From: Dan Clemmensen (Dan@Clemmensen.ShireNet.com)
Date: Thu Jun 10 1999 - 18:37:13 MDT
Spike Jones wrote:
[in response to den Otter]
> I have been reading in The Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant.
> They have reached the depressing conclusion that equality and
> freedom are mutually exclusive in a sense. If goverments will
> leave us alone (like most of us would like) then even small
> inherent differences among us will lead to exponentially increasing
> levels of technology, perhaps leading to a situation where a dozen
> people achieve immortality while the masses die. spike
I've read their entire "civilization", but not "Lessons of History."
I think that the conclusion overlooks the likelihood of altruism
among the potential immortals. If even one of the immortals has
even the slightest amount of altruism, then the technology will
be be disseminated to the populace as a whole. The argument against
this assumes a zero-sum game in which a gain by the unwashed masses
equates to a loss by an immortal. Information doesn't work this
way.
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