I suspect some of the resistance to transhumanism by conservatives, Objectivists and secular humanists derives from “Not Invented Here” thinking: The “wrong” sorts of people from outside their respective tribes came up with this idea, instead of the ones who already held high status in them. Ironically many of Alcor’s early participants shared conservatives’ belief in limited government, admired Ayn Rand’s Objectivism and agreed with the basic principles of the philosophical materialism underlying secular humanism.
An article about cryonics and Alcor which interviews Max More:
The Art of Not Dying
http://motherboard.vice.com/en_ca/read/the-art-of-not-dying-or-being-frozen-until-you-can-come-back
Wesley J. Smith, a conservative bioethicist, criticizes transhumanism as a new religious movement here:
http://www.nationalreview.com/human-exceptionalism/393646/give-me-new-time-transhumanism-wesley-j-smith
I suspect some of the resistance to transhumanism by conservatives, Objectivists and secular humanists derives from “Not Invented Here” thinking: The “wrong” sorts of people from outside their respective tribes came up with this idea, instead of the ones who already held high status in them. Ironically many of Alcor’s early participants shared conservatives’ belief in limited government, admired Ayn Rand’s Objectivism and agreed with the basic principles of the philosophical materialism underlying secular humanism.
For example:
Many Are Cold But Few Are Frozen
http://www.cryocare.org/index.cgi?subdir=&url=humanist.html
How Ayn Rand Didn’t Get Frozen
http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/HowAynRandDidntGetFrozen.html