X-Message-Number: 16935 From: "robin helweg-larsen" <> Subject: Re: longevity alone will improve us Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2001 14:51:16 -0400 ThomasDonaldson wrote: >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. However, there is another side of it to consider: the increased value of long-term relationships, and of the ability to trust one's own group completely in the face of dealing with so many, many people, will give a competitive advantage to those who can automatically rely on members of their own group. This already shows up in clannishness, in nepotism, family connections, Old Boy networks, and ethnicity. All these things may give even greater advantages in the future, and lead to even greater group-adherence in some areas, in turn leading to increased conflict tendencies. I agree with your point; but there are two sides to the coin. (Don't we as cryonicists have some element of automatic trust and support for each other, even if our opinions may differ wildly? [Not that we need to look outside our group for conflict tendencies!]) Longevity alone will improve us in some ways; but mightn't it also worsen us in others? Robin HL Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=16935