X-Message-Number: 16732
Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2001 15:32:47 -0500
From: david pizer <>
Subject: Why beings of the future WILL reanimate us.

Why beings of the future will bring us back.  
By: David Pizer

There are three reasons why beings of the future will bring frozen people
back to life:
1.	They will get money for doing it.
2.	We will be a source of living history.
3.	There will be current moral and ethical reasons.

In this brief work, I wish to argue that there will be moral and ethical
reasons why beings of the future will bring us back.  This does not mean
the other two reasons don't need further explanation and support, but I
think the third reason is less obvious.

THE ANSWER LIES IN MANKIND'S CHANGING DEFINITION OF VALUE

For much of man's early history, a person's value was determined by what
he/she could provide for the rest of the tribe, how strong, smart or
attractive he/she was.  As we now begin to see new ways of determining the
worth of a being, the moral tide begins to shift to favor the value of a
frozen person, (not only for his/her value as living history or as his/her
suspension organization being able to pay), but by the new way humanity is
valuing things.

The new way of valuing the worth of a thing is to consider it's interests.
This is not the same as considering it's utility or rights as was used in
the past.  When we consider the interests of persons of another race, sex,
religion, or sexual preference, we consider what *kind* of interests these
persons have.  To consider a person's (or an animal's) interests we don't
ask if it can help us, or if it can reason.  The aspect that determines if
a thing has interests is if it can be benefited or harmed.

A frozen person has interests. He/she can be benefited by reanimation, and
can be harmed by destruction.  It is that simple.    So as humanity
advances in the way it considers equality and morality, and as science
advances at the same pace, about the time mankind has the technical ability
to reanimate frozen people, mankind's philosophy shall also dictate that it
ought to be done.

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