X-Message-Number: 5100
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: Re: CryoNet #5085 - #5093
Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 21:35:15 -0800 (PST)

Hi again!

I've already discussed the PROBLEM of governments. Basically, about US health
problems, I agree with Saul. But despite the fact that some things cannot be
done except by forming governments, that does not please me at all. The 
problem with governments is that they tend to expand.

As for the Net, or any other technological development, genuinely doing away
with government, I'm very skeptical. I will say, though, that with economic

growth alone the kinds of things which individuals can own has been increasing. 
For anyone who only looks at the list of things we want to control now, it 
might seem that government is fading. And we may very well see a big shift.

Finally, about privacy: here's another way of looking at it. We accept from
doctors a lot of bodily intrusion which we would not accept from anyone 
else unless they were very close to us. (Doctors are more than technicians,
they have a special role, which includes an immense trust). They can peer into
our intestines, into our genitals (whether we are male or female), and look
inside our skulls. And we trust them not to make malign use of whatever
information they discover. Psychiatrists, of course, have a similar close
relationship with their patients --- though psychiatry presently isn't nearly
as well established scientifically as, say, pharmacology. 

Whatever they may be called, those who revive us will also have a similar 
position. The difference is more a matter of degree than a major chasm. And
given that such people exist, I doubt that revival will seem any more 
personal than, say, a colonoscopy. Oh yes: if you insist, doctors can and 
have misused that trust. No doubt that will happen in the future, too. 

Personally I would rather be revived despite any invasion of privacy which
may be involved than choose to die so that my private secrets will remain
forever untold. But more than that, no one who actually finds themselves
in such a situation will think of it as simply one of strangers poking into
your mind... any more than heart surgeons are thought of as people who 
open chests with hacksaws. That issue of trust is important. We will be 
revived by people who are trying to cure us, not trying to find juicy gossip,
and those people will probably have at least as stringent rules against
violating confidences as doctors do today.

			Best and long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson


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