X-Message-Number: 12422
From: "John de Rivaz" <>
References: <>
Subject: Re: Its not Suicide
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 10:31:23 +0100

John grigg wrote
> Is this simply
> a matter of needing a hundred million dollars for a public relations
> campaign to sway the national opinion on the matter followed by a massive
> legal challenge?

An interesting (well, I think it is anyway) bit of lateral thinking on this
comment:

There is no basic physical reason why society should not allow the
cryopreservation of the terminally ill. Yet if the only way it could be done
would be to spend a hundred million dollars for a legal and public relations
campaign is the same in effect of society as a whole saying to us that "You
cannot do this unless a ransom of a hundred million dollars is paid". Or
indeed those members of society that would *receive* the bulk of this sum
making such a demand. I know no one in practise has demanded this sum, but
the *effect* is the same.

Imagine demonstrators from some obscure cult demanding a hundred million
dollars ransom or they would terror bomb all hospital were (say) kidney
transplants were being performed.

This huge sum of money is not being spent on research to push back the
barriers of knowledge, merely as protection money to stop various
authoritarians raiding the facilities or hospital were the cryopreservations
were to take place, and exterminating the patients by autopsy.

Looked at this way it seems that our generation is completely crazy and is
squandering the enormous untaxed inheritance of scientific knowledge that it
has received on endless bickering and argument - as often happens when the
head of a family dies and the recipients of inheritances whittle it away in
litigation and getting legal opinion over who gets what.

--
Sincerely, John de Rivaz
my homepage links to Longevity Report, Fractal Report, my singles club for
people in Cornwall, music, Inventors' report, an autobio and various other
projects:       http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JohndeR

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