Posted by Jeffrey Paul Soreff on September 26, 2000 at 20:39:18:
(essay, codes n/a)
I thought you might be interested in some comments
on your web pages at Sam's place.
If not, please consider this an
apology in advance.
I can tell you a little about myself. I'm in my thirties, normal life mostly, a
bit of a Goth tendency.
Yeah, I've got a guy to go to when I leave here.
Sure,
he knows I'm here, but he likes me, all of me, and he likes me free. And he
doesn't mind. I'm lucky in that. I'm well-educated, intelligent. And vain, I
guess. I write, I suppose Sam told you. It doesn't sell, but hey, I'm in
Hollywood, if you don't have something "in development" they don't let you in
the City limits. I have a lot of very good friends that range a wide spectrum of
interests and attitudes. Like Sam, I like myths and mysticism, and that's part
of my life too. If it sounds like I'm mostly content, I guess you're right. Oh,
there's the usual crap that happens to people, but I'm sure it's happened to you
too, huh?
Suicidal? No way, Jose. I mean yeah, sometimes life is a bit much. But what a
terrible way to die...all alone? And for such an awful reason. I like to think
death should be the crown of all, and not some pathetic last resort.
Am I a feminist? I guess...I'm a feminist of the old school, a believer that
women can and should be capable of taking care of themselves, of living in this
real world with all its stresses and not collapsing in hysteria, of finding out
for themselves what they want and going after it, of defending themselves. And
believe me, I do.
And you know what? Non-consensual stuff may be an amusing fantasy, but I think
abusing a child should result in immediate removal from the gene pool. Hurting
another adult without their consent is just one step down. I can think of a few
punishments for that, too.
No, I wasn't abused as a child. I've had a very few close scrapes with
molestation and rape. But I had family to talk to, people to take care of me
when I was younger.
Nowadays I handle it all myself. See this pretty thing? This
is my knife. Not as fancy as Sam's, but it does the job.
Yeah, either job. You know, I'm never quite sure what the real reason I carry it
is.
No, I'm under no illusions that I might not end up raped or hurt against my will
someday, but I'm careful, and if it happens I'll deal with it as best I can as
have so many other women.
I know, I know. You bought a girl a drink...why in the hell should you care?
Because you should know that my fantasies aren't because I'm repressed, or
abused, or because I don't have a life. I've had erotic fantasies of my own
death since I was a small child, since before I even knew what "erotic" was.
My early dreams and fantasies involved being hunted, eaten, killed.
They were
cartoonish and unrealistic, no sex involved. As I got older I discovered sex. I
discovered Gilles de Rais, and Dracula, and serial killers...
I fought those feelings when I reached college and had my feminist conversion.
Want to guess how long that lasted? Wrong. Two weeks, maximum. Then I realized
that denying my feelings was like abusing myself. So what did I do? I found
partners I could trust with my feelings. I learned about consensual S/M and
fulfilled nearly every fantasy I could.
To the extent that I'm masochistic in real life it is in odd places:
When I donate blood, I find the warmth of the tube taking my
life's blood from me, while not overtly erotic, at least sensual.
I've signed up as a bone marrow donor. Being on the operating
table while they suck the marrow from my pelvis is about as
close as I can get to playing the sacrificial victim (if they ever
find a tissue match who can use me, anyway).
I'm not sure myself to what extent I'm playing at being the
good citizen versus being the victim on the altar. Both, to some extent...
Of course, in both cases I've got a perfectly good excuse for
what I do. The blood (and marrow, if they find a tissue match)
will be used. Neither is actually imprudent
(not that safe/sane/consensual S/M is imprudent either).
And enjoyed it, found it made me
happier, more secure rather than less so.
And it got more intense as I got older. More pain. More danger. It's pretty
extreme, now...and yeah, sure, I love it.
But. Yeah, there's a big question mark in that one, isn't there? If it keeps
getting more intense... You know, I'd like to sit over there, by you, do
you mind?
Anyway...my desire to die at the hands of a lover has not gone away, not
changed, not grown less intense as I've grown older, more successful. It doesn't
increase when I'm unhappy, it doesn't grow quiet when I'm ecstatic. It is always
there, always a part of me. I think of it every day and I have for twenty-five
years.
You know what? We all have our fantasies. Some of us have the luxury of
being able to act them out and live through it. Some of us have fantasies that
can't be lived out at all, at any cost. And then there's me. If I choose to, I
can live mine out. If I can find a willing partner. If I'm willing to give up my
happy life. If I'm willing to hurt those I love and those who love me by leaving
them early and in a violent way. If I'm willing to risk damage to my lover by
letting him bear the aftermath, the loss of me and the possibility of arrest.
If.
So far that hasn't happened. But let me tell you this. I don't know if you can
understand my fantasy, but even if you can't, that doesn't make me crazy for
wanting it, myself. There are millions of people in this world who think that
homosexuals are crazy for having "unnatural" sexual desires. And just because
some people don't have to live out their fantasies doesn't mean anyone has the
right to judge me because I may choose to live out mine. We all decide how many
of the visions in our heads we are willing to bring out into the light. That's a
personal choice, part of creating our lives, and it's no one's choice but mine.
Just like your choices are yours. You're here, so I guess you're not the type to
judge, huh?
I love my life...but you know what? I never forget that we all leave it some
time. After a long hospital stay...on a hotel room floor of a sudden heart
attack...hit by a falling bookshelf when the next big quake hits. Doesn't
matter. It's gonna happen.
I may decide to make the moment of my passing more
meaningful, an act of love and of passion, rather than letting time, illness or
accident steal that moment from me.
And the best thing about a place like this...if you think that anyone I could
find to kill me would be some evil, vicious sadist, some predator, and that it
couldn't be an act of love, look around. Maybe even...look inside? There are
those of us out there whose partners satisfy our desires for pain, for
humiliation, for control. They love us, they do this often because they love us,
sometimes doing things to us that they would not choose left to themselves. It
may not be a love you recognize, but I've seen its face and it is love. The
thought of someone who loved me being willing to give me up to make my ultimate
desire a reality brings tears to my eyes. It is that person that must deal with
the horror that follows. The person who dies has it easy, in this respect.
You know, I don't understand it. Why in the hell can't I consent to my death? If
I am being granted increasingly larger rights to kill myself, why can't I ask
someone to kill me? My body is my own; if I'm forced to have sex, sure, that's
rape, but if I give it willingly that's allowed. Why isn't it the same with
this, with my life? Why can't we make a distinction between a life raped from
someone and a life given willingly? And between those who would never take such
a thing by force and those who would and do?
I'm sorry. Sam said I get fiery; he said I'm intelligent. Maybe too much of
both? I didn't mean to talk your ear off. Nibble on it, maybe, but not bore you
to death.
I don't have any fantasies of killing someone. I leave that to Sam.
I guess all
I want to say is that nobody should decide that dying for sex is sordid,
twisted, that only sociopaths and white trash do things like kill women, and
only weak little victims die by their hands.
Maybe you've got a few odd fantasies of your own, things you'd never have chosen
that nonetheless seem to have chosen you? I'd like to hear about them. There's
nothing I've heard of yet, except hurting children or the unwilling, that I
thought was bad. And there are very few I didn't find arousing in one way or the
other.
Just don't make a snap decision about who I am because I hang out in a joint
like this. I, and those like me, don't walk an easy path. But some of us walk it
with our eyes open. Not erotic enough for you? Did you want to hear about how I
want to die; do you want to hear about how I think it'll feel when the blade
goes into me?
Then go read my stories. And then let me buy you another drink.
One warning about a bias in what I have to say.
I know I overvalue prudence.
I'm the sort of person whe doesn't smoke
or drink, who wears seatbelts, who set up
cryonics suspension arrangements, who
prepared for the y2k rollover. In a
trade-off between prudence and passion,
my position almost certainly undervalues
passion, but I have no way of estimating
by how much.
And now I should explain why hanging on by our fingernails may
buy more than usual, at least from my viewpoint.
Normally, the sole prospect of a sufficiently long life is the slow
deterioration of aging. If that were the only thing I could look
forward to, I'd find an erotic death very tempting.
There is, however, a long shot that in a few decades we may
have a technology,
molecular nanotechnology, which will
let us build damn nearly anything,
including replacement cells for our own bodies,
young cells.
Robert Frietas has worked out many of the potential
medical applications.
Admittedly, this is a proposed application for a technology
which doesn't yet exist, so this counts as a projection on top
of a projection. Nonetheless, if we can implement this,
the prize for hanging on say another 20-30 years may be,
not the usual stay in a nursing home, but regaining as
healthy a body as adolescents have.
This is the possible first order win from nanotechnology.
There is also a second order win directly relevant to
people like us, see below.
I have a very minor role in all this.
I try to stir the pot a little, writing
summaries of other peoples' work, trying
to get person A to hear a bit more about what person B
has done.
I've been doing this for about 5 years.
The development of nanotechnology is risky.
There are some
terrible weapons that it will make possible.
It may even be that military balances will become so
unstable a nuclear war might be triggered.
"perhaps great things, perhaps terrible things, perhaps nothing at all"
Since I have had a role, albeit a very minor one, in this, I want to
see what happens, win or lose, so I personally
have an additional incentive to hang on and see what happens next.
If nanotechnology happens, there will be one hell of a dice roll.
I've mentioned that I've made cryonics arrangements
(the limiting case of hanging on by one's fingernails,
frozen fingernails :-) ).
Even if cryonics patients are never revived, I do get a
minor consolation prize. As you've said, we're being
granted increasing rights over our deaths. It seems
likely that by the time I'm diagnosed with something
terminal that assisted suicide will be allowed. Since
pre-mortem cooling of a patient is a help in getting a
good quality suspension, I may have the option of
stepping into an ice bath under my own steam.
At least I'd get a last show of bravado and a somewhat
sensual death...
I mentioned that there is a second order win
from nanotechnology for us.
Very roughly speaking, D. Que has it
surprisingly close to right in his
Wilting Lotus story. No, you can't just attach a few
wires to a chip in a cloned body and pump all of the memories
back into it. (You also can't transmit signals through nerves
which are getting no oxygen.) One has to
physically rearrange synapses. It might be feasible by distributing nanoscale
robots through the volume of the cloned brain and have each of them rearrange
local connections. Personally, I'd bet on building up the new brains layer by
layer, probably while frozen, setting up the connections during the initial
construction of the new brain. The basic capability of nanotechnology is
the ability to position small clumps of atoms to a precision of an atomic
diameter (in one sense, this has been done for over a decade at this point).
Positioning neurons to the precision of a neuron's
diameter is a considerably less stringent task, and should allow building
or rebuilding a brain with memories embedded in it.
(I tend to think that we'll build bodies from the ground up in a
similar way, rather than cloning, but we'll see.)
By a similar token,
instruments on a scale accessible to nanotechnology can read off the
interconnections that hold our memories, either in a frozen brain
(see
this analysis of this approach to cryonics) or in a living one.
As a side note, no one expects these techniques to be developed
either by the cryonics community (which is tiny) or by this one.
They are generally useful medical techniques in the event of,
for example, trauma.
There's precedent for adapting medical techniques to radically
different purposes. Not too much of medicine was originally
developed for cosmetic surgery, but techniques can be applied
there regardless of their origins.
In any event, the basic idea is to look very closely at a brain,
capture the connections in it (which contain long term memory)
as data, then rebuild a brain using that data.
Scenarios:
Best wishes,
-Jeffrey Paul Soreff
P.S. I'd been using "handl2.718" here as a handle. A couple of posting here and on
the belly board were under that.