X-Message-Number: 10890
Date: Tue, 8 Dec 1998 08:03:30 -0500
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: CryoNet #10882 - #10887

Hi everyone!

First, to George Smith:
You clearly think that "automation" will make EVERYTHING so cheap that
money will no longer be needed. Those who are arguing against you arre
specifically arguing against that idea. First, EVERYTHING includes a
helluva lot: other galaxies, solar systems, novel means of transport,
etc. Not only that, but there is an issue with any change affecting
more people than you: Peter Merel pointed this out in his reply. You
may want Aldebaran, but you're not the only one. And there is only one
star Aldebaran. Not only that, but even with lots of automation 
creation of another star will take some time (plus it will require an
orbit, etc). But other stars only show up a problem which will arise
much sooner: suppose I own a piece of land on the planet Earth with
a nice view of the Pacific Ocean and nice vegetation. You may well
be able to buy yourself a satellite with its own ecology etc, but 
that piece of land cannot be duplicated except at very great energy
and matter cost --- not to mention that you'd have to find another
STABLE orbit for the copy of Earth that you made to duplicate it.

As for commodities, say titanium, it must still be mined and delivered.
The amount of titanium in the Solar System is finite, and the amount
of titanium available to a given mining technology at a given time
will inevitably be smaller. If you're not the only person wanting
titanium, then you'll find yourself competing on price. Just how that
titanium is produced does not matter at all.

In one sense you are quite right. If we all become Eloi, with some fixed
limited set of wants, then we won't need money or any version of
money. I cannot see that as at all good or favorable: we would be
existing as the pampered pets of our machines, and I do not want to
be anything or anybody's pampered pet. Longterm, it's not a stable
situation. If you want to become an Eloi, go ahead. No one wants to
stop you. 

To Michael Schepps:
First of all, cryonics does not involve any issues about "souls" because
we do not freeze those who are "dead" BY OUR DEFINITION. We have a very
deep disagreement with standard ideas on just when a person is "dead".
And so when we suspend someone --- or ourselves --- the soul does not
enter into the issue any more than it does during the use of anesthesia
which makes you unconscious.

I believe that's the common idea among cryonicists. I will add some of
my own thinking here, too: I think that the notion of "soul" is actually
a useful one, and it is the destruction of that "soul" which makes
someone dead. It's not that our "soul"s are material things, they are
patterns of information in our brain, and as patterns of information
(strengths of synapses, multiplicity of connections between millions of
neurons) they CAN be destroyed, but are not material in the same
sense as a bicycle is material. The sole difference is that we know
now how to duplicate a bicycle, but not how to duplicate someone's
soul. Perhaps someday rather than freeze people we will know how to
duplicate their souls and keep that --- but for now, and for our normal
lifespans, such a situation is very unlikely. And so we want to be
frozen as the best present means of preserving our soul.

			Best and long long life to all,

				Thomas Donaldson

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