X-Message-Number: 15806 Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 07:55:38 -0500 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: for those considering cryonics Hi (for David King): Do not be put off by the possibility that when you awaken you will lack many needed skills. Given anything close to immortality, the first thing you do is to acquire those skills (hopefully with much more advanced educational technology, but if you acquire them just by studying and attending labs, just like now, you'll still acquire them). You don't think you're ability to learn will be sustained? That's one of the basic traits we want to keep, after our revival, and a revival which doesn't allow that won't happen... except in unlikely events. And one other material point: get some life insurance ASAP. You can drop it if you decide you don't want to sign up, but its currently the best available means of finance, and if for some reason you become uninsurable then it will be cut off from you... so that you will find that you simply can't afford cryonics. You don't have to give the insurance to any society, at first, but you should either have life insurance, or enough money to pay outright for your suspension, or a plan to get enough such money. It is the one thing about which you must not delay. (Why do I say this? Because I got a brain tumor over 10 years ago, and can afford cryonics because beforehand I got plenty of life insurance... while if I had not done so, cryonics would have been almost closed off). Best wishes and long long life, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=15806