X-Message-Number: 939 Date: 30 Jun 92 03:19:12 EDT From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: Re: cryonics: #935 - #936 There are economists who will argue against your scenario very strongly, and I find them convincing. The point to remember, more than any other, is that the workers are also the consumers of goods made by these factories. And so we create completely automatic factories to make (let us say) automobiles, and find that we can't sell even ONE of them because no one can afford them. And so we go bust. There is a great deal more to be said on this issue, admittedly. But your scenario still strikes me as unrealistic. So long as human beings command these tools to be made, they won't make them so as to put themselves out of business. Or make THEMSELVES obsolete. Incidentally, robots failed not because of dexterity but because they could not do things even 5 year-old kids find simple: like recognize a pencil in a jumble of stuff. But I don't claim that robots can't be given similar abilities. Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=939