X-Message-Number: 10107
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1998 09:40:52 -0400
From:  (Will Ware)
Subject: RE: Sequel To "THE FIRST IMMORTAL"?

In article: <> "Halperin, Jim" 
<> writes:
> ...... no cryonics organization has
> scientifically tested enough alternatives to make the sign-up process
> more automatic and friction-free.

in response to which, John de Rivaz wrote:
<<<
If the legal profession as a whole thought cryopreservation a good idea, and 
their colleagues in the legislature enacted laws which said that it is every 
individual's right to chose cryopreservation and cryopreservation has 
precedence over everything else, then fine.. Cryonics organisations could 
have very simple sign up procedures.
>>>

I don't think that's how it works here in the U.S. Even if some procedure
is entirely legal and something an attorney considers a good idea, their
interests are still served by keeping the procedure complex and cryptic.
It's a medieval guild mentality of defending their turf (these days,
their revenue stream) from non-lawyers.

As long as the lawyers' cut is guaranteed in some way, the process can
be relatively friction-free from the client's point of view. Buying a
car or getting married are examples of procedures where the lawyers'
cut has been automated enough that the lawyer need not by physically
present, so the procedure appears to the client to be friction-free
(at least the legal component of it appears so). These frictionless
legal procedures are (I think) the results of large volume and social
acceptance. If "marriage" were as experimental/controversial as, say,
"same-sex marriage", the role of lawyers would be much more visible,
and their fees would be both higher and more variable.

Yet another argument favoring large volumes feeding the cryonics
pipeline.

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Will Ware		email: wware[at]world[dot]std[dot]com
PGP fp (new key 07/15/97) 67683AE2 173FE781 A0D99636 0EAE6117

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