X-Message-Number: 1494
Date: 23 Dec 92 01:48:55 EST
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: CRYONICS: comments to Ed Swank

Some comments for Edgar Swank:

I only now managed to read your reply to me about reducing the number of
suspensions to ZERO. The reason for all the delay is that I was away for
some time, and when I came back there was a deluge of messages; Kevin
did collect most of them together and send them to me on disk, but a 
deluge remains a deluge.

You say: "reduce to ZERO, or just about..." That's exactly the point.
When I said ZERO, I meant ZERO. Zilch. Nada. Not "just about". If we live
long enough, even very improbable events will become a reason for serious
concern: for after all, anything that happens to someone once in 1000
man-years may very well happen to us. If we live to 1000000 the same 
applies. I was arguing that the need for suspension would continue 
indefinitely, long into the future. Certainly I'd expect the TECHNOLOGY
of suspension to change a lot: perhaps we will be stored at room temp-
erature, or stored on specially hardened optical disks, or whatever.
But the fundamental principle: if someone gets so messed up you don't
know how to fix them, KEEP THEM AROUND, is not going to go away. Ever.

It's also a hard lesson to learn. A lot of cryonics discussion aims to
provide ideas and methods to fix people. That's fine. Something will 
someday come of that discussion, and some people will actually be fixed
ie. revived. But there is another lesson behind that, which many find
much harder. We should store people EVEN IF WE HAVEN'T THE VAGUEST IOEA
HOW TO FIX THEM. Why? Because surprizing things can happen in the 
trillions of years before us. And when we DO decide to abandon someone,
we should do so basically because there is nothing left to store.

I hope this clarifies my point to you and others who may be listening.
			Best, and long life, and Merry Christmas!
				Thomas Donaldson

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