Edward-M: Don't twist people's words & call them Marxists, George. I said nothing of the sort.
George1st: If someone wants to confiscate someone else’s property, they are either Marxists, Crooks, or Cooks. Which are you?
I never proposed confiscating anyone's property. Please show me where I said that. Calling everyone you disagree with a Marxist, with no evidence, is exactly what Limbaugh does.
Second, if you're correct then our founding fathers must be Marxists - they supported various taxes & tariffs:
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States"
-- The constitution
Edward-M: “George, do you actually expect the media to ignore a story about dead people making billions of dollars in interest over hundreds of years?”
George1st: Which dead people are making billions of Dollars? And where? From where you pulled the number “hundreds of years”? Are the "cryo-crooks" stealing the money from widows and orphans, or is it something they own? As for the media, the story is that there is no story. End of story. End of paranoia.
Obviously I was talking about the future - I meant if you got your way then you could make billions while you were dead. It would be a completely unnatural profit scheme that would embarrass cryonics & hurt us all. You may not want to admit it, but that is news.
But more importantly, it has zero chance of working yet a %100 chance of embarrassing cryonics & causing regulations.
Edward-M: “And don't you see how that would make us all look like crooks?"
George1st: Crooks? People who are saving their own hard-earned money? No, I do not see any crooks. I only see honest people who are preserving their own capital. In a free, democratic society that abides by laws that is neither criminal, nor crooked."
Again I never said anything about taking away people's money by force. (like our "Marxist" founding fathers did.) All I said was the reality of politics is that wealth taxes will probably come soon, afterall we tend to do what Europe does a few years later.
And why are these taxes so popular? Because these days billions are being made by people sitting on their bums through hedge funds & the economy reeks of corruption.
Edward-M: “George, I hope you grow up"
George1st: Insult wins you no argument (not that you presented any).
Wait a second here George! You called me a marxist communist when I said nothing of the sort. Then you accused me of wanting to confiscate your money when I said nothing of the sort. You do need to grow up.
Edward-M: And last, are you sure that quote you used is even real? It even sounds made up.”
George1st: Yes, It is as real as it gets. I have read Vladimir Ilyich.
Again, I did a google search for your quote & got nothing - not one webpage. So do you have a source or not? Frankly it sounds like a mistranslation at best.
Edward M. writes: "Obviously I was talking about the future - I meant if you got your way then you could make billions while you were dead. It would be a completely unnatural profit scheme that would embarrass cryonics & hurt us all. You may not want to admit it, but that is news."
What is this "completely unnatural"? Perpetual trusts already exist. And the Wall Street Journal ran a fairly sober and sympathetic piece about a year ago, describing the intentions of wealthy cryonicists who hope to put aside some cash for their future revival. No embarrassment occurred. On the contrary, it made cryonics seem relatively reasonable, since the financial instruments are better understood and much better proven than cryopreservation.
So, where does the "embarrass cryonics" scenario come from? If we're not already embarrassed to be dunking human bodies, companion animals, and severed heads in liquid nitrogen, why on earth should some financial speculation cause any embarrassment?
I have the exact same response I made to George, did you somehow skip over it?
Edward-M: I was talking about the future - I meant if you got your way then you could make billions while you were dead.
If this actually happened - and some of the richest people in the world were dead people - it would have a very different response than a simple article about the possibility of something far off in the future. And Charles, you must be smart enough to realize that. Any human being is.
It's very telling of your personality that you can use such a silly example, while smugly accusing me of needing "some background reading," when apparently you didn't even read the post you were replying to.
This message has been edited by Edward-M on Mar 18, 2008 7:43 PM This message has been edited by Edward-M on Mar 18, 2008 7:42 PM This message has been edited by Edward-M on Mar 18, 2008 7:29 PM
If people are revived after being "dead" for decades, this will be the primary newsworthy event. Their wealth (if any) will be secondary. So, do you oppose any attempt at revival?
With so many other possible concerns (such as the possibility of cryonics being regulated out of existence--which has almost actually happened) why pick on wealth creation for people who are cryopreserved? I've told you that the concept has already been publicized in a national newspaper, without causing any significant comment. I've told you that individual trusts have already existed in a cryonics organization, without causing any comment at all. But you just keep on repeating your odd idea that your totally hypothetical notion is the achilles' heel of cryonics.
An article about a future possibility *isn't the same* as it actually happening. Is that really the best example you have? Because it reeks. Are you smirking as you type this stuff?
Charles, do you actually expect the media to ignore a story about dead people making billions of dollars in interest over hundreds of years?
Don't you see that it would make us all look like crooks & force the government to regulate us? It would simply waste money that cryonics groups need right now.
Second:
Charles: If people are revived after being "dead" for decades, this will be the primary newsworthy event. Their wealth (if any) will be secondary. So, do you oppose any attempt at revival?
I never said anything about not reviving them, & it's absurd that I constantly have to explain what I *didn't* say.
This message has been edited by Edward-M on Mar 18, 2008 9:33 PM This message has been edited by Edward-M on Mar 18, 2008 9:32 PM This message has been edited by Edward-M on Mar 18, 2008 9:30 PM
I wonder if tax penalties will exceed wealth if a wealthy person is broad out of suspension. After all the IRS will just see it just as a new way to avoid paying taxes.
Scottsdale Times also wrote about the subject of trust funds for the cryopreserved.
Here is an excerpt: "Multimillionaires scheduled to freeze their corpses at Scottsdale-based Alcor's cryonics facility are now creating multimillion-dollar trust funds for future spending in their next life. Some descendent relatives aren't too hot on the idea..."
The media is writing about it, yet the cryonics providers are not destroyed by the publicity about those cryopreserved "monsters" who are grabbing “Billions of Dollars in unjustified interest income”, while they are waiting in the dewars. Apparently, the only people disturbed by all of this are their heirs.
Is "...dunking human bodies, companion animals, and severed heads in liquid nitrogen..." anywhere near as embarrassing as sending two designer/fabricators and an office clerk/golf pro to perform medical procedures? Especially when they are being paid as much as, or more than, qualified medical personnel?
You hired them, and established their salaries, and sent them on the case, Charles, so I really want to know if you think that is not truly embarrassing. And, please don't give us any nonsense about underfunding, or time constraints. If you ask me, the situation was about as good as it gets, in cryonics, at this point in time. SA has plenty of money, it was their only case in three years, and the patient was still on life support when the team arrived.