X-Message-Number: 11905
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: for Perry Metzgar
Date: Sun, 6 Jun 1999 23:44:12 +1000 (EST)

Hi everyone!

To Perry Metzgar:
There is another answer to your message. Just why do you think that those
who go off on these "tangents unrelated to cryonics" are discussing
something unrelated to cryonics? 

Everything I put on Cryonet is related to cryonics. It may deal with a
side of cryonics in which you are not interested, and that's fine with
me. Just don't read my message (I try to characterize them with titles,
nowadays, too). Moreover, these conversations have often included Bob
Ettinger. So Bob Ettinger wants to make long postings on Cryonet which
are irrelevant to cryonics? 

As I hope you have noticed, some people think that they can attain 
immortality by somehow being turned into a variety of computer. This may
happen after cryonic suspension, or in some cases, before. Is it a 
serious competitor to cryonics? That's one question we are discussing.
Second, just what will we do and choose after our revival? If this
kind of "turning into a variety of computer" only becomes possible AFTER
cryonic suspension, then the conversation is about one of the things
that might happen to us after revival. I think that anyone who considers
cryonics in the first place will want to have some idea of what happens
if it works... more than that, even. Many people raise issues such as
whether we'll all become slaves or only sources for spare parts; others
suggest that we'll awaken in a world in which EVERYONE has turned them-
selves into a computer. I don't think that the decision to be suspended
depends only on whether or not the suspension will succeed. It also
depends on just what you expect to find at the other end. So discussions
of that issue are at the root of any decision to be suspended.

If your mind on these issues is firmly made up, and you don't find these
discussions worthwhile, then fine, too. But do not go about claiming
that they have nothing to do with cryonics. They lie at the heart of
cryonics.

			Best and long long life for all,

				Thomas Donaldson

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