Re: virus: Re: Future man, immortality and memes

C. David Noziglia (noziglia@actrix.gen.nz)
Sat, 30 Mar 1996 08:20:31 -0800


xybnw@ttacs1.ttu.edu wrote:
>
> I am intrigued by the attitude I have read on this newsgroup in the
> past month that reproduction, while obviously a biological imperative, is
> not personally desirable. Children do take a lot of time, money and
> energy, and are often not any fun, but they are probably one of the few
> ways we have at present of continuing our personal memes, not to mention > genes.
> I will be dead and rotting in a box in one hundred years, but I
> hope my children and their children will continue exploring the natural
> world. I want them to enjoy the same books and music and games that I
> have, and to use my interests as a strong foundation for their own
> intellectual growth. I hope that they build on what I have learned in
> order to create something bigger than what was before.

Your attitude towards children is just as disturbing to me as that of others.
Let us grant genetic imperitives their due, but let us also believe that
people are more than their genetic or biological imperitives. We can use our
understanding of the rules of survival to make our world a little better,
but, because we are people and can think, we don't just have a act according
to the rules of biology.

You say that children are sometimes not fun. You forgot to say that
sometimes they are fun, and satisfying, and wonderful. And they are all of
these not because I am selfishly fixated upon the survival of my genes or my
memory or my ideas, but because they are individuals, they are themselves,
and watching them grow and develop is satisfying for their sakes, not mine.

Most of what you were saying sounds more like Rosanne than what I believe you
intended.

-- 
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C. David Noziglia
Wellington, New Zealand
noziglia@actrix.gen.nz

"Blessed are those who have no expectations, for they will never be disappointed." Kautiliya Shakhamuni Sidhartha Gautama Buddha

"Things are the way they are because they got that way."

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