The Man with a Plan to Convert a Galaxy into Beer Cans

Nice Article, interesting guy  :)))

http://www.betterhumans.com/Features/Columns/Forward_Thinking/column.aspx?articleID=2003-11-17-3

Monday, November 17, 2003, 9:13:34 AM CT

The Man with a Plan to Convert a Galaxy into Beer Cans

Few people stretch the imagination as much as controversial theorist and
activist Keith Henson


There are those who take solace in convention. For them, societal norms are

a safety blanket and envisioning radical change is too unsettling. Then 
there's Keith Henson, who goes a long way to counterbalancing these 
futurephobes.

Anyone interested in stretching their imagination would do well to read 
Henson's writings, as there are few people as connected to today's 
cutting-edge thinkers and thinking. Since 1975, Henson has been involved 
with activities in such areas as space colonization, memetics, artificial 
life and nanotechnology, and made a name for himself as a prominent critic

of-and even refugee from-Scientology.

It's thanks to his Scientology-critic role that I was able to meet Henson 
recently in Toronto, where I grabbed a coffee at a hotel with him, his wife

Arel Lucas and Montreal "memetic engineer" David McFadzean.

Here, Henson, looking somewhat like a grandfatherly woodworker, discussed 
his past endeavors, his current pursuits, his future thinking and how 
tangling with Scientology landed him in Canada. "Some people think tomorrow

will be just like today," says Henson. "It ain't going to be that way, 
folks."

Far-out science

Henson's involvement in what many would call far-out science began in the 
mid-1970s. As engineering students at the University of Arizona in Tucson, 
Henson and then-partner Carolyn Meinel read an article called "The 
Colonization of Space" by Gerard K. O'Neill.

The article spurred them to found the L5 Society, named after the fifth 
Lagrangian point between the Earth and the Moon. Publishing its first issue

of L5 News in September 1975, the L5 Society existed "to educate the public

about the benefits of space communities and manufacturing facilities, to 
serve as a clearinghouse for information and news in this fast-developing 
area, and to raise funds to support work on these concepts where public
money is not available or is inappropriate."

The L5 Society, says Henson, hit about 10,000 people at its peak. While the

number is impressive for such a niche organization, the caliber of members 
makes it even more so. Early members included such people as Eric Drexler, 
Hans Moravec, Timothy Leary and Marvin Minsky. Its directors included Isaac

Asimov, Robert Heinlein and Freeman Dyson.

The Bean Dip Catastrophe

In 1987, the L5 Society merged with another organization, the National 
Space Institute, to become the then-16,000 member National Space Society.

Henson, however, became increasingly pessimistic about major space 
colonization happening anytime soon, and so moved on to new areas of 
thinking.

In 1987, he founded the Far Edge Committee to plan the Far Edge Party. 
Henson's thinking was that the only way to see our entire galaxy before it 
died was to create multiple copies of himself, using such undefined 
technologies as mind uploading. The copies would go and experience the 
galaxy and then return to share their memories. And they would meet in the
distant future at the other side of the Milky Way for a party.

About a thousand people were initially planning to attend this Far Edge 
Party, meaning that it would involve trillions of copies. Organizing the 
party therefore became a logistical challenge. The bean dip alone, 
organizers noted humorously, would weigh enough to form a black hole-a 
problem called "The Bean Dip Catastrophe." In his no doubt playfully  
subversive tone, Henson told Ed Regis, author of Great Mambo Chicken and 
the Transhuman Condition, "I expect to convert a whole galaxy into beer 
cans."

Henson has also been heavily involved in the cryonics community. Initially 
skeptical, he became a convert following Drexler's propositions about 
molecular-scale robots and how they could reconstruct tissue damaged by 
cryonic preservation. Henson signed up for cryonics with Lucas in 1988. The

two also convinced friends such as Leary to sign up as well and signed up 
their two-year-old daughter, Amber, who became the world's youngest 
prospective cryonics client.

Political refugee

Most recently, Henson came to widespread attention for his vocal criticism 
of Scientology. In April 2001, he was convicted of "interfering with a 
religion" after Scientology accused him of picketing its Golden Era 
Productions in Riverside, California, where two women-Ashlee Shaner and 
Stacy Meyer-had died. Scientology has also successfully sued him for  
excerpting its scriptures, and Henson has been forced into bankruptcy.

Following the 2001 verdict, Henson promptly fled to Canada where he claimed

political refugee status in an effort to force the US government to examine

what he calls a "criminal conspiracy" between the Hemet District Attorney's

office and Scientology to deprive him of his civil rights. "At the time, I 
was the only American seeking refugee status in Canada," he says.

Despite his present woes with Scientology-he says that bounty hunters would

come after him if he reentered the US-Henson is still focused on the 
future, especially the speed with which change can happen, as demonstrated 
by the rapidity with which computer viruses can spread throughout the 
Internet.

But there's a sense that he's at least partly preoccupied with his current 
predicament. "What would happen if you went back to the States?" McFadzean 
asks Henson during our gathering. "I'd be killed," he quickly replies.

For now, Henson lives about one-and-a-half hours outside of Toronto, where 
he's pursuing his interests in evolutionary psychology and memetics, 
writing about such topics as sex, drugs and cults and the evolutionary 
origins of war. He's also doing electronic design and working on hobby 
projects such as a badge camera that works as a memory prosthesis, 
recording audio and video in a device the size of a credit card.

So for those who worried about the eclectic thinker after his recent 
run-ins with Scientology, take heart: After crossing the border, Henson's 
alive and well and still pushing boundaries

---
Yes, George W. Bush is an unelected baby killing fascist dictator.
Also: Scientology's International President (Audio files of this 
nutter available at http://www.linkline.com/personal/frice )
Your odd claim is technically known as "A crock o' shit." - Shydavid