X-Message-Number: 21824 From: "Sue Hopkins" <> Subject: Re: Message #21816 Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 00:43:47 +0100 I have only rarely posted to CryoNet, but felt compelled on this occasion as I am appalled by Kitty Antonik Wakfer's opinion on welfare and disagree with it's supposed impact on cryonics. Message #21816 From: "Kitty Antonik Wakfer" <> Subject: RE: CryoNet #21801 Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 16:17:48 -0400 >> And yes, tax money is expropriated - stolen, no matter how you try to justify that you should get it. >> Tax is not stolen, in no way can you define it's acquisition as illegal. You may disagree with it, which is your prerogative, but it is ridiculous to say that it is stolen from you. If you are of this opinion, perhaps you should report it to your local police station and see their reaction. >> If you seriously wish to not be a "burden" then you need to reorient your current thinking which views everyone else as owing you. If you were not responsible in anyway for your broken neck, then someone else was through their violation of you or simply negligence - accidents don't just happen. ("Misfortune" is a word people use often to describe their own lack of responsibility, but I don't recall the details of your accident, though "vehicle accident" comes to mind.) >> You do not need to believe that others "owe" you to believe that you are a valid recipient of financial assistance. You appear to think that there is no such thing as society, that you are entirely disconnected from others, and in no way should contribute. If your argument was played out to it's logical conclusion, then what kind of ideal society would you envisage ? How would your ideal society work ? Do the elderly after a lifetime of work be thrown on to the scrap heap because their pension would be a financial drain on you ? What should be done with the mentally ill ? I suppose you don't have children so perhaps we could save money and do away with a free education system for all. Maybe you have private health care, in that case access to health care could be restricted to those who can pay for it (which would be useful, of course, because then the poor without recourse to medicine would die off faster and be less of a drain on you financially). Also, perhaps children in care could usefully be sent to work to pay for a roof over their heads ? A society that views others primarily in terms of how much they earn or how much welfare they require is ultimately very inhuman and not in my mind a very advanced one. In terms of cryonics, when we are frozen in our dewars we are in the most vulnerable and helpless of positions, let's hope that a future society does not view us as a potential financial drain on their resources, we will be far less able physically and mentally than those future generations, who will be enhanced genetically and in ways we can not possibly foresee, they will be far more intelligent, creative, physically attractive and fit than us, we will have frozen along with us all kinds of pollutants, viruses and bacteria that will have probably been eradicated long before we are reanimated, I for one hope that they will not view us in terms of our potential financial cost and in more human terms, otherwise we will be left to rot as it would seem that you would have James Swayze do Sue Hopkins --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.470 / Virus Database: 268 - Release Date: 08/04/03 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=21824