Asking the unaskable question – Do we have a right not to die?
Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber has contributed a chapter to Volume Five of the ‘Death and Anti-Death’ Anthology which has just been published by Ria University. With contributors including Aubrey de Grey and Kevin Kelly and edited by Dr. Charles Tandy, Volume Five in the series is dedicated to the memory of Loren Eiseley, the renowned Anthropologist, science writer and environmental advocate.
Available through Amazon the full title is ‘Death And Anti-Death, Volume 5: Thirty Years After Loren Eiseley (1907-1977)’ and is available in hardcover for $39.95.
Marcus Barber’s chapter poses the question whether any individual has the right not to die, given the emergence of the wide assortment of technological developments available in the area of health and life extension. Barber suggests that the challenge is whether, given the wide disparity of health outcomes across the globe, any one individual with the financial means, has the right to extend their life indefinitely given the high rates of mortality elsewhere in the world.
Barber also posits four rules for identifying whether an entity can be considered ‘truly’ alive. He suggests that for an entity to be considered alive it must:
- Do whatever it takes to survive;
- Having achieved rule one, extend the ‘survival boundary’;
- When life conditions require it, ignore rule two and focus all resources on achieving rule one;
- At a certain point, switch off rule one
Although this chapter is written specifically for the Death and Anti-Death anthology, these ‘rules’ also pose additional issues for cognitive scientists and those involved with artificial intelligence.
Other chapters in the book consider cryogenics, the issue of anorexia and euthanasia, technology and more
I’m heading to Singapore for a few days to facilitate a scenario planning workshop on behalf of the Asia Business Forum. There is something intimately exciting for a futurist to be going to arguably the most future focused of all countries and to spend just a brief time immersed there. There’s no doubt that great…
Read More >Greenwashing is a term used to define marketing actions by organisations, claiming to take an environmental approach to their products or services, when in fact, they are doing nothing or very little. Greenwashing is a form of marketing hype, and in turbulent times, many companies may be contemplating ‘sexing up’ their image by tapping into…
Read More >Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber will be the key note speaker at the Australian Computer Society’s annual conference to be held in Adelaide on July 30 at the Adelaide Convention Centre With the theme ‘Survive and Thrive’ Marcus will discuss the likely issues of the near term future and why right now, organisations do not have…
Read More >The next Advanced Strategic Planning one-day workshop being run by The Australian Strategic Planning Institute will take place at Rydges in Adelaide on the 13th of July and bookings are now open The TASPI workshops are jam packed with ideas and processes to ensure that your operational, business and strategic planning efforts deliver the…
Read More >Hands up if you remember the dot com bubble? Or how about the Y2K bubble? Housing bubble? ‘Bubbles’ as they apply to all things economic are little more than an oversupply of positive confidence in a particular area of economic concern. In fact ‘Bubbles’ are caused by the SAME things as ‘Recessions’ just at opposite…
Read More >Just a handful of places are left for The Australian Strategic Planning Institute’s one day Advanced Strategic Planning workshop at Karsten’s in Melbourne on the 26th of May. Please note that there are no places available for the June workshops in both Brisbane or Sydney, and the Adelaide workshop in July is half filled though…
Read More >Richard Pratt has succumbed to a battle with prostate cancer and there’s no doubt that many words will be written on paper destined to end up as recycle materials at his VISY Industries plants. There’s a harmony in that thought – all those words of type and paper discussing Richard Pratt will be recycling through…
Read More >Thousands of Australians are just receiving or are about to receive a pretty handsome cheque from the Federal Government as part of the economic stimulous package. The question then is ‘what do I spend this on?’ Below I offer a futurist’s view on where certain generational types might consider spending the bonus. As a…
Read More >It is almost a year since the Australia 2020 Summit was held in Canberra and it is expected that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will provide feedback on the summit, the ideas it generated as well as the ideas of those not at the summit who provided input and thinking. Of course a lot has changed…
Read More >A few years ago whilst researching and generating ideas for the National Geographic Channel’s futures based TV shows ‘Future Matters’ I discussed the idea of what I then called ‘WEs’ or Wearable Electronics. I mentioned that this was a substantially different approach than portable electronics, which is what most mobile phones and laptop computers were…
Read More >