www.economist.com/world/africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3D8173992
Nov 16th 2006 | JERUSALEM
From The Economist print edition
Could the common anti-Hamas front be about to crumble?
WHEN you are a lame duck, the company of other limpers can be
comforting. George Bush, chastened by his party's defeat in the
mid-term elections, warmly welcomed Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime
minister, his conscience still smouldering from the recent accidental
killing of civilians by Israeli shellfire in Gaza. Mr Bush reaffirmed
his tough stance on Iran. Mr Olmert delighted Mr Bush (and infuriated
Democrats) by praising the war in Iraq. But on both men's minds must
hang the question of what recent events will mean for their future
co-operation.
America continued to fight on Israel's side, vetoing a UN Security
Council resolution that would have condemned it harshly for the carnage
in Gaza. But in return, the Arab League voted on November 13th to break
the international embargo on aid to the Hamas-run Palestinian Authority
(PA). How they will get money to the PA is another matter; banks have
been enforcing the blockade for fear of American lawsuits and
sanctions. But it is bad news for the American-Israeli strategy of
isolating Hamas in the hope of changing its behaviour (or, say some, of
causing its collapse).
A new era of co-operation
http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3D8173744
Nov 16th 2006 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition
Both Congressional Democrats and President George Bush say they will
work with each other. That doesn't mean they will
LAST week, Americans voted for divided government. Now they want to
know how it will work in practice. Will the incoming Democratic
majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate hold the
executive to account, or merely obstruct it? Will President George Bush
veto every bill the Democrats send his way, or only the bad ones? Will
moderate Democrats and Republicans co-operate, or will party discipline
trump good sense? None of these questions can be fully answered before
January 3rd, when the Democrats formally take control of Congress. But
the world will not stop just because America has a lame-duck
legislature-this week, for example, saw alarming new revelations
about Iran's nuclear programme and the brazen mass kidnapping of
education officials in Baghdad.
Both sides say they will work together. You might have thought, during
the campaign, that they did not much like each other: Nancy Pelosi, the
top House Democrat, called Mr Bush ignorant, incompetent and shallow
and Mr Bush described the Democrats' strategy for Iraq as "the
terrorists win and America loses." But as Mr Bush noted last week,
people often say unfortunate things during campaigns, and "if you
hold grudges in this line of work, you're never going to get anything
done." He called for a "new era of co-operation".
Still treading on India's toes
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3D8173487
Nov 16th 2006 | DELHI
From The Economist print edition
Trade is booming; but even that adds some new elements of mistrust
CLOSE friends have little need of formal professions of warmth. India
and China are not there yet. Thus 2006 is officially "a year of
friendship" between the two countries, culminating in a visit by Hu
Jintao, China's president, to India on November 20th. China's
ambassador in Delhi chilled matters this week, declaring Arunachal
Pradesh, a state covering some 84,000 square kilometres (33,000 square
miles) in the north-east of India, to be part of China. The dispute
over the border is so long-running that India's reaction was no
stronger than official outrage and unofficial weariness. Yet the calm
reaction also shows how, on the Indian side, antagonism with China is
already priced in.
Relations between the two countries have improved since 1998, when
India angered China by justifying its tests of nuclear weapons with an
oblique reference to the Chinese threat. The thaw is a tribute to a
political process that has kept border talks going since 1988, and saw
them elevated to a higher level in 2003. Progress has been slow, but
that has been part of the point: the dispute has been in quarantine
while relations improved in other ways.
No fear of flying
http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3D8166838
Nov 16th 2006
From The Economist print edition
How to create the next big thing? Four new books offer some ideas
INNOVATION is the name of the game in business, now more than ever.
Innovating successfully is fiendishly hard to do. It is not just that a
good idea is hard to find. Turning a novel thought into a profitable
product is arguably even harder. To make money, as the authors of four
new books on the subject all agree, every great inventor needs a great
entrepreneur.
Consider, for example, Chester Carlson's breakthrough in his flat in
Queens, New York, where his smelly experiments provoked complaints from
the neighbours. His invention of xerography would never have become the
hugely profitable Xerox photocopying business were it not for what
Charles Ellis calls the "extreme entrepreneurship" of Joe Wilson.
Plying places
http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3D8134626
Nov 9th 2006
From The Economist print edition
FOR the past 3,000 years or so, the holy city of Jerusalem has acted
rather like a giant sponge. It has drawn in people who are attracted by
its sanctity, whether out of genuine, humble piety or a desire to gain
some advantage-often political or economic-by controlling or
possessing at least some small part of the sacred action.
At the same time the holiness of Jerusalem has been disseminated across
the world: sometimes by pilgrims, returning with their relics or
souvenirs, or through its use as a model for church-builders,
hymn-writers and film-directors who have never been there.
The madness of myths
http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3D8134617
Nov 9th 2006
From The Economist print edition
WHATEVER you think about the second world war is wrong, and this book
will prove it. That, at least, is the contention of Norman Davies, a
trenchant British-born historian whose scope, ambition and knowledge
about Europe are unmatched. His aim in this new history of the war is
to puncture the comfortable myths created by the combination of popular
culture (especially in films) plus the self-centred history taught in
schools.
Decades of junk history have given most if not all citizens of the
countries that participated in it a picture of the war that is
distorted, incomplete, or sometimes downright wrong. Britain's
much-praised Dunkirk spirit and suffering during the Blitz is a
sideshow compared with the gore and grit of occupied Poland. Most
countries define second world war "war crimes" as something
committed only by Germany and her allies; difficult subjects, such as
Allied atrocities or Jewish collaboration with the Nazis, get short
shrift.
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| Title: Re: Towards immortality |
17 Nov 2006 06:10:02 AM |
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maff schreef:
Towards immortality
http://snipurl.com/12eau
Alun Anderson
From The World in 2007 print edition
The growing power to change human nature
Science can be a little scary. Its potential to transform life itself
has led to predictions that we might re-write our own genetic make-up
or merge our minds with machines. But 2007 will show that it is not
these sci-fi possibilities that are of immediate concern. Real
possibilities of changing our human nature are creeping up from a less
obvious direction. More and more drugs developed to treat disease are
turning out also to offer the potential to "enhance" the cognitive
powers of healthy people, and to push human life expectancy much
further, perhaps to 115 years and beyond.
The potential to alter our nature and lifespans elicits strong
reactions. The transhumanists-a loose coalition of scientists,
technologists and thinkers who seek opportunities to enhance the human
condition-see change as desirable. Human nature, says Nick Bostrom,
an Oxford University philosopher and advocate of transhumanism, is "a
work in progress, a half-baked beginning that we can learn to remould
in desirable ways...we shall eventually manage to become posthuman,
beings with vastly greater capacities than present human beings
have." Others argue that we will never have sufficient wisdom to make
ourselves more than we are. Francis Fukuyama of Johns Hopkins
University describes transhumanism as one of "the world's most
dangerous ideas". But whatever you may think, the possibilities for
changing your nature by direct biochemical intervention are arriving
now.
Going it alone
Marvin Goodfriend and Eswar Prasad
November 17, 2006 01:10 AM
Making homo sapiens more fitting for survival,
would be a good idea. However making them grow older might not.
If the worlds population - on average - gets older,
the percentage of children automtically drops.
This may indeed worsen out survival changes in stead of enhancing them.
Moreover a world with hardly any baby's
would not be the world we favor.
My wife Kesinee couldn't live in it.
When my Niece anounced to come to Kesinee's birthdaty (today! )
with her son Max and babygirl Nicky
ans asked what she would like for a present,
Kesinree answered: "I like to have Nicky for a present!"
She's a joly good lass isn't she?
Peter van Velzen Daengprasert,
November 2006
Amstelveen
The Netherlands
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