X-Message-Number: 14742
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 03:54:09 -0700
From: Kennita Watson <>
Subject: Re: Cold Equations
References: <>

> From: Lee Corbin <>
> Subject: Tom Godwin's Story "The Cold Equations"
> ...
> You're right, and it is indeed a marvelous story that shows
> that sometimes very hard decisions do have to be made.  Now
> I have always been bothered (as much as you, probably) by
> people who are so excessively sentimental that they have a
> hard time facing reality.... given the nature of the people reading
> this list ---rather hard-boiled cryonicists (at least from the
> perspective of the general population), some story like "The
> Cold Equations" is hardly necessary reading.  We're already
> in the 99th percentile of people who can make "cold" decisions.

Hardly surprising.  As a teen, I had to be emotionally 
pistol-whipped (by my mom, The Objectivist Who Loved Me) to
admit to myself that I would, if it came down to it, kill 
someone to keep them from killing me.  That may, actually, 
have been the life-changing, worls-view-busting discussion 
that started me (a la Dorothy's tippy-toe on the point at 
the beginning of the Yellow Brick Road) on the road to 
both cryonics and Libertarianism.
> 
> And from time to time we do need to remind ourselves that in real
> situations, some extra effort often succeeds in allowing one
> to avoid an extremely gruesome choice.  When a hypothetical
> question is uninteresting (and besides the point), like "which
> cryonicist would you save?", I think it best to use it as an
> occasion to praise resourcefulness and commitment instead.

Resourcefulness and commitment, and praise thereof, are
wonderful -- as long as you realize that *sometimes* they aren't
enough.

Incidentally, with some thought, Will and I came up with some
things to try:  take the fifth patient out of her dewar and
squeeze her sleeping bag in with one of the others; neuroconvert
(with a chainsaw if necessary) whoever won't fit and pack as
needed; neuroconvert as before, press a standard cooler or other 
container into service, and pour in some of the LN2 from the 
dewar that's being left behind.  There are probably others 
that I haven't thought of.

Of course, all this ignores that the standard whole-body dewar 
holds four patients -- which ups the ante...

Live long and prosper,
Kennita
--
Kennita Watson          |  I vote Libertarian.
     |      Find out why.
http://www.kennita.com  |           http://www.lp.org/intro

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