X-Message-Number: 5551
From: 
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 12:38:02 -0500
Subject: misc.

1. Storage of archives: Cryonics Institute will store any reasonable amount
of patient archives, and if desired (if the member does not want total
confidentiality) will refresh the items periodically. I.e., we will e.g. read
printed material to make sure it is still legible, and if it starts to
degrade will print out new copies; same for photos, films, etc. No extra
charge. The archives are stored in the same building as the patients.
Obviously, if the building is destroyed, or the organization collapses, in
such a manner that the patients are lost, then the fate of the archives will
not matter. Obviously again, we do not expect any such calamity, but will be
permanently alert to possible threats.

2. Manipulation of markets:  The typical large market involves many buyers &
sellers of securities and derivatives, but not necessarily many actual
suppliers or consumers of goods/services. Information is usually available
quickly to everyone, and regulatory agencies try to prevent fraudulent or
grossly unfair practices. Manipulation is certainly possible at the
producer/consumer level, if the number of these is small, e.g. airplane
manufacturers/airlines, or local coal mines/local steel mills. Securities
manipulation usually is restricted to exploitation of insider information
(illegal) or to spreading of false rumors (also illegal). It is generally NOT
possible for large investors or traders to manipulate securities markets, and
in fact the opposite is true--the small investor has the advantage, because
his bids or offers do not affect prices, whereas a large investor drives up
prices appreciably every time he tries to accumulate something, or drives
prices down whenever he tries to unload.

3. The Malthusian discussion (Metzger, Merel et al) does have some relevance
to cryonics, even in the short term, because a fair number of people include
such questions in their ostensible ethical reservations about cryonics.
(Their ostensible reasons are not usually their real reasons, but it
nevertheless helps to deflate these, since then they may be forced to face
the central point--that it's hard to enjoy life when you're dead.)

I think Metzger is right in saying that food supply/demand cannot change
rapidly on a global basis. Except locally--usually associated with politics
or war or plagues or weather anomalies--there can hardly be rapid changes in
supply of arable land or in production technology. Therefore adjustments can
be made on a gradual basis.

Adjustments--with or without immortality, with or without cryonics--must
include birth control, and the world's women will eventually insist on it
anyway. U.S. Catholics mostly pay no attention to the Pope's admonitions in
this area, and the Latin Americans will learn also; eventually the Muslim
women will defy the Mullahs too. 

Although I am not a Libertarian, a "hard-hearted" ("tough love?") approach to
the plight of the unfortunate may be the kindest in the long run, as the
Libertarians believe. If outsiders constantly rescue or subsidize the
starving (there are none in America) or the poor, these conditions will tend
to continue or repeat, so that total suffering will INCREASE. If communities
of the chronically poor (along with those close to them through shared
ethnicity or religion etc) are forced to handle their own problems, then
lessons may be learned and better habits acquired. The sooner such policies
are applied, the less pain. 

Further, if the more fortunate people or countries habitually rescue and
subsidize the poor, the numerical increase of the dependent may put the rest
of us at risk in many ways. In the western countries they could outvote us
and undermine governmental responsibility; in fact, this is an ongoing trend
which is proving very hard to reverse or even slow down. So far we have been
partly saved from the dangers of one-person-one-vote by other advantages of
the "haves"--but the leaders or spokespeople of the "have-nots" are often
very skilled and talented in politics ("rabble-rousing") and must be feared.
 

Long term self-interest demands the Golden Rule--or some approximation
thereof--because immortals need the friendship, or at least the respect, of
their neighbors, as well as the maintenance of  quality in the physical
environment. And we recognize that large numbers of the "have-nots" are just
as good people as we are, and sometimes better, and cast in their lot only by
accident (as are we all). In whatever degree, we cannot help but feel their
pain and wish to alleviate it. But none of this implies that we have a duty
in all circumstances to rescue everyone from their problems, whether of their
own making or not. Gauging the probable internal and external effects of
policies is a difficult and troublesome process, but judgments should finally
be made in a cool and mature manner and not on the basis of superficial
feel-good or mindless slogans.  

It is not physically possible to be motivated by anything other than self
interest. The major problem in life--one might even say the only problem--is
figuring out first what defines self interest (basically feel-good, but with
many subtleties and perplexities), and then what policies are likely to
promote it. Rotsa ruck.

Robert Ettinger

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