X-Message-Number: 8871
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #8867 - #8869
Date: Sun, 30 Nov 1997 11:32:30 -0800 (PST)

Hi again!

From my message about immortality and anarchy it should be clear that I think
anarchy may become possible out of simple self-interest, so long as it is
intelligent self interest. The self-interest, as we know very well, is not 
sufficient; intelligence is not sufficient. But if we all expect to live for
a very long time, we're going to find ourselves thinking much more about 
others, if only (as I said) we'll know we're going to meet them again many
times.

Governments? Before we get into that issue I'd like to know what a government
is. Suppose (this is a test case, and we may not find ourselves so far along
for a long long time, even with immortality) some people come up with a common
problem, say for a group of people. The problem is one which may take a while
to develop, but when its finished developing it will become serious. So these
few people decide to start working on it. If many others felt that they would
be dead by the time the problem developed, they would have no good reason to
get involved. Again, the few who start working on this problem perform an 
altruistic act. BUT if we all know what is happening, we also know that their
act will sooner or later create an obligation on us to repay it --- not now,
certainly, but when a couple of centuries rolls around. And so we decide to
help out too. (And it was because of this that these few people started their
work in the first place: they too expected to be paid back).

This is not the altruism of moralists, but RECIPROCAL altruism, of which 
human beings (and possible some higher primates) are already capable, given
that the time spans involved are short enough and we can understand the issue
involved. So did these people form a government? They certainly had to
cooperate. What distinguishes a government in my mind is that it can and 
does COMPEL cooperation with the minority who work as governors or with them.
Democracy itself, and all the trappings that go with it, are attempts to make
that government serve some kind of common end, and we all know very well the
many ways in which that can fail. Flat out dictatorships are governments, too,
but they often make a pretense that they too are serving the people's will.
(Clearly they do worse at that than a democracy would, not that democracies 
do well). 

If in the limit we expect to live for thousands of years, that reciprocal 
altruism can take over all the tasks that governments now perform. Yes, there
might still be events so far away that some kind of government might form to
perform them: for instance, cosmological ones, like finding out how to 
survive in an endlessly expanding universe (the current belief from empirical
data is that our Universe will expand forever --- though for various reasons
many astronomers and cosmologists seem to want it to eventually contract).
So immortality may not do away with ALL governmental forms, at least in the
literal sense. I will point out, though, that a government with devotes itself
to research about how to alter the fate of the entire Universe is unlikely
to do very much to anyone as they go about their ordinary affairs.

So that's why I think immortality will promote anarchism.

As for changing what we call our aim, I've said now what I have to say and
will not repeat myself. Nor have I changed my mind.

			Best and long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson

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