X-Message-Number: 16875
Date: Wed, 04 Jul 2001 16:01:35 -0500
From: david pizer <>
Subject: I wish I did

Peter McCluskey asked if I had clear evidence that people are adopting an
ethical system that values everything's interests, or an argument that
would show that they ought to.

I wish I did have a stronger argument.  I am working on one, and getting
great ideas from this forum, because people on this forum will soon be in a
very helpless situation for an uncertain amount of time, and that is only
if things go good for them (me too). (You hope to get a good suspension and
your organization survives until reanimation technology is available).  

I think because or our, (yte special group of people who participate in
this forum), realization of how valuable our personal lives are, we are
subject to think about deep issues that others don't have the motivation to
dwell into.

I do see some evidence (I don't know how clear - and it may just be the
bias of my perspective, but I think the evidence is) for a gradual change
in how people value things, and the shift seems to be that they value
things in a less selfish way.

For instance, I see that more people now value the rights of animals.  More
people seem to value the rights of minority groups that they are not a part
of.

This is probably because they don't *have to* eat animals to survive
anymore.  And the "them vs us" mentality of the tribes we evolved from is
no longer necessary for our personal survival.  So I am looking for
technology to change our value systems to such that all life has value so
long as it doesn't harm other innocent life.

If this is so, the final end of such a shift could be (ultimately) to
inherent values.

Dave Pizer

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=16875