X-Message-Number: 20509
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 06:34:37 -0500
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: CryoNet #20504 - #20507

Hi everyone!

I shall have to say that the only interpretation I could give to
Yvan Bozzonetti's "diatribe" was as a satirical version of the
fanaticism he discussed. I don't know him at all and would be
as disappointed as the rest of you if I turned out to be 
wrong; but it's hard to speak ironically on the Net without
someone mistaking you as being serious. Even the symbols like
:) don't really help here.

On a somewhat more serious note, several changes may happen in
the future. First, if we really understand how human brains
work then the possibility arises of considering any kind of
"evil" as a disease from which the proponent of it could be
cured. This would turn all crimes in to medical cases, subject
to medical treatment. It would not do away with the kinds
of fanaticism we see now, because here we have an entire
large group of people who do not see what they do as crimes
at all but as right conduct. I would expect, though, that
such groups would consider their opponents, again, as sick
rather than criminal, and try to cure them. And so we have
an odd kind of conflict in which each group tries to convert
the other --- not kill them but convert them. And not with pamphlets
and other such stuff, but with highly technological means:
special brain viruses, perhaps, and other such devices.
Is this better or worse than killing them? The "combatants"
would think it better.

And given that "crimes" can change as societies change (keeping
slaves wasn't a crime not so long ago, even in the US ---
with everything that implied) perhaps a free society would
allow the "criminal" to exile himself rather than forcibly
convert him/her.

I also think that very long lives would change some common
attitudes which sometimes leave us with what later might
be seen as wrongs, if not crimes. Right now many people
deal every day with others whom they may never expect to
see again. If we lived for a long time, then we'd find 
ourselves meeting such people many times ... and if we
did them wrong, that will come back to us, perhaps with
some added force. Immortality would make us, in a sense,
much nicer people... not because we better followed God's
will, or whatever, but for entirely rational reasons.

             Best wishes and long long life to all,

                   Thomas Donaldson

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