X-Message-Number: 10417 Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1998 09:57:35 -0600 From: Fred Chamberlain <> Subject: JBKRUG Re: Laughter..... Post #10414 Date: 9/12/98 From: Fred Chamberlain <> Re: JBKRUG Re: Laughter..... Post #10414 John's mentioning of the new CD entitled, "Give Me Immortality Or Give Me Death!" brings to mind another slogan once proposed, "Death to all non-life-extensionists!" Some objected that this might sound too radical. One could mistakenly think that we were wishing an ill fate on those who had not yet shared our dreams. Of course, there may be a present need for a paraphrasing of the CD title, as "Give Me Vitrification Or Give Me Death!" On the basis that there is any reasonable chance that a lesser procedure leads to survival, this would be the choice of one who died and was not frozen due to "holding off" signing up until "vitrification" was a reality - until patients with average degrees of premortem damage and deterioration, after average legal delays in access, and taking into account average difficulties of fielding a competent team in the field, could be medicated, cooled and cryoprotected in such a way that their temperatures were lowered at rates in excess of 1 Deg C/min into a glasslike zone of questionable stability at around -140 Deg C and then held here without long term degradation until we found out whether or not they could be recovered. If all worked out well, these patients might have good looking electron micrographs, but even then, it might depend on the quality of the technician as much as the quality of the suspension. Would they be reanimated, ever? That would then depend, as much as on the quality of the preservation, on the desire of someone or some organization in particular to undertake the task of recovery. A great deal more needs to be said about that, but there is too little time to do more than observe that if it turns out that repair and recovery of patients frozen today is infeasible, then their destiny will be the same as that of all of the many hundreds of millions of persons who have already gone into oblivion. In the long sweep of history, will they be any worse off for having tried? If, on the other hand, repair and recovery of persons frozen today *does* turn out to be possible, then all of those who held back due to the persuasive pessimism of those who scoff at the possibility of such repair and recovery will have gone into oblivion unnecessarily. As one who values life enough to reach out for it, even in the face of terrible uncertainties, I would rather that history label me as an overhopeful optimist, for having tried to save lives and failed, than a monster for having discouraged those who might have wanted to make the attempt and died needlessly as a result of that influence. Fred Chamberlain, President/CEO () Alcor Life Extension Foundation Non-profit cryonic suspension services since 1972. 7895 E. Acoma Dr., Suite 110, Scottsdale AZ 85260-6916 Phone (602) 922-9013 (800) 367-2228 FAX (602) 922-9027 for general requests <http://www.alcor.org/>http://www.alcor.org Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=10417