X-Message-Number: 24941
Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 10:18:03 -0400
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: CryoNet #24935 - #24939

For "Basie":

Your comment (to the effect that not all people will want immortality)
has a simple answer: all such people will die out (relatively) soon,
anyway. Those who live much longer have selective advantages over those who
only live a short time: both aged and infants would be far less of a burden
than they are with us, aged because no one would age, infants because
we could maintain our numbers with a far lower birthrate. Elementary   
schools would exist, but there might be only one in an entire solar system.
And nothing keeps those who don't now want immortality from converting,  
either.

I was not being optimistic so much as trying to see how a true 
(virtual) immortal would feel about such issues. I might even be 
wrong (shock! horror!). And note that I specifically pointed out
that immortals would hardly give up self-defense, either... though
their technology for self-defense would be both far more sophisticated
and less damaging to those to whom it is applied than ours.

And yes, my science fiction book TALES OF SKASTOWE, in a sense, goes
into this issue more deeply than I have done here.

            Best wishes and long long life to all,

                  Thomas Donaldson

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