X-Message-Number: 5897
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: Re: arguing with the unresponsive, and the protection of laws
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 21:54:45 -0800 (PST)

Hi again!

About dealing with those who don't "get" cryonics:

    I would agree with Saul that it seems a waste of time. We all know that
    we're not going to convince the British lawyers of anything at all. 

    But there IS another issue, which depends a lot on just how many people
    log into Cryonet to listen to the discussions: our arguments might strike
    a chord in someone who is listening. I'm not really very interested in
    arguing with anthills either, but perhaps KQB can give us some idea about
    how many people are listening. To my mind that would be crucial: if it's
    too small, the best thing to do with our time is just to ignore them.

On safeguards in cryonics:

    Perhaps Brian Wowk forgot to point this out, but any organization which is
    open to its members, actively helping them to find out what's going on 
    inside it (and a bit about other organizations too) provides a very 
    important safeguard. If we all can see what's happening, and someone 
    starts doing a dirty, then there will be Consequences. That is, I believe,
    the strongest safeguard of all. Watchdogs appointed by the State can and
    have been bribed or otherwise bought off. The best way to ensure that
    your cryonics society is doing what it ought to do is to watch it.

    This will remain true even if you yourself are in suspension: so long as
    there are other cryonicists doing the watching (that is, of course, 
    people who have devoted both their money and their time to cryonics,
    even if it is only to pay for life insurance) then you will not be dealt
    with badly.

    Cryonet itself is one of the means by which such watching goes on. Reports
    of suspensions, if circulated widely, are another. An organization which
    does not allow its members to visit the storage site for suspended members
    will look very bad compared to one which does.

    It is easy to believe that because there are no laws or agencies looking
    at cryonics societies, then there is no protection. But laws and agencies
    are no more than paper unless there are real people who really care what
    is going on. They might even be in government (though government does not
    have a good record on such questions unless a high majority of the
    citizenry care about what happens --- putting us right back where we 
    began). THIS IS HOW THE WORLD WORKS.

    And after all, if we are stored for 200 years, we will outlast any 
    government which oversees us... if not in both form and fact, in fact 
    but not in form (who would really claim that the US government of 1996
    is really the same as the one the Founders set up?). What we will NOT  
    outlast is the idea that medicine of the time cannot cure all ills, or
    even revive everyone possible, and its consequence that some means for
    storing such patients until means to revive and cure them exist has
    great merit. Nor will we outlast the need for some kind of suspension
    itself, for just that reason.

    Against that backdrop of death and ignorance, and the immensity of the
    universe, politicians of ALL beliefs are no more than little boys playing
    with toy soldiers. Whenever the issue of some kind of government oversight
    arises, we should remember Ozymandias. 

			Best and long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson


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