Introducing myself: Desmond Gorven

[Des]

Hi

 

I'm Desmond Gorven.

 

I was born in 1962 in Durban, South Africa, and live In Johannesburg, South Africa.

 

I really enjoy my life, and that is why I don't want it to end. I think I have been fortunate genetically and by having parents who stayed together and spent time with me, especially in that my father spent time with me, which I am now aware has become unusual in some cultures.

 

To repeat a point because it is really important to understanding me: I don't want my life to end, and I want to get something done about the approaching end, while I have time to get something done. I am not planning to develop all the nanotech it will take to extend my health. I am attempting to inspire other people to do that. I am attempting to inspire wealthy people to fund that research and development.

 

I joined this message board with at least 3 aims in mind:

1. To get advice/assistance/promotion for the R&D that will get me an extension of life.
2. To discuss ethics as it relates to the aim of not having my life cut short by evil act(s).
3. To interact with people with intellectual leanings and a capacity to refine arguments.

If you are really interested in understanding my thinking, There is a playlist of videos I have uploaded to youtube. You can find the playlist with this search:

 

https://www.google.co.za/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&rlz=1C1ASUM_enZA521ZA521&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=youtube%20desmond%20gorven%20playlist

 

[AccuTron]

I'll check out your playlist.  Anything else you can say about the topic of research you desire?  

 

(If you've been following various news and forum topics, then the better phrase would be "honest research.")

[Des]

I can say about research into nanotech, that in about 1994 I got a copy of http://e-drexler.com/p/06/00/EOC_Cover.html

 

I read it and got some important perspectives from it. I want to discuss nanotech, to sharpen my understanding of what can be done, and to influence the planning for the future. No benefit to me if I get a panacea and then get killed by a moving vehicle or an armed robber.

[Des]

Below is a link to something important which just happened. In the linked post I add some details about my circumstances.

 

<Relief at the end of a horrible experience>

[Des]

 

I am reflecting on the idea of being a new person, as an ancient observation, incorporated into religions in the past, indoctrinated into me as the christian doctrine of salvation. I was supposedly a new person after my father ceremonially baptised me at age 16 (in the community swimming pool at a rural hospital [founded by a Swedish mission society], here in South Africa).  I heard many stories, at christian camps and such, by other teens or young adults who had tried drugs or something, and the story would go that they were saved by Jesus and now a new person. I just did not really feel different, though, I felt as I had always felt.

Both before that, and after that, I had tension between my desire for sexual pleasure and what I understood to be god's restrictions on that.

I remember fear of hell, in childhood.

I remember my father explaining that a man should be celibate, but if he can't manage that, he should marry one wife (this his advice in response to the tension I have just mentioned).

I remember being angry, when I was a father of two young children, angry at my wife for not participating in creating an image of a perfect christian family (I only wanted the image, for social coinage, actually I still refused to accept the sexual restrictions [my wife and I had that refusal-to-accept, in common]).

I remember suddenly realising that I am atheist. I had made marriage vows addressed to a non-existent being (I faced an [Anglican] priest, who asked me on behalf of the non-existent deity, and my answer was to the deity]), and now I comprehended what I had done, saying that I had a deity inside me, inspiring my decisions, when I had always had doubt about that, had allowed my doubt to be overridden by parents who were very attentive, and poured their beliefs into me with their attention.

Before that point, I had felt suicidal at one time, over my wife's disregard of my reasonably valuable social image. I actually faked a suicide attempt, to make my point.

At the point, a year or two later, with my children aged 7 and 8, when I realised I am atheist, I had a crisis, and at first found no support for my position of unbelief.

At that point I felt different. I had been doing what I understood I ought to do, and adding my preferences on top of that. At that point I realised that the whole family life thing was not my choice by my free preference, but by the assumptions that people around me had made, which I had absorbed, and by my father's advice on sex, and my mother's talking about male children and the family name.

Within a year or two, I had processed the divorce, and understood that I was most angry with myself, and that the resolution of my anger was to identify my error that helped lead to the angry emotion, accept that it was my error, and go back to "counting my blessings"(god-free version).

I felt different again, when I practiced resolving my feelings of anger. Since then, anger has felt much more like mild annoyance.

 

Many years and a number of girlfriends later, when I read about Julian Assange, and I searched for a book he mentioned (The God that failed), and found instead Hans Herman Hoppe's book of similar title, I read Hoppe's work, and understood why we need to retire all governments.

At that point I did feel really new.

I was never again going to do fundraising for a political party, as I had, some years earlier.

 

Some years and another few girlfriends later, I started watching Stefan's videos, and some time after that, I realised the role of my childhood of being dominated by the hierarchy of god, father, mother and older sisters - in my anger - and I realised I had done wrong to my own children, and to those of more than one ex-gf, by dominating them like that. Again, I am different. I play with the child of one of my ex-gf's, regularly about twice a week, either swimming or cycling, and I have no desire to dominate her (the child) (or the ex-gf, for that matter   ).

This is a link to the above post

 

(Which I now see you do not need, because there is a link in the top-right of the above quote box)