More Common Sense From Eliezer Yudkowsky

There's nothing more outlandish than people who think that working towards the defeat of age-related suffering and death is outlandish: "A transhumanist says unconditionally: 'Life is good, death is bad; health is good, death is bad.' Whether you're 5, 50, or 500, life is good, why die? Nothing more is required. Then why is there a widespread misunderstanding that transhumanism involves a special fetish for technology, or an unusually strong fear of death, or some other abnormal personal disposition? ... Correspondence bias can also be seen as essentialist reasoning, like explaining rain by water spirits, or explaining fire by phlogiston. If you kick a vending machine, why, it must be because you have a vending-machine-kicking disposition. So the transhumanist says, 'Let us use this technology to cure aging.' And the reporter thinks, How strange! He must have been born with an unusual technology-loving disposition. Or, How strange! He must have an unusual horror of aging!"

Link: http://www.singinst.org/blog/2007/06/24/transhumanists-dont-need-special-dispositions

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