"Ian Watson - Ahead!" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watson Ian)

powerful right wing groups (but it's the outcome which counts).
So whilst awaiting decapitation (now a proud word!) there was quite a
sense of emotional and intellectual solidarity.
As regards storage or tagging of our heads, would a distinction be made
between idealists such as ourselves нн and those who were incurably ill or
who had despaired of their current lives нн and so-called Obligatories?
Initially, the Obligatories would be processed separately by the Justice
or Medical systems. Would storage be mixed or segregated? This remained
unclear. We had no wish to stir any suspicion of discrimination! Surely
there was a significant distinction between idealists and non-idealists.
The permission/identification form we all signed upon registering
contained a box reserved for our motive.
Reportedly, the majority of idealists would be withdrawing from the world
for altruistic, ecological reasons. Too many people on the planet for the
health of the world! These volunteers would forgo their lives.
Enthusiasts such as myself nursed more personal motives, although I would
never call those motives selfish. Immortality is not a selfish concept but
is a watchword of faith in the survival and advancement of the human race.
Immortality treasures what we have been, what we are, and what we shall
become in the huge aeons ahead of us.
In a state of considerable excitement, we of the Immortalist Network
confided the motives which we had inserted in our box.
To share in the Future.
To know what will be.
To reach the Stars. (That was mine.)
To strive, to seek, to find.
Manifest destiny of Homo Sap!
p = fp nc fl fi fc . (Which is the famous Drake Equation for the number of
extraterrestrial civilisations out in space.)
Even: To go boldly.
And, wittily: I want to keep ahead. (To Keep A Head. Ho!)
In the future world, would our heads be provided with new bodies? New
bottles for the old wine, as it were? The Forethought Institute assured us
that nanotechnology was just around the corner. Another thirty or forty
years, judging by state of the art and according to Delphi Polls. Eighty
years at the most. Working in vats of raw materials, millions of
molecule-size programmed assemblers would speedily construct, if not
living bodies, then at least excellent artificial prosthetic bodies. These
might be preferable to living bodies, being more resilient and versatile.
Even failing this, surely our minds could be mapped into electronic
storage with the processing capacity to simulate entire virtual-reality
worlds, as well as interfacing with the real world. Those who had
despaired would be fulfilled. Idealists would reap their reward.
Ought criminal Obligatories to receive resilient versatile new bodies?
Should their electronic versions be allowed full access to a
virtual-reality domain? That was for the future to decide нн a future
where the roots of mischief were better understood, and could be pruned or
edited.
With what hopes and longings I approach the decapitation clinic on this my
last day. My healthy organs will be harvested for transplants. My heart