X-Message-Number: 5306
From: 
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 1995 12:09:24 -0500
Subject: misc.

As Steve Bridge and Thomas Donaldson note, we Old Farts (among others) do not
necessarily reject in toto such notions as spending (at least part of, or
some ASPECT of) your life in virtual reality. (Nothing seems to preclude
living both in reality and, in part, in virtual reality.) We just think that,
forging into the unknown, it usually pays to maintain outriders and view
everything with extreme suspicion. There will inevitably arise situations in
which it pays to be paranoid. 

Thomas (#5300) says he disagrees with me about the prospective speed of
growth of cryonics. Obviously, I could easily be wrong, as I was in the
beginning, and my guess is only that--but I still think, based on my total
life experience, that there is more readiness for cryonics than appears on
the surface, and that some catalyst at some point will make all this gel, and
we will get a period of (relatively) explosive growth. Such  guesses, of
course, are of very little importance, except possibly for our morale; we
necessarily plan and act on the premise that progress will continue to be
slow and difficult. But we should pay SOME attention to the prospective
possible problems of rapid growth, in order not to be caught napping if it
does happen.

John Clark (#5299) says or implies that "matters of taste" cannot be
objectively appraised or decided. Almost everybody shares this view. I
disagree. I believe that what we "ought" to think and do can, in principle,
be rigorously derived from unimpeachable premises.  One of my books in
progress is devoted to this topic.

Robert Ettinger


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