[betelnut]

If you help doctors, researchers, and others working on life-threatening problems get relevant information they need faster, then you are indirectly helping with these efforts. Not everyone can be the person on the frontline of these critical efforts, but if you can improve their working conditions then surely you've helped out a bit?

[wavesounds]

These are precisely the people that should not be having emails deleted automatically. "Wait which kidney was I supposed to remove" let me check that email... oops

This idea would only be good for spam "buy now before its too late" type emails (ie non-important information) which is not a problem that really needs solving.

[betelnut]

Yeah, you're right. I was responding to the general problem of finding stuff in your inbox as restated by others - not the suggestion of self-destructing email. Sorry I was unclear.