December 2014 Media Thread

ArisKatsaris

This is the monthly thread for posting media of various types that you've found that you enjoy. Post what you're reading, listening to, watching, and your opinion of it. Post recommendations to blogs. Post whatever media you feel like discussing! To see previous recommendations, check out the older threads.

Rules:

Please avoid downvoting recommendations just because you don't personally like the recommended material; remember that liking is a two-place word. If you can point out a specific flaw in a person's recommendation, consider posting a comment to that effect.
If you want to post something that (you know) has been recommended before, but have another recommendation to add, please link to the original, so that the reader has both recommendations.
Please post only under one of the already created subthreads, and never directly under the parent media thread.
Use the "Other Media" thread if you believe the piece of media you want to discuss doesn't fit under any of the established categories.
Use the "Meta" thread if you want to discuss about the monthly media thread itself (e.g. to propose adding/removing/splitting/merging subthreads, or to discuss the type of content properly belonging to each subthread) or for any other question or issue you may have about the thread or the rules.

Rules:

Please avoid downvoting recommendations just because you don't personally like the recommended material; remember that liking is a two-place word. If you can point out a specific flaw in a person's recommendation, consider posting a comment to that effect.
If you want to post something that (you know) has been recommended before, but have another recommendation to add, please link to the original, so that the reader has both recommendations.
Please post only under one of the already created subthreads, and never directly under the parent media thread.
Use the "Other Media" thread if you believe the piece of media you want to discuss doesn't fit under any of the established categories.
Use the "Meta" thread if you want to discuss about the monthly media thread itself (e.g. to propose adding/removing/splitting/merging subthreads, or to discuss the type of content properly belonging to each subthread) or for any other question or issue you may have about the thread or the rules.

An article about cryonics and Alcor which interviews Max More:

The Art of Not Dying

http://motherboard.vice.com/en_ca/read/the-art-of-not-dying-or-being-frozen-until-you-can-come-back

Wesley J. Smith, a conservative bioethicist, criticizes transhumanism as a new religious movement here:

http://www.nationalreview.com/human-exceptionalism/393646/give-me-new-time-transhumanism-wesley-j-smith

I suspect some of the resistance to transhumanism by conservatives, Objectivists and secular humanists derives from "Not Invented Here" thinking: The "wrong" sorts of people from outside their respective tribes came up with this idea, instead of the ones who already held high status in them. Ironically many of Alcor's early participants shared conservatives' belief in limited government, admired Ayn Rand's Objectivism and agreed with the basic principles of the philosophical materialism underlying secular humanism.

For example:

Many Are Cold But Few Are Frozen

http://www.cryocare.org/index.cgi?subdir=&url=humanist.html

How Ayn Rand Didn't Get Frozen

http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/HowAynRandDidntGetFrozen.html