X-Message-Number: 16921 Date: Sun, 8 Jul 2001 09:58:40 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: longevity alone will improve us Hi everyone! Mike Perry raises an interesting issue in his post. What will happen to WAR? I personally do not think that it will require any fundamental change in our structure (other than VASTLY INCREASED EXPECTATION OF LIFESPAN) to change the rate at which we perform wars. They may also remain with us indefinitely, but in a form which we may find hard to recognize. 1. We will know far more people more intimately than we do now. This includes people of different races and nationalities. This will act against random killing of those of the other side. Even if we don't know someone, we may someday meet them and find them helpful. 2. War now involves people killing one another. If the purpose is not direct killing but instead the achievement of some kind of advantage then we're likely to have lots more means to act than now. For instance, a war in which the "infantrymen" and others who meet now with murder in their heart become robots. So all the living people get to watch the contest between robots. This isn't something that can arrive easily by mere convention: we must actually have robots capable of fighting better than any human being. 3. Looked at long term, it's not obvious that force works at except in special cases. I give some below, but if we become oriented to long term solutions rather than those that only last a few years of a currently expected human life, then forcing others to do what we want just won't look like the best solution at all. Are there cases in which it works? Yes. If one party (for some special reason) really wants to wipe out another party, then that is a case in which force will work. When done there's nothing left of the other party, literally. I do not see this happening often, but then history can take up lots of time. Simply by living much longer, and expecting much longer life, our psychology will change. In one sense it is the very same kind of brain as before, but our notion of what is a reasonable time to do something, and our acquaintance with many other people, will change our attitudes. Will we have become "better" people? A lot depends on how that is defined, but I would say basically not. We will be living in a far more fortunate period than any we have yet seen. And that's the only difference. Best wishes and long long life to all, Tomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=16921