X-Message-Number: 7162
Date:  Mon, 18 Nov 96 23:57:58 
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Capital Punishment, Quality Control

Bob Ettinger wrote (#7152)

>There has been some discussion of capital punishment 
>and what people "deserve."
>
>On the highest or most abstract level, no one "deserves" 
>anything, either good or ill, in the sense that (s)he has 
>"earned" it. We are totally the products of heredity and 
>environment, over neither of which we (initially) had the 
>slightest control. We are all equally victims or 
>beneficiaries of circumstance. ("We're depraved because 
>we're deprived," in the terms of West Side Story.)

This is something I agree with. But I think it can be used as 
an argument against rather than for capital punishment. It 
ought to be possible in the future to cure or otherwise 
render harmless and helpful those dangerous people who 
are killed today for their misdeeds. As we--and they--
advance increasingly into a more-than-human future, the 
misdeeds of the past should matter less and less, assuming 
there was an appropriate change of heart (which in turn will 
ultimately reduce to a "programming" problem). Darth 
Vader ended up good in the end, remember? This I think 
was better than if he had been destroyed. (At least it was 
clear he wasn't destroyed in an informational sense, what-
ever the particulars.) Think how incredible it will be if even 
the most evil humans from real life are also rendered 
benevolent. Better, more interesting and valuable to us in 
the long run, than if they are just plowed under foot.

As for society supporting murderers in comfort, we do that 
for people judged "criminally insane" or otherwise unfit to 
care for themselves anyway. I don't think it's too much 
"comfort" as a rule however.

We shouldn't offer cryonics as a "reward" for criminal 
behavior. In principle, though, I would favor freezing those 
in prison or other institutions who die. But in general there 
should be routine freezing of people who die (other than 
those who have clearly expressed wishes to the contrary 
and were mentally competent when they did so). But I 
doubt if this will be an issue anytime soon--many changes 
must happen first. I would hope though that society's 
"need" for revenge is not so strong as to necessitate killing 
of the most hated to placate the more restless.

On another subject--while I don't condemn Drexler's book 
the way Steve Harris does, I do think Steve made some 
good points on the need for quality control in cryonics 
(#7154). Nanotechnology (whether you capitalize it or
not :-) won't be a cure-all, certainly, and we can't take it as 
given that it will be able to undo the damage now being 
done to patients on their way to LN2 storage. But on the 
other hand it--or whatever future technology we may 
develop--should be able to carry out resuscitations of 
people when there is enough information to go on in the 
frozen remains. So then you have to worry about whether 
there is "enough information"--which ought to include 
memories. Unfortunately we still don't know enough to 
assess how well our current procedures may preserve these 
vital traces. And so on.

We need to put a great deal of emphasis on checking and 
testing our suspension procedures, and trying to improve 
them, until we can be sure we are doing a good enough job
--which I doubt will be soon.

Mike Perry

http://www.alcor.org 


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