X-Message-Number: 17395
Subject: Re: Saving James Swayze
Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 10:28:23 -0500
From: Will Dye <>

I confess I didn't read the original message in this thread.  
One of the reasons I gripe about off-topic messages is that I 
don't have the time to carefully read all of CryoNet every day, 
so I just skim quickly over it, and sometimes miss important 
stuff like this.  

James is dying or something?  Well, if he can't quite afford a 
suspension, by all means lets pass the hat.  Put me down for 
another $100.  I'm far from rich, but truth be told the hardest 
part about this isn't the money, it's the argument I'm going to 
have with my cryonics-adverse wife when I tell her about it. :-)

As for James' concerns that he can't pay us back, well, don't 
worry about it.  As the old saying goes, you can never pay back, 
you pay forward.  All of us are beneficiaries of someone in the 
past who did a great deed, or made a great sacrifice, for the 
benefit of those in the future.  Not all of those sacrifices 
were well-placed or even properly intentioned, but the fact 
remains that most of the good things we have are at least in 
part the result of things donated to us by someone in the past.

Yes, yes, I know about the general debate regarding altruism and 
if it even exists.  I also know that the terminology in such 
matters is far from settled, so there's plenty of benefit to be 
had from using a time-tested old rule as long as it's used in 
it's proper context.  Here's one such rule, in proper context:

Liberty is not ours to squander.  It is an inheritance, passed 
down by others, to be passed on to others.  We can enjoy it, as 
well we should, but we should never consider it to be our own, 
for we did not develop it alone.  That isn't exactly fair, and 
the concept involves a lot of poorly-defined ideas that can be 
badly misused; but perhaps that's appropriate, for as near as I 
can tell, the universe just works that way.

A lot of people that I've never met have paid a lot higher price 
than $100 to help me maintain my liberty.  I really don't mind 
chipping in this little bit to help someone else maintain theirs.  
Good Lord willing, James, you'll have plenty of opportunities in 
the future to do something nice for someone else.  If you can't 
pay it back, then just pay it forward -- with interest.


--Will

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=17395