X-Message-Number: 24107
References: <>
From: Peter Merel <>
Subject: Oil crisis? Better off in Australia.
Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 20:11:23 +1000

Mark Plus recommends all overseas cryonicists assemble in the USA 
immediately because of the possibility of an oil crisis so severe it 
prevents parcel-post air travel.

I'd like to understand how civil order could be kept in the USA, the 
world's greatest net and gross importer of goods, under such 
circumstances. I really don't see how it could be. And I'd like to know 
how the orgs could function without civil order. Back when Y2K seemed 
to me like a serious problem (cryonet #10100 - mea culpa, mea maxima 
culpa) I asked much the same question. Now I think the oil crisis isn't 
likely to come on with such a bang, but if so I don't believe the orgs' 
vulnerabilities to societal breakdown have changed - do you?

I think I prefer my chances here in Australia. I'm in good health, live 
in a peaceful agricultural community, enjoy gun laws and socialized 
medicine, and I'm far enough from the coast to be in no danger from the 
next tsunami. We have plentiful native oil supplies too - priced to 
match OPEC, but still we mine more than we consume, so no real chances 
of petroleum-rationing or stalled autos blocking our freeways here. 
High prices, sure, but supply continuity too. No real military threats 
either.

If Mark's fears were realized and the northern hemisphere melted down 
suddenly I'd much rather be faced with the problem of creating a 
cryonics facility from scratch in Oz than that of fending off armed and 
starving city dwellers and/or getting nuked by opportunistic 
terrorist/communist/what-have-you yahoos and/or being infected with the 
countless germ warfare agents those mad people in the northern 
hemisphere keep inside their mountains.

As for illegally entering the US, I can't expect someone being tortured 
in the bowels of the USA-PATRIOT dungeons would manage to get out to 
get suspended. If I were very unwell I might think otherwise - better 
vitrified than worm food, that's for sure. But otherwise you have to 
look at cryonics as a gamble, no guarantees, you pays your money and 
you takes your chances. I believe my chances are much better right here 
than anywhere in the USA - where, by the way, I am still legally 
entitled to reside.

Peter Merel.

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=24107