The New Republic

Hmm... 1. Life is dangerous. No one gets out alive. 2. People live much longer than they used to (in general). 3. In the past, human life was fairly cheap. People died in genocides and wars, of preventable diseases, digging mines and building railroads, in childbirth, and so on. Now that we are harder to knock off so easily, life is becoming more precious. We are taking greater exception to accidents (such as the Cruise Ship fiasco) that knock off humans carelessly, but also worrying about our non-human companions. My local public library branch has a display up touting the benefits of vegetarianism and veganism; my wife would not dream of eating one of our hens and weeps when one of them gets sick or has an accident and expires. 4. Soon each new child will be wrapped in cotton wool shorty after birth and perpetually guarded by a robot-android duenna who strives to protect the child from any misfortune so it can live forever. 5. One of the books sitting on my bookshelf (so far unfinished) is The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweill. Mr. Kurzweill believes that in a few decades humans will merge with artificial intelligences and become immortal. 6. I am a suspicious non-believing cynic. I do not believe in God, Heaven or Hell, or life after death. I doubt that Mr. Kurzweill (who is, admittedly a very bright man and much smarter than I am) is correct in his optimism. Either he is a) incorrect and will die (like the rest of us) one of these days or b) he is dangerously sort of correct and will, in fact, succeed in creating something like the up to now imaginary concept of Hell in reality. 7. In any case, be careful, whether you take a cruise ship, ride on an airplane, walk down the street, or get up out of bed tomorrow morning. Good luck.

- skahn

January 16, 2012 at 7:24pm

Respectfully, what does this have to do with the senseless loss of life due to negligence, apparently, on this particular ship? There's no way it should have run aground and the crew should have been prepared. No doubt, it's better than the Titanic. Tell it to the people who lost their loved ones, skahn.

- Sophia

January 16, 2012 at 11:44pm

Sophia, thank you for your comment. As far as I know, we cannot go back and change the past. Not in Italy, and not even where we live. All we can do is live in the present and sensibly prepare for the future, which none of us can see with great certainty. I take fish oil and a baby aspirin each day. I fasten my seat belt and shoulder harness when I drive, and try to focus on the road and not distract myself by talking on the telephone. I start my generator once a month (outside the basement, so I don't carbon monoxide myself). I have a storage tank of water outside our house in case of earthquake because when the power goes out, our well does not work. I volunteer for the local Red Cross because I am not smart enough, not skillful enough, and not knowledgeable enough to serve as a "first responder" or "second responder." What do you do? (I don't mean this as a "third degree," or as an insult; I suspect you do sensible things to prepare for future personal and community calamities.) While I have no admiration for, no excuse for, and no defense of the captain and crew of the Italian cruise liner that ran aground and caused loss of life, I will politely suggest that none of us can ever be sure that someone will not someday be saying to you or I something along the lines of "Tell it to the people who lost their loved ones, skahn or Sophia."

- skahn

January 17, 2012 at 1:56pm

Skahn the behavior of your arteries is not a commercial enterprise, making a profit, and you don't have a choice about aging.

- Sophia

January 17, 2012 at 3:45pm