X-Message-Number: 5019
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 11:02:14 -0300
From:  (Ken Stone)
Subject: Re: CryoNet #5016 - #5017

Peter Merel <> sez:

> ...
>
>What I'm thinking is that there are a lot of people who die in jail.
>Not people who are executed, but people who get into knife fights and
>so on. People in jail are often very poor, desperate and short sighted
>- ie. they'd be willing to sign an agreement in exchange for not much
>money. The agreement here would be that upon their death their bodies
>would be donated to CC.  I daresay that arrangements could be made with
>prison authorities and doctors to make sure that appropriate cooldown
>procedures were followed, so experimental conditions could be very well 
>controlled. 
> ...

If you're willing to forgo ethical considerations, it's a great idea.  :)

If you aren't, the big worry with this scenario is the establishment of a
positive feedback loop.  The most obvious way that this would come about 
would be that the arrangements (aka "enticements") made with the prison
authorities would provide additional motive for them to keep prisons deadly.
(Note my use of the word 'additional'- I *do* happen to believe that many 
other such incentives are already in place and taking their toll, at least 
in prisons in the United States.)

Admittedly, on a small scale this kind of thing isn't likely to be
a real problem.  Similar 'arrangements' could probably also be made with
coroners and hospitals.  But it's a pretty slippery slope-- this is
precisely the sort of thing that will lead us to that brave new world 
where human organs of dubious origin become a black-market commodity.
Some shorter-sighted Extropians might savor the thought, but I'd rather 
not have to worry about being 'harvested' in a bad neighborhood or dying 
on an operating table some day because someone on the surgical team was 
getting kick-backs.

---Ken


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