X-Message-Number: 24224 From: Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 08:36:16 EDT Subject: Response to Mike Hartle, Personal anecdote and admission This is Rudi Hoffman from Florida, where the sun is shining most of the time. I did not recopy Michael Hartle's posting of today (yesterday as you read this) but I wanted to acknowledge this outstanding posting. It is worth going back and reading again. As a college student, more precisely a "Haven't a clue, socialist leaning, somewhat naive and still somewhat arrogant" college student, I was a big fan of doomsday scenarios of all sorts. Some of you may remember the remember the "Club of Rome," a think tank composed of influential scientists and academicians. They published a seemingly well documented book called, "Limits to Growth." In this book there was numerous graphs and documentation showing how the high consumption lifestyle of the first world was rapidly depleting irreplaceable natural resources. We in the "First world" (Primarily viewed as US and Europe) were shown to be using earth's resources, especially oil, at an INSANE and thoughtless pace. Thus preventing the availability of these resources to be available for the developing third world. "Some 6% of the world's population consumes some 90% of the resources!" I read. "How unfair!" I cried! And I continued to read and surround myself with like minded semi-zealots who agreed that we must "Live simply, so that others may simply live." I recall another influential book, "Diet for a Small Planet" by Francis Moore Lape'. She explained that we need to eat lower on the food chain, that a cow is like a "protein factory in reverse," and if we all learn vegetarian complimenting proteins we can feed the world. Ideally, we should all move back to small scale, organic farming and leave a light footprint on the world. "Simple living, high thinking," was a motto at the time. It seemed to me that my aunt, who had a business and drove a Cadillac, was clearly emblematic of the problem. "She is using way more than her "Share" or resources!" I arrogantly judged. "If people like her would just drive smaller cars, take the extra money saved and give it to poor people, the world would work just great." I even had a bumper sticker on my Honda Civic, "Food for People, Not for Profit." When asked, "Rudi, EXACTLY what does that really MEAN?" I was rather hard pressed for a precise answer. But I mumbled and ranted about "Greedy corporations" making a really bad thing called "profit" when they should have been doing their business for "the good of poor people in the third world." Oh, the horrible GREED of those villainous bastards running those evil corporations! They surely are the root of the horrible economic inequality and poverty that are endemic in much of the world. Well folks, you probably know how the story goes. Perhaps some of you have gone into business, actually become PRODUCERS and CREATORS of wealth, goods, and services. I suspect you, dear reader, actually are a source of creativity and prosperity. You use technology like the machine you are looking at to solve human problems. And hopefully you make a LOT of money, or at least a living, solving these problems. You understand what Mark Skousen calls "The Structure of Production" and what Adam Smith called "The Invisible Hand." I don't have to lecture this demographic on how incredibly NAIVE and short sighted I was. As I see incredibly ignorant and clueless folks who are protesting "free trade" and "Capitalism" as root causes of misery, I am embarrassed that I could ever have been that DUMB and plain old fashioned wrong headed. Yes, folks, this IS on topic for this list. Ideology and philosophy matter, because these drive research and policy. And we as individuals must learn to be compelling, precise, and effective in sharing ideologies that engender progress. And the hand wringing folks associated with a "shortage" or "limits to growth" mentality can and ARE making laws that criminalize research, that hinder science and progress, that directly impact whether you and I may enjoy the benefits of cryonics. And I would like to read these words again in the year 3000CE. So I can read how absurdly naive THESE words will sound to a wiser future Rudi Hoffman. LOL! Here endeth this somewhat embarrassing but I think rather important personal anecdote of ideological shift. All this to say that I agree with Mike Hartle and other technological optimists (not technological "utopians") that science, technology, and free markets will enable new resources to continue the march of human progress. Hartle has articulated the intuitive feeling many cryonicists share. Let's make this day a step toward a great future for everyone. Take action. Smile at your life and the guy next to you. I am going for a bike ride in the beautiful and bountiful Florida sunshine. For Centuries, Rudi Hoffman Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=24224