Episode 38: Death

The Charles C. W. Cooke Podcast

National Review

News, Politics, Music, Arts, Books, Music History

5 • 1000 Ratings

🗓️ 10 August 2023

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On episode 38, Charles talks to the novelist Lionel Shriver about immortality, the topic of her recent cover story at National Review. What are the personal and societal implications of immortality? What drives her to write about that topic? Does Lionel want to live forever herself? What would be her biggest fear if she could attain eternal life? Is she more bored than she was 15 years ago? What does she feel when she thinks about the size of the universe? Is Charles wrong to find it sad that, at some point soon, all his memories will be completely and permanently obliterated? Is there any point in living for a long time if you spend all your time extending your life and not much time living it?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to episode 38 of the Luther Ray Abel podcast. Since I last did a show I've
0:20.6	been floating around the ether, haunting any fortunate or unfortunate soul who hasn't
0:26.0	decreased the power to zirconium antigravity containers, you know about those.
0:32.0	But haunting is actually not all it's cracked up to be.
0:34.2	Certainly it's fun to elicit terror and people who haven't been eaten by strange whaling
0:38.6	creatures, but you know after the first few screams and yelps you realize that eternity is a long time
0:45.9	and then you're gonna need to fill it with more than spooky whistling and the odd jump scare
0:51.2	so anyway my guess today is...
0:53.7	Luther, what are you doing? I'm doing my podcast. You mean you're doing my podcast?
1:00.8	Well, possession is nine-tenths of the law, and your podcast is now possessed by me.
1:07.6	Luther, if you don't leave immediately, I shall go and get the vacuum.
1:16.2	But I've always wanted my own podcast I dare say you have but you can't have this one this one is mine now run along or whatever it is that you do
1:24.0	sorry about that. And welcome to episode, what was it?
1:28.0	Yes.
1:29.0	Episode 38 of the Charles C.W. Cook podcast. This week we will...
1:35.0	I'm still here. My sponsor today is CEIs Free The Economy Podcast, Health, Wealth and Happiness,
1:55.0	Three goals that are essential to our lives,
1:58.0	but attaining them is often impeded by heavy-handed government controls.
2:04.0	That's why we must free the economy.
2:07.3	Free the economy is a weekly podcast produced by the Competitive Enterprise Institute
2:12.2	that documents the opportunities for financial success and self-fulfillment in a world with less government control.
2:19.0	How can smart urbanism improve our small business owners and innovators? Each week
	...

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