The problem with death positivists

The problem with death positivists

Hi all, and behold - i'm back on SteemIt :)

I've actually been planning this for a while but was waiting for a good article subject that wasn't just more of the same so here we are.

As the title suggests, this article is about the problem with death positivists or the "death positive" movement. To understand what i'm talking about we'll first need to agree on some definitions. First though, one important principle must be understood: the dictionary (or self-stated)  definition of any social or political movement is often not the same as the actual reality of that movement.

To avoid excessive controversy i'm not going to give examples of that principle, but keep it in mind as it's key to my criticism here.

So, the first definition is this: the definition of the death positive movement as given by death positivists themselves.

For their definition, I can find no better example than this one: http://www.orderofthegooddeath.com/death-positive

Upon reading that, it's not really objectionable at all and is essentially about being honest and open about death and related subjects, talking about end of life wishes etc. That's all good stuff and to be encouraged.

Another definition, one that most who read this blog will already know but which i'll restate is the definition of transhumanism, or at least the definition of the term as used by myself. That one is simple enough: the idea that we should use technology to enhance the human condition and to overcome our limits.

"Our limits" includes our lifespan of course - I believe that we should use whatever medical technology we need to extend the human lifespan and to live longer, happier and healthier lives - I also believe that this is self-evident to anyone who ponders the subject for long enough and isn't held back by superstitious religious beliefs.

Finally, the term "deathist" or "deathists": this is a term used by people (like me) who believe that radical life extension is a good thing, to refer to those who believe in the opposite: that death is desirable and/or good. This term is also often used to refer to religious beliefs that believe death isn't real (like the vast majority of religions that teach belief in an afterlife - that is not death, that is continuing to live in some other form) and therefore physical death is fine or a good thing.

Deathism is a related term that simply refers to the worldview of deathists - the belief that death is a good or desirable thing.

So what's the issue?

Earlier today I caused a bit of drama on twitter when I ranted about a death positive conference taking place, going so far as to say "fuck deathists" referring to the people organising and attending the conference.

The reason for this comes down to that principle I mentioned above - although death positivists claim to just be about open discussion about death and making our wishes clear etc (to be clear, all good things - no subject should be a total taboo and death is an issue that very much should be discussed) it seems whenever they get together in large groups they both attract and promote deathists and deathism.

I really wish this wasn't true, but so many of the speeches and talks at this conference revolve around the concept of death being something natural to accept and not to fight, and plenty is filled with outright scare tactics against transhumanism with references to "evil robots".

The conference today for example has a decidedly feminist bent and the keynote speech had the speaker discussing why the future is "not evil robots, it's female" - inherently suggesting that transhumanist ideals are anti-women or sexist.

The other speakers are a mix of professionals such as funeral directors, some of them giving quite neutral (and from where i'm standing actually quite interesting looking) talks and some of them giving rather more ideologically charged talks and a few artistic types. As someone with some darker tastes in music and art i'd probably love some of the arty stuff put out by these folks in any other context, and in my teens I would undoubtedly have been trying to nervously chat up all the goth girls and buying up all the cool little macabre gifts, but as an adult something about this disturbs me.

What disturbs me is I know that the mix of art, music and ideology on display here is following the same patterns as seen in every religion and cult in history. When you go somewhere and have a fun time with all the right aesthetics that appeal to you (it's no surprise that goths are flocking to this event - the goth aesthetic is everywhere) while someone presents an enemy (those transhumanists want the future to be evil robots!) it's going to lead to deeply ingrained views that no amount of rational and scientific evidence will shift anytime soon without a lot of work.

It's not just this one conference either - every time i've seen someone say they're "death positive" they've let slip that they're against life extension and actively want to die.

The phrase "death positive" does not have the meaning stated by its proponents, it very clearly has the actual literal meaning of the phrase - these people actually want to die, but worse - they want you to die and me to die and they will pull out every excuse in the book to justify why that is the good and natural thing.

For those who don't believe me on this: ask someone from the death positive movement if they're interested in researching how to actually prevent death - their "let's be open about death" is limited to anthropological study at best and their "let's be open about our wishes" actually has an implied "unless we wish to be frozen or wish not to die".

I really wish it WAS just a bunch of goths partying - I love it when goths party. I love it even more when augmented goths party, where are my augmented goths?

[edit] I feel obligated to update this with one thing - I'm very much for goth girls, but I want them to be immortal goth girls - this update is not entirely serious

[another edit] this one more serious, here's a few examples of what i'm talking about:
Some slides from the keynote speech:

https://twitter.com/GesaGottschalk/status/888726539424190464

https://twitter.com/CrimesATHblog/status/888680415086727168

https://twitter.com/MsMaggieMayhem/status/888685939203211264

Note that the above tweets are NOT necessarily examples of the relevant twitter users themselves being deathist, just examples of people who were present to witness the keynote speech talking about the content of that speech. I reproduce the links here only to show the nature of the keynote speech and the individual twitter users above may or may not be in agreement with that general message.