X-Message-Number: 10077 Date: Sun, 19 Jul 1998 09:43:01 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: CryoNet #10073 - #10075 To Olaf Henny: We want to be suspended because it gives us a chance at living much longer. If that is not emotion I do not know what is. While it's nice to congratulate ourselves on how rational we are, I'm not so sure it helps at all as an explanation of why so many people refuse cryonics. My own ideas in this line suggest that many people have been trained up from birth to follow the most popular opinions without seriously thinking about them or their implications. For people whose fate depends on the opinions of others, such behavior may even be rational. Not life-preserving, not independent, but rational. What else are public schools for? When pressed, though, I have no explanation that I would stand up and defend against all comers. Someday, perhaps only after we've got a more advanced form of suspension (which I think must take priority) we will be able to fund psychological and social studies which will give us a good answer, studies done by CRYONICISTS. Naturally we should continue present recruiting activities. I'd hardly advocate stopping them. But so far I've not yet heard a really good experimentally founded explanation for why so many people don't join. (As you can guess, I'm dubious of those so far presented. For every such explanation, I know people who still don't want cryonic suspension, though their opinions don't fit the explanation proposed). Me, I don't want to die. And sure, I don't want my relatives to die, either, though they still continue to do so. I'm even a bit lucky: my wife is also a cryonicist, though not as active as I have been. So at least one person I care for should be frozen; but still there are others for whom I've totally lost hope. Best and long long life, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=10077