X-Message-Number: 12067
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: For George Smith and others
Date: Mon, 5 Jul 1999 22:35:51 +1000 (EST)

For George Smith and others:

There is very little mystery to why no cryonics group has hired a full
public relations staff. They're all still very small compared to most
societies in the US or the world, and correspondingly lack resources.
If those who think that we first of all need to hire a public relations
company are prepared to provide the money to do so, then they should
do so ASAP, and end the debate over whether or not that would work.

One thing a small group of people must do is to select carefully just
where they will use what money they do have. Right now I would say that
the most important thing is to fund (or even take part in) studies aimed
at improving our suspension methods. I very much do not agree that Our
Friends in the Future will solve all the problems for us --- though 
(since the future is a very long time indeed) I would not be surprised
if eventually (hundreds of years from now) we have advanced enough that
suspension patients on whom we've now given up completely turn out to
be revivable. (I would not be surprised if the opposite happened, too!).
But we should NOT depend on Our Friends in the Future.

In this I may well differ from a substantial number of cryonicists. That
is unfortunate, but those who do NOT take a religious view of cryonics
must simply press on and do what they feel necessary while all the others
are giving comparatively minor amounts of money while thinking about
OFITF (Our Friends in the Future). For there is a very hard truth that
even many cryonicists may not yet have absorbed: cryonics is presently
your ONLY chance at living well past the standard age. There is no other.
Cryonics, with all its faults and questions, remains the only movement
offering any of us ANY hope of real, physical immortality (*).

			Best and long long life to all,

				Thomas Donaldson

(*) Yes, there is all the work on life extension. But I note that even
calorie restriction, if begun in maturity, gives only about a 30% increase
in lifespan. If you work away to improve cryonics, that increase may
become quite meaningful; otherwise you've just lived a few years longer
than normal.

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