X-Message-Number: 10538
Subject: Re: Are all cryonicists Heinlein fans?
Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1998 10:16:57 -0500
From: Will Dye <>

Peter Merel asks:

> So I wonder: are we all Heinlein fans?

I hung out a lot with SF fans, but never got into it myself.  As far 
as I can recall, I've never read anything by Heinlein.  

I may not be a very good data point, though, since I appear to be 
atypical among cryonicists, at least in terms of religious outlook 
(I seem to be CryoNet's "resident fundie", though I usually avoid 
the religion discussions for lack of time).  

I've never read "The Prospect of Immortality", either, though I 
recently got a copy of it (I *do* hope to find the time to read it 
someday, Bob!).  I only skimmed through "Engines of Creation", but 
mostly just to see if it had anything new.  I didn't see anything in 
it that I didn't already believe, though to this day I'm not quite 
as keen on hypertext as Eric is.  Mind you, he's the successful one, 
so he's probably the better source to go by.  :-)

My memory's a little fuzzy on the matter, but as far as I can recall, 
this is how I got into cryonics...

I loved cartoons as a kid, especially the old Warner Brothers ones.  
I thought about growing up to become an animator, but then found out 
how much work was involved, and that (at the time) the art form was 
very much in the doldrums because of costs.  Thinking about that led 
me to computers.  Thinking about building a simulated "cartoon 
universe" to assist animation led me to machine intelligence, which 
led me to the idea of a technological singularity, which led me to 
think about what technology could ultimately do within the laws of 
physics.  That led to ideas about what's now called molecular 
nanotechnology, as well as many other ideas, including cryonics.  

So, I guess you could say that I'm not a Heinlein cryonicist, or an 
Ettinger cryonicist, or a Drexler cryonicist.  I'm a Daffy Duck 
cryonicist.  If there are any more out there, pleathe do thpeak up.  



--Will



   William L. Dye             Accountability, thy name is
           "low-cost digital storage".

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