X-Message-Number: 20296 Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2002 08:35:52 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: CryoNet #20289 - #20294 What ABOUT freezing murderers etc? Most people would not object unless they felt that suspension would prolong the lives of the murderers... not that in most advanced countries capital punishment is frowned on (put mildly). I do not know what the legal doctrines would turn out to be in such cases... and of course if the LAW considered cryonic suspension to preserve the life of the criminal, it would have also said that cryonic suspension preserves life. The opponents to immortality can't have things both ways. And there is an optimistic side to this idea, too. Suppose that the opinion leaders in society decided to suspend such criminals rather than kill them. This would be done not with the idea of letting them go free once revived, but with an idea similar to the reasons for which cancer patients might be suspended: to wait until a cure for their illness had been found. If, separately, the criminal must somehow atone for their crime, I note that dead criminals can't atone for anything... while live ones could be, say, forced to pay for the cloning and re-creation of their victim (though when we get to such a state, killing anyone would become far more difficult than it is now). Such forced atonement, of course, assumes that revenge has some kind of merit. In future we may come to the conclusion that it has none, and just cure the criminal of his illness and leave the matter at that. Best wishes and long long life for all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=20296