X-Message-Number: 21968
From: 
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2003 15:42:42 EDT
Subject: Re: CryoNet #21955 - #21962

In a message dated 6/13/03 2:03:06 AM,  writes:

<< Once we've squandered what's left of the 
planet's fossil thermodynamic capital, the human race faces a massive 
die-off and a PERMANENT dark age, no matter how much technological knowledge 
we might have acquired by then >>

Pardon me, Mark Plus, but this is doomsday nonsense.  I suggest that you 

consult the very well documented writings of the late Julian L. Simon, e.g. The
Ultimate Resource-2, Princeton Univ Press, 1996 or the more recent but equally 
well documented and , to me, highly persuasive writing of Bjorn Lomborg, The 

Skeptical Environmentalist, Cambridge Univ Press, 2001.  Both these authorities
have been attacked with brick bats by the so-called mainstream 

environmentalists who have a vested interest in the doomsday scenario, but their
work stands 
uncontradicted, as far as I have been able to follow.  This is important for 
cryonicists because our frozen selves will have no future if the doomsdayers 

are right, and this goes far beyond the price of liquid nitrogen.  Stodolsky is
also right in asserting that the "fossil" origins of petroleum and natural gas 
is far from being a proven theory.  What is clear is that the "known 

reserves" of practically all natural resources have continued to expand, leading
demand, throughout my lifetime of nearly seven decades.  The first reaction I 
always get when I raise the possibility of cryonics with supposedly educated 

friends and colleagues relates to the pervasive scarcity hypothesis.  "Where 
will we 
put everybody? There will be no room, no energy, no food, etc. etc.  

Everything has its limits, even and perhaps especially knowledge, so we will 
never be 
able to do this or that."   I believe that there are no real limits to growth, 
to our knowledge, to our technology, to our resources, and to our capacity to 
extract and utilize resources.  I consulted Jay Hanson's DIE OFF Website at 
your recommendation and found the same old doomsday hokum.  The chart shows 
everything going up to today or tomorrow.  That is where the real data stops. 

Then, as you say, falling off the cliff the next day where we have no real data

but only "models" rigged to "prove" that the sky is falling. Mark Plus, you are
the source of many excellent references which I can make use of in my 
writings, but why fall off this phony cliff?
Ron Havelock

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