calculate a Societal Expected Value
That's interesting. So the value of the person is entirely in his/her usefulness to the society?
calculating the "badness index" based on current criminal justice practices
Well, the problem we are discussing assumes that you do NOT have access to much data (certainly not their rap sheet or the lack thereof) about the frozen people -- their name and whether their contemporaries thought them "good" or "bad" is all you have.
In fact, the core of the issue is whether you are willing to accept moral judgements from another time and culture to the extent of making life-and-death decisions on that basis.
So the value of the person is entirely in his/her usefulness to the society?
Not entirely. But it certainly trumps a person's "badness" in my opinion.
Well, the problem we are discussing assumes that you do NOT have access to much data (certainly not their rap sheet or the lack thereof) about the frozen people -- their name and whether their contemporaries thought them "good" or "bad" is all you have.
If the civilization reawakening them is capable of calculating an Expected Value for each person based only on their DNA (a...
This month's media thread includes a short article on some people's idea to have Ayn Rand frozen, which ultimately didn't happen. My first reaction was a shudder. I thought, I definitely wouldn't want Ayn Rand preserved forever. My second thought was, What right do I have to say who can and who can't get frozen?
Whatever your thoughts on Ayn Rand, I think this can spark an interesting conversation: What, if anything, should humankind do about people who are widely seen as harmful for the whole? For example, if the Castro dynasty in Cuba or the Kim dynasty in North Korea decide to freeze themselves to ensure they will continue oppressing their countries forever, should that be prevented? (And yes, my opinion of Ayn Rand is such that these examples came to mind.)