I have posted a number of times the concept that any suicide
experiment is likely to fail in ways completely unintended by the
experimenter, and therefore have negative consequences for the
experimenter. Admittedly, Chris Maloney's post sounded like he had all
the bases covered, but Murphy's law is awfully powerful.
However, I thought I'd report on how QTI has influenced me on a couple
of items recently. The first was in making a decision whether to stay
with my present superannuation scheme (which provides for a pension
for life, based on one's salary at retirement) and having the funds
invested in conventional shares and bonds, a possibly risky
strategy. With QTI, the life-long pension sounds like a good deal, and
is what I eventually chose, for that reason. However, I fully realise
that with QTI, I am likely to outlive the pension fund, or inflation
will so erode its value, that perhaps the decision is not so
clear-cut.
The second issue is in relation to euthanasia. I used to be in favour
of this, on the basis that I grew up on a farm, and understood the
phrase "putting it out of its misery". However, the process of
attempting to kill someone is only likely to increase their suffering
in those worlds where they survive. So now I'm against euthanasia, at
least until someone can convince me they can control the outcome of
the "merciful death" well enough to ensure that the patient is almost
always in a better world because of it.
On the same vein, it would take a lot of convincing to get me to ge
through one of Bruno Marchal's teleportation devices.
On that cheery note,...
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Dr. Russell Standish Director
High Performance Computing Support Unit,
University of NSW Phone 9385 6967
Sydney 2052 Fax 9385 7123
Australia R.Standish.domain.name.hidden
Room 2075, Red Centre
http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
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Received on Mon Jun 21 1999 - 17:47:25 PDT