X-Message-Number: 15855 Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 11:39:52 -0800 (PST) From: Scott Badger <> Subject: Re: Motivation? In Message #15846 David King wrote: > Hi, I was explaining my interest in cryonics to > someone and they asked an interesting question > that I couldn't answer. They asked, "What would > be the motivation for future generations to re- > animate me?" and later > If we, today, had the ability to reanimate people > who had been frozen a hundred years ago, besides > perhaps re-animating a few for scientific and > historical research, what would be our motivation > to reanimate everybody. I can't think of any. David, c'mon. If the technology were around to reanimate those currently frozen we would reanimate every single person. Every single one. Why? Because they're people and we value human life. Why do we bother using CPR or defibrillators (sp?)to resuscitate someone whose heart has stopped? Because we must do whatever we can to save a human live. One mistake I sense your friends are making is that they actually regard cryonics patients to be dead in a way they would not consider someone who just flat lined in a hospital ER. We consider both patients to be on the brink of irreversible death but not yet irretrievably lost. The response I would use to the question you had difficulty answering is this: "It won't be up to the general public. I think we can pretty safely assume that medical science will continue to progress and that medical practitioners will continue to consider saving human lives as their most primary of goals. Once medical science develops the ability to reanimate cryonics patients, the medical community will be bound by their professional ethics to bring cryonics patients back just as they would save any other patient that was at the brink of death." Where the money comes from is another issue. If it's too exorbitant at first, then those patients without the funds to afford reanimation will have to wait until the technology improves enough to make the process cheap enough to justify reanimation. I'd be happy to work after being reanimated to pay off the expenses incurred. How about you? And to Ruthanna: Hmmm. The NPR interview was definitely focusing on the positives. Sorry, but I doubt the interview was archived on NPR's site. Thanks for the NYT link. Best regards, Scott "Vita Perpetuem" __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices. http://auctions.yahoo.com/ Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=15855