X-Message-Number: 20509 Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 06:34:37 -0500 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: CryoNet #20504 - #20507 Hi everyone! I shall have to say that the only interpretation I could give to Yvan Bozzonetti's "diatribe" was as a satirical version of the fanaticism he discussed. I don't know him at all and would be as disappointed as the rest of you if I turned out to be wrong; but it's hard to speak ironically on the Net without someone mistaking you as being serious. Even the symbols like :) don't really help here. On a somewhat more serious note, several changes may happen in the future. First, if we really understand how human brains work then the possibility arises of considering any kind of "evil" as a disease from which the proponent of it could be cured. This would turn all crimes in to medical cases, subject to medical treatment. It would not do away with the kinds of fanaticism we see now, because here we have an entire large group of people who do not see what they do as crimes at all but as right conduct. I would expect, though, that such groups would consider their opponents, again, as sick rather than criminal, and try to cure them. And so we have an odd kind of conflict in which each group tries to convert the other --- not kill them but convert them. And not with pamphlets and other such stuff, but with highly technological means: special brain viruses, perhaps, and other such devices. Is this better or worse than killing them? The "combatants" would think it better. And given that "crimes" can change as societies change (keeping slaves wasn't a crime not so long ago, even in the US --- with everything that implied) perhaps a free society would allow the "criminal" to exile himself rather than forcibly convert him/her. I also think that very long lives would change some common attitudes which sometimes leave us with what later might be seen as wrongs, if not crimes. Right now many people deal every day with others whom they may never expect to see again. If we lived for a long time, then we'd find ourselves meeting such people many times ... and if we did them wrong, that will come back to us, perhaps with some added force. Immortality would make us, in a sense, much nicer people... not because we better followed God's will, or whatever, but for entirely rational reasons. Best wishes and long long life to all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=20509