X-Message-Number: 10099 Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1998 08:35:24 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: CryoNet #10091 - #10097 To Olaf: Thanks for explaining your ideas. Basically I think that no single method of convincing people to sign up is the best overall. To Brett Corlett: I feel a little surprised that you can study engineering and have so little money, but that's what you say. You should get life insurance ASAP. If it isn't possible now, do it on the first opportunity. As for the fact that you are living in Canada, and there may be all kinds of obstacles, that's not really spot on to what I was saying. I signed up for suspension while living and working in Australia, and because of that ended up establishing cryonics there. It even persisted after I'd left, and so I feel easier about coming back to Australia than I would have if it had melted away. But there is something fundamental. Yes, you are living 8 hours away from the nearest cryonics center. HOWEVER you can either react to this passively, or else decide to do something about it. After all, there are even cryonicists in Canada (unlike the situation in Australia when I signed up). You can see if you collectively can set up a cryonics center closer to where you are. Not only that, but whoever said that you would (if it came to that) die "suddenly"? Even accidents don't always cause instant death.... not to mention other possibilities, such as diseases (yes, people your age can come down with bad diseases, and I'm not simply referring to AIDS). Here is the way I thought about my own situation in Australia. First, most deaths give plenty of warning; what I should do is to make arrangements so that I can be quickly taken to the US for suspension. Then we see what can be done to chip away at the other possibilities. Well, if I am severely injured but not immediately fatally injured in an accident, there must be ways to inform my cryonics society of this. Get together with another cryonicist, even if he/she has a different society, and make arrangements so that each of you can help out the other if that becomes necessary. Again, suppose that you did "die" in a very short period. Your friend will need legal authorization, which you will have to provide. But with that authorization he can direct that you be placed in ice above 0 C. If you have several people, or even only one other, you might make arrangements with a funeral parlor to keep you at that temperature until the rescue team arrives. At such temperatures your deterioration will be slowed down tremendously, certainly enough for a rescue team to arrive within 8 hours. Alternative- ly, you can be shipped to the US --- which requires a box. Don't look at just the bad cases in which everything goes wrong. By definition, you can't do anything at all in such cases. BY DEFINITION. Think instead of measures you can take to get the suspension team to you faster, and be treated properly before then. Right now the notion of a "good" suspension has poisoned the atmosphere. Yes, we can and should improve our technology, and there is good reason to believe that under the best conditions we can actually do reversible suspensions --- in 20 years. However cryonics is emergency medicine, and it will take longer than 20 years to bring that technology to everyone --- possibly much longer. Does that mean that you have no chance at all if frozen by worse methods? NO. It only means that your chances become incalculable, not at all the same as ZERO. And you will NOT be simply destroyed. The best way to think about suspension is not to look at the bad sides but to think constantly about how to increase your own chances of a good suspension. And if you work with others in doing that, your chances increase. They will increase if you can organize even simple storage in ice (at > 0 C, of course). They will increase if someone nearby takes a suspension course from Biopreservation and comes back with the needed equipment. Best and long long life, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=10099