X-Message-Number: 20731
From: 
Date: Sat, 28 Dec 2002 16:59:59 EST
Subject: it's nice to get rich, rich, rich

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I have said before, I dislike "the have", I include here the rich, the 
politicians, high rank military and so on. The is a small story the 
illustrate this:

It was upon a time in the rich familly Ewinger a newborn baby, called Robert. 
The world was comming out of WWI, and petrol started to be an important 
ressource. The Ewinger familly had plenty of it and young Robert had a bright 
future well defined: He will be a business lawer and will use its knowledge 
expand the familly power over all the Texas and beyond.

When at the university yet, Robert Ewinger choose another way: he wanted to 
become a scientist and studied maths more than laws, that was not in the 
familly taste. Then he got a far more strange idea: Live a very long life, 
may be an infinite one. WWII was ending and the petrol business of the 
Ewinger fammilly was booming. Robert saw that he will be death before science 
could make this dream true. So he got another idea: Why not freeze a corpse 
so its decay is stopped? It could then wait for a sufficient science progress 
so that to live again would be possible. Robert wrote a book, then another, 
surrely someone in the state would be interested... Nothing came.

There was only one solution: The fight directly the familly and use this 
money to make things happen. In five years, tens of billions of dollars was 
spent in the cryonics "adventure". 100 000 researchers worked full time in 
the labs of Robert Ewinger, they found some strange things. 1950: discovery 
of the genetic code, 1955 discovery of stem cells able to regenerate an organ 
indefinitely. 1957: Cloning, ... At the dawn of the third millenia a 
young-looking man ponder on his past 80 years of life: Cryonics has succeeded 
but it will be used only for very special cases. For big accidents for 
example, in more usual cases cell control seem sufficient to get at least 
some millena longevity.

In a parallel universe yet, the same basic idea have made their way in the 
brain of an ordinary man. One that became a maths teacher because you have to 
have such a job to make a living. That ordinary man, Robert Ettinger had the 
ideas, wrote the books, found nobody interested and then started to act 
himself. But without deep pockets, this organization was worth only on the 
order of some millions dollard at the turn of the century. The research team 
counted One person only...

Now if you assume that money falls on someone by mere chance and bright ideas 
too, and if one person in one million get one or another, then there will be 
on million Ettinger for one Ewinger. If the reality is simply the most 
probable world, guess what story is the nearest to reality?

We can't know who will have the next idea but we can build an egalitarian 
society so that ideas will fall where they can be used. It is not about 
ideology or personal sentiments, it is about mere logic: Having over-riches 
in a society is counterproductive.

In the 90's, some nerds could make a fortune starting from nearly nothing. 
Such people could have more chance than average to get an interesting 
technological idea, so it make sense to have such "riches" in a society. 
Unfortunately, that time seems over.

Yvan Bozzonetti.

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