Book Review: The Living End

Dr. Guy Brown, a self-described 'research scientist working on the molecular mechanisms of cell death and degenerative disease...', has written a fascinating study on the history of death. Particularly, on human death and the diseases that precede it. Up until the advent of modern medicine, death was generally a swift affair, often striking with little warning and offering little hope in the way of reversal or postponement. To put it bluntly, until fairly recently people dropped like flies, and there wasn't much anybody could do about it.

Not so these days. Through the miracle of medical intervention a person whose physically degenerated condition would have doomed him to a mere few weeks or months of continued life, can now often be expected to linger on for years or even decades. This might seem like a good thing to the existential bean-counters amongst us, where all that ultimately matters is how high the final score's numbers can be ratcheted up. But to those under the care of the life extension community it can be hell on earth, trapped in various forms of decrepitude for an average of what's grown to be 10 years in the developed world. That average continues to grow.

Alzheimer's, vascular disease, organ failure and a host of other maladies are slowly losing their unique status, merging under the emblem of what's fast becoming a universal affliction- old age. This trend is what Dr. Brown addresses in the book. He's a talented, descriptive writer with seemingly a lot of expertise on the subject, and he's good at weaving detail into a medical-historical narrative that leads us up to where we are today. He also addresses the philosophical issues behind our attempts to stave off the Grim Reaper, including a nice chunk of the end of the book addressing the transhumanist agenda, of which he is rather quizzically pessimistic. Well, maybe not so much pessimistic as simply quizzical- you be the judge.

Of course, at the end he blows it. Big time! At least, from the perspective of antinatal philosophy and concerns. For instance, after going on for some length about the cognitive dissonance which allows otherwise rational people to believe in rather silly things- 'angels, gods, dragons, ghosts, elves, Father Christmas and souls', a state of affairs which he labels an 'asymmetry of proof'- he turns right around and writes this:

In practical terms, though, we accept that something does not exist if we (and all credible witnesses) never observe it. However, the truth of a belief is not necessarily the only good reason for holding that belief. It may be sensible for you to believe in something even though it does not exist, if believing it makes you happy. Thus if the non-existence of immortality, god, human goodness, or the greatness of the English cricket team made you chronically sad, you would be stupid not to continue believing these things, as long as this was psychically possible. Many apparently sensible people have made themselves miserable by only believing in things that were true. How stupid can you get! Indeed, there is evidence that depressed people generally have a more accurate view of the world than happy people (see Kay Jamison's book Exuberance). The implication is that having an accurate view of the world could make you depressed, whereas seeing the world through rose-tinted glasses may help make you happy. But how can you believe in things that are untrue? As the White Queen informed Alice (in Through the Looking Glass), believing impossible things is not itself impossible, it just takes practice.

I probably don't have to tell you that I was EXTREMELY pissed off at this utter piece of crapola once again being passed off as sage philosophical advice, ESPECIALLY as it leads to an unrealistic worldview that justifies bringing new life into this horror of an existence. And there's more! At the very end of the book, Dr. Guy offers a nine-point prescription for our existential ills. Some have to do with practical medical approaches and solutions, and one is a rather benign if new-agey sort of thing about seeing ourselves as 'waves' rather than atoms. For purposes of this review, I'll only mention three of his points here:

1. "Rage, rage against the dying of the light." The beginning of a nice poem by Dylan Thomas, but not very practical, or even consistent with a lot of what Dr. Brown had to say throughout most of the book. Then again, I suppose we can just wish away the need for consistency when it suits us. Wouldn't want to be 'stupid', after all.

8. "Face the fact that we are going to die, and prepare for it." See what I mean? However, further on here the good doctor offers a nod in the direction of legalized euthenasia, so hats off there.

9. "Live life to the full- spread your memes and genes...Leave something really worthwhile behind you- build that dream, write that novel...and have lots of sex." And babies, which is what's obviously being inferred here. Ugh! But with this concept in mind, I thought I might end this review with a bit from the book's opening paragraph:

My grandmother leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially: 'I have been wanting death for the last five years.' It seemed like she was letting me into a profound secret, but I knew she had been telling the same to anyone who would listen for at least the last ten years...I didn't want to know about her relationship with her own death; that was private- something to be faced alone amongst the terrors of the night. But her confession also had an edge of fearless complaint-damning the world and her allotted fate of suffering and boredom.

Seems like rose-colored glasses only work in the dark.

Dead Cats and Philosophers

So, I was out and about on my bike this morning, pedaling to one clinic to get some blood samples drawn, then to another across town to pick up my blood pressure meds. Pretty nice ride early on, though it got really friggin' hot later in the day. However, I survived. I can't say the same for a certain cat I passed, though, lying in the road with its head caved in. Hopefully it was sudden and painless, considering the alternative of slow and painful. Either way, the sight was a real punch in the gut of my moral aesthetic sense, not to mention a wet blanket on my general mood.

It's no secret that most people believe life is generally a good deal. And even though their reasons for bringing children into this world are basically selfish ones, they tend to justify their actions by telling themselves that they've really done their kids a favor. On the other hand, they are faced with the problem of dead cats on a daily basis. Dead cats, and canine parvovirus, and sickle cell anemia, and ethnic cleansings, and tsunamis, not to mention big mortgages during economic downturns, and violent husbands, and bitter, vitriolic wives, and let us not forget the biggie- death. We are all future dead cats of one stripe or another, and everyone knows it.

So, how do we deal with this problem of dead cats? Well, most people don't deal with it at all, really. Their stomachs clench. They make a face, and mouth a silent "Ewww!" They tell their children in the back seat "Don't look! Don't look!" or "Play with your Gameboy!" or "Jesus loves the little kitties, and this is how He brings them home." But mostly, they try to sweep it out of their consciousness just as quickly as possible, so that life can go on being good just as before. Because deep down, everybody knows he's a dead cat in the making, and he really doesn't want to think about that. This is why people get so mad at pessimists, and especially at pessimistic antinatalists, because we keep rubbing dead cats in their faces. Nobody likes that. Can't blame them, I suppose.

Anyway, I got to thinking about the people I've read over the years who've actually tried to deal with the problem of dead cats instead of simply ignoring them. And you know what? All their answers that fall short of antinatalism are ABSOLUTELY FUCKING LAME! The theists tell us that all good little cats go to heaven, while the bad little cats are consigned to alleys-turned-gauntlets filled with eternally thrown boots and catcalls, with no clean litter boxes to be found. The Buddhists tell us that cats are illusions, including the pain they feel when the Atman lights their tails on fire. The dumbass existentialists encourage us to fuck the dead cats and pretend their silence is purring acquiescence. Alan Watts, god love him, posited that if life were REALLY so abhorrent that the universe would simply stop producing cats and close the curtain for good. And Will Durant, my favorite synthetic historian, only managed to salvage a shred of optimism by maintaining that even though a cat's life is generally a miserable one, and always ends poorly, each one can find some solace in feeling that he, and he alone, is the King of the cats!

I guess that's enough for meow.

Fly-ridden kitten
Ear to the ground
One with the pavement
Rockin' with the sound

Waitin' for the chariot
To come and take you home
Away from all this busyness
Of rubber tires and chrome

Cataclysmic Astral Phenomena Are Best Viewed With Your Head in the Sand

From the 'watercooler conversations' thread. This interchange between commenters filrabat and CM highlights the disconnect many opponents of antinatalism experience when reason collides with a cherished belief i.e. that bringing new people into the world is a good thing:

Last Days on Earth, about ten disasters that could render humanity extinct or nearly so. @ 2:32 a woman's answers the question "What would you do if you learned a giant asteroid were about to hit the earth soon?" that she'd have kids, even if she acknowledges there'd be a certain selfishness in it. Most of the video posts commenters REALLY tore into her! Still, I think the only reason they did so is that the consequences were immediate and staring in our face. Apparently, most of us are good at taking the ultimate good step ONLY when the threat is imminent and obvious. Even so, it shows we CAN choose if we're sufficiently motivated.

By filrabat on Watercooler Conversations on 4/26/11

filrabat- the comments on that video are a gold mine! "bring one more person into the world to suffer and die....how selfish" "so you are going to bring more life into existence just to expect death?" Apparently, these people think their children will be immortal and suffering-free. Priceless. But I suppose if push really came to shove, everyone would quickly "realize" that a life that lasts for several years in a collapsed society followed by burning to death is better than no life at all...

By CM on Watercooler Conversations on 4/26/11

Each person inhabits a world whose particulars are unlike any other, a world unique in terms of space, time, and all the subjective moments which serve to delineate one from all the rest. World after world, rising out of the dust of chaos. Patterns of force deriving their energies from the entropy of the universe, formed of the last gasps of stars that once burned brightly, but are no more. Vortexes whirling like dervishes in the midst of flux and decay.

For each of these worlds, there's a giant asteroid on the way. Its path is straight, its target is clear, and its existence is absolutely undeniable. What's the difference between placing a child in front of a loaded gun, and bringing it into a world where it must one day face the giant asteroid? Deniability. Psychological distancing. Ambiguous, ungrounded feelings of hope that "oh, everything will probably turn out alright."

Then again, we put our children in front of loaded guns all the time, don't we? There's that national/cultural/species vicarious immortality rearing its ugly head once again. Stand up for what's good and true. Defend the dignity of the human spirit. Always buy savings bonds. But whatever else you do, for crissakes- DON'T LOOK UP!

There's a giant asteroid coming with your name on it.

Call for Papers

An opportunity for the academically inclined amongst you. Thanks to commenter Rob for the heads up!

Comfortably Numb

The epitome of artistically rendered angst, and a damned good listen. Enjoy.



Try to catch the whole album sometime, for those youngsters who haven't heard it yet.

Doing Time on Planet Earth (or, I know no Godot, only the waiting)

When you kick back and listen to all the sounds around you, you get the sense it's all just a cacophony of static. The sirens blaring by. The neighborhood dogs responding. The background of crickets and rustling leaves. Your stomach gurgling. Your heartbeat drumming softly on the inside of your eardrums. Tires on asphalt. The tiny whir of insect wings. Skin respiring. Toenails growing. The crackle of cigarette paper. A slight creaking in your right elbow. And all those thoughts, one after the other and in bunches, your mind a kaleidoscope of random, mostly unconnected clips that you nevertheless try to spin into a workable haversack in which to tote your sense of self around. But, wait a minute! Who is it doing the spinning, the hearing, the dreaming? Nobody, really. Watch the coffee grounds circling the drain. Did you glimpse a face there, just for a moment? Or a flash of scenery that took you back to an earlier time?

As far as I can tell, there are no selves. No you. No me. No he, nor she. Just stuff, whirling around and interacting according to very basic impulses, drawing rather wiggly pictures on what amounts to a quite sizable Etch-A-Sketch screen. All random within the confines of its limited nature, but reflecting upon itself in such a way as to confuse partially memorized patterns with a belief in order. In place. In time. However, while there is no self per se, there IS a sense of self, a complex of feedback loops feigning isolation in the midst of flux. This is what's generally referred to as 'consciousness', a hall of synaptic mirrors with the peculiar ability to adapt to its own generated illusions. And so, in this way, chimera becomes trapped within walls of pseudo-solidity, a nexus of reflection caught in the Narcissistic delusion of false light, praying for simultaneous change and endurance under a sky where the stars are going out one by one, shitting its pants over the encroaching darkness and coping the only way it knows how. By imagination, and replication. Think Hilbert's Hotel, only replace 'Hotel' with 'Prison Block' and you'll get the picture. On the other hand, my gratuitous/necessary use of pronouns, including all the implied ones, probably negates a lot of what I have to say here. Ah, language.

Feeling Lucky?

Never Keep Your Eggs in One Basket- A Vicarious Immortality Tale

So, I'm imagining this guy who's been condemned to death for making unauthorized shadow puppets of the Pope, or some such thing. The method of execution is decapitation, in the days before the relatively clean implementation of the guillotine, when the axeman sometimes had to chop away at the neck for awhile before the head eventually dropped off. The axeman raises his weapon, and the guy immediately soils his jodhpurs and starts shrieking in terror. The axeman, who's really a decent sort of bloke who is, after all, only doing his job (everybody has to make a living), feels sorry for the guy. And so, he whispers below the clamor of the bloodthirsty mob viewing the proceedings-

"Not to worry, my friend, for I happen to know that your children have been secreted away to a place beyond the reach of your enemies. And so, you see, you will live on through the lives of your children, and their children, and so on, and so forth."

Then the call is made- BATTER UP!- and the axeman takes his swing! Once! Twice! Thrice! Um...Quatro! until the head finally falls loose into the basket. And I'll be damned if the guy's head isn't wearing a smile, face down, there at the bottom of the basket.