The semi-annual Twilight Zone marathon is under way at the Sci Fi channel and will continue through New Year's Day and into the wee hours of January 2nd. Here is your chance to view some of the episodes you may have missed. The best of them are phenomenally good and bristling with philosophical content. I have just given you my analysis of "The Lonely" which aired in November, 1959. I just now viewed the The Dummy for the nth time, and I note that the ascriptivist theory of personhood I mentioned in my analysis of "The Lonely" also figures in "The Dummy."
The original series ran from 1959 to 1964. In those days it was not uncommon to hear TV condemned as a vast wasteland. Rod Serling's work was a sterling counterexample.
The hard-driving Serling lived a short but intense life. Born in 1924, he was dead at age 50 in 1975. His four pack a day cigarette habit destroyed his heart. Imagine smoking 80 Lucky Strikes a day! Assuming 16 hours of smoking time per day, that averages to one cigarette every twelve minutes. He died on the operating table during an attempted bypass procedure.
But who is to say that a long, healthy life is better than a short, intense one fueled by the stimulants one enjoys? That is a question for the individual, not Hillary, to decide.
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