X-Message-Number: 5263 Date: 26 Nov 95 11:19:54 EST From: "Kent, Saul" <> Subject: Speculation About The Future There's quite a bit of speculation about the distant future on cryonet. That's quite reasonable because cryonics is an idea that challenges people to speculate about the distant future. I believe it's good to speculate about the distant future, but mostly as a tool to shape the near future. I've done a fair amount of speculating about the distant future myself...in many discussions with cryonicists, with other futurists, and in my book FUTURE SEX, which was published in 1974. FUTURE SEX was set 80 years into the future (around the middle of the 21st century). The ideas in FUTURE SEX, which include physical immortality, hold up pretty good today. For example, I explored "virtual reality" in two chapters called "Multi-Media Masturbation" and "The Armchair Daredevil". I don't believe the term "virtual reality" had yet been coined in 1974, but everyone knows about it today, and it looks as if, by the middle of the 21st century (or sooner), the kind of virtual reality I described in my book may become a reality. However, as much as I enjoy speculating about the distant future, I believe it is far more profitable to spend your time dealing with the near future and, more importantly, I believe it will be those who can most successfully invent, predict, and exploit the near future who will have the most influence on the distant future. For example, William Gates (the head of Microsoft) has just had a book published about the future. I've seen a couple of TV interviews with him and was not exactly dazzled by his predictions. They were all short-term predictions that were either obvious or not very exciting to anyone who has been following progress in technology and thinking about the future. Yet Mr. Gates is far more influential and powerful than anyone on cryonet and has the opportunity, because of his immense wealth and fame, to have a major impact on the distant future. Whether he will use this opportunity effectively remains to be seen, but the point I am making is that he is in a position to have a major impact on the distant future *because* he has focused most of his attention on the near future and has cashed in on it. I believe the book about the future that has had the most important impact in history is THE PROSPECT OF IMMORTALITY by Robert Ettinger. I first heard about Ettinger's book when I read an article called "Intimations Of Immortality" by Fred Pohl in the June 1964 issue of PLAYBOY magazine. I found Pohl's entire article interesting, but was especially drawn to his mention of Ettinger's book because it proposed action in the immediate future. I bought and read Ettinger's book the next day and found that he used speculation in the distant future primarily to bolster his argument that we should take action in the near future. I brought Ettinger's argument and soon became an activist in the immortalist movement. These days I spend almost all my time dealing with the near future so I can cash in on it myself and be in an increasingly better position to have an impact on the distant future. I believe it's more important (and more fun) to have an *impact* on the distant future than merely to speculate about it. I also believe my life depends on it. ---Saul Kent Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=5263