X-Message-Number: 2597 Subject: CRYONICS AND LEFTISM From: (Ben Best) Date: Fri, 11 Feb 1994 03:52:00 -0500 I once attended a Leftist public meeting concerning the quality of Toronto drinking water. Toronto gets its water from Lake Ontario. Lake Ontario -- being downstream of the toxic waste dumps of Niagara Falls and of the other Great Lakes -- is the most polluted of the Great Lakes. One Leftist at this meeting admitted that she uses a water purifier, whereas another woman stated adamently that she would refuse to use a water purifier because these devices undermine collective action. The second Leftist had the "moral high ground" because she was refusing to place herself "above" everyone else -- but I wondered whether this was an excuse for a refusal to take individual responsibility for her own health. Although I rarely admit it in public, self-interest is my primary reason for not giving too much weight to potential negative social consequences of life extension -- including pollution and overpopulation. After all, what good is society if I'm dead? It is also in my self-interest that such a politically inflammatory attitude not be publically associated with cryonics. Cryonics has enough problems without being burdened with the public image of being "Right Wing". For this reason, I am not displeased by a cryonicist who is a Liberal Democrat activist like Avi Ben-Abraham, even though he calls for government programs to pay for everyone to be frozen. (This potential massive expense could have a backlash in giving governments incentives to disparage the worth of cryonics.) Robert Ettinger of the Cryonics Institute and Alcor President Steve Bridge take particular pains to emphasize that they are not politically Libertarian. The flipside of the image of selfish greed on the part of capitalist individualists is the devaluation of the individual by socialism. If everyone is just another hog feeding at the public trough, everyone is regarded as a burden on society. Socialism, while claiming to support "the greatest good for the greatest number", ends up devaluing everyone. That is to say, the policies of socialism are not only an economic disaster, they are psychologically corrosive. Individual responsibility is destroyed and the view that everyone is a burden on society fosters resentment of others. Since "others" are not perceived as individuals, this means other groups. Leftists like to claim that socialism kept the lid on ethnic tensions in Eastern Europe, but it is probably more accurate to say that socialism aggrevated ethnic tensions. I don't think it is an accident that foreigners are more hated in Eastern Germany than in Western Germany. Unfortunately, Leftists control the media, so we are burdened with the Leftist view of Rightists which lumps Fascist Dictators (who usually practice socialist policies) with Individualist Capitalists. The grain of truth in this is that dictators are typically unabashedly motivated by self-interest (although Hitler's National Socialism made claims of being in the best interests of Mankind). This could have serious consequences for cryonics. I understand that just prior to the Gulf War, Avi Ben-Abraham made public that Saddam Hussein had an interest in cryonics. Cryonics organizations may one day find themselves being asked to freeze dictators. Although we do not want to discriminate against anyone, the political consequences -- and even the danger of bombing -- will have to be assessed carefully. -- Ben Best (ben.best%) Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=2597