X-Message-Number: 12296 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: for George Smith Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 14:43:41 +1000 (EST) To George Smith and others: Saul Kent's message illustrates an unpalatable fact that George Smith and others should take to heart. Yes, scientific research can achieve many things. No, the order (and even the list of things it achieves) depend not simply on the laws of the universe (aside from human beings) but on the society which supports that scientific research. This is why the USSR did so well in physics, math, and other such sciences, and completely failed to make significant advances in biotechnology (unless you include the breeding of virulent viruses as bioweapons). It's also why the Romans, the Greeks, and even the Chinese (who were for a while much more advanced than any other civilization on Earth) failed to carry through to industrialization. Why would the Greeks and Romans bother when they had so many slaves to do their bidding? And the main driver of Chinese society was their governmental bureaucracy: any science they did they did as a sideline. As for nanotechnology, as I read about actual attempts to do things at that scale (I'm NOT talking about theory here --- theory alone gets us nowhere --- but actual working devices), I also note that the main focus of such activities by our society at large isn't in doing any kind of medical repair at all, but at making better computers (and overcoming the imminent failure of silicon to serve as a suitable substrate for fast enough computers). Contemporary society in Europe and the US does have at least one blind spot, and immortality lies at the center of that blind spot. It may very well have others that we'll discover with time and thought (I will not waste time here giving other such spots). And that blind spot means that we simply CANNOT assume that the scientific advances we need will be achieved by people other than cryonicists and immortalists. Yes, it's conceivable that we will CONVERT our society to our point of view, and THEN achieve the needed advances. But that seems unlikely unless we get further along in achieving them ourselves. Best and long long life to all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=12296