X-Message-Number: 12964 Date: Sat, 18 Dec 1999 09:09:31 -0800 From: Rand Simberg <> Subject: Re: Bicentennial Man At 05:00 AM 12/18/99 -0500, John Clark wrote: >Some of out "far out" ideas are starting to leak out, even into the >conservative pages of The New York Times. >I haven't seen the film so I don't know if it's >any >good but I have read the review by Stephen Holden of Bicentennial Man and he >really hated the movie, the reasons are very interesting. He compares it to >a very >bad Star Trek installment and sneers at its " warm, fuzzy, self-congratulatory >humanistic vision, nothing in the universe beats being a flesh and blood >mortal". >Holden also says "The possibility of a machine claiming to have human >qualities >seems increasingly likely. What's not so likely is that a robot, in seeking >to be >human, would embrace mortality." I couldn't have said it better myself but I >don't >think I would have found it in the mainstream press five years ago. Well, this wouldn't surprise me if the movie is based on the short story (or was it a novella?) by Isaac Asimov. Asimov was fiercely opposed to cryonics, and a devout deathist. ************************************************************************ * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole) interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org "Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..." Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=12964