X-Message-Number: 5106
Date: Sat, 4 Nov 1995 18:17:50 -0500
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <>
Subject: Re: Technological Progress

In #5089  (David Stodolsky) writes:
> Some years back there was a big push for private exploration/
> exploitation of space resources. This led nowhere, ...

And in the 1930s and 1940s, articles were written saying that the
predictions of television had led nowhere.

Give it time.  More than a century passed between Columbus and
Jamestown.

Anyhow, it's not like government is hot on the trail of space
development and colonization.  Sure, they launch an occasional
billion dollar mission.  What did the Apollo missions teach mankind?
Mostly that getting anywhere costs billions, and there's nothing of
value there.  Just boring rocks.  Of course this lesson is false.
But what can you expect from governments?  They don't have to make
a profit, or even break even.

> If reversible suspension requires the same kind of investments,
> then the outlook for private investment is not good, regardless
> of theoretical questions.

I expect that we will get reversible suspension, and repair technologies
for today's "irreversible" suspensions, as byproducts of other research.
For instance, research into organ banking for the former, and reasearch
into treatments of serious injuries, for the latter.

> On the other hand, building political support to the level where a
> government can be brought to support suspension research is not a
> near term prospect.

I hope it never happens at all.  Nobody should be forced to pay for
cryonics who doesn't choose to do so.  We're not welfare cases.

There will probably be a wide range of revival options.  I'm hoping for
a top-of-the-line revival myself, and not a public health clinic style
revival.  Governments screw up almost everything they touch.

> Unfortunately, the current climate in the US points in the direction
> of a cut of 1/3 in research funding for the future.

A cut of *taxpayer funded* research, which isn't the same thing at all.
I wish it had been cut by 3/3.

> There seem no justification for this except opposition to "big
> government" supported by a general anti-scientific attitude in
> the country.

There's plenty of opposition to big government, even among top
scientists.  For instance, I've met a prominent cryobiologist who is
working on reversible cryosuspension of kidneys, for organ banking.
He has Libertarian Party stickers on his car (i.e. he agrees with me
about government).
--
Keith Lynch, 
http://www.access.digex.net/~kfl/


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