Kurzweil's Optimism

But if you ask me what is a human being, I'd say that we are the species that seeks to go beyond our limitations and beyond our boundaries. We didn't stay on the ground. We didn't stay on the planet. We didn't stay within the limits of our biology. And I would point out that, if it were up to the Luddites, human life expectancy would still be 37, and we'd still be dying from bacterial infections.

-Ray Kurzweil

This quote is from a great interview with Ray Kurzweil, published originally in Ubiquity and republished today on KurzweilAI.net. I really admire Kurzweil not only for his accomplishments and writings, but for his fundamental optimism about humanity, science, and technology. I agree with this definition of being human, and I can't really say it better than Kurzweil has in this quote, and more completely in the interview and in his writings.