X-Message-Number: 1607
Date: 14 Jan 93 02:09:22 EST
From: Charles Platt <>
Subject: CRYONICS Neurosuspension etc.

To: Cryonet

I see two sources of confusion in the discussion of how to 
present unappetizing ideas such as neurosuspension. 

1. Presenting ideas in a certain sequence is not, repeat not, 
the same thing as "deception." I have never knowingly 
deceived anyone about the truths of cryonics, and I can't 
imagine doing so. But I feel absolutely justified in starting 
with the easy ideas and working around to the tough ones 
after I have established an initial common ground. 

2. The process of convincing someone is not purely logical. 
To accept cryonics usually entails a fundamental shift of 
emotional values. It also entails changing fundamental ideas 
about plausibility and feasibility. There are big barriers 
(in most people) to this process. Some cryonicists don't seem 
to possess these barriers. Others have been cryonicists so 
long, they forget what it's like to be an outsider.  

My own conversion to cryonics was swift; but I'm a science-
fiction writer who has always enjoyed fringe groups with 
weird ideas, and I also have a morbid curiosity about death. 
I know from experience, very few people match this profile. 
So let me turn to an analogous area where I am more typical 
of the public at large: 

My conversion to libertarian ideals was difficult. It took 
years. If a libertarian had come up to me at the start of 
that process and said, "Welfare should be abolished and no 
one should pay taxes," I would have ignored him because he 
would have sounded like a nutty extremist. Fortunately, I 
experienced a much gentler introduction to libertarianism, 
which enabled me to proceed in small shifts of perspective 
away from the bleeding-heart liberalism of my social 
background. I could not have done this in one leap. 

Do cryonicists really want to discard potential converts just 
because some people need to get used to an idea step by step? 
This seems short-sighted and clannish, to me. It's like 
saying, "if you can't accept all our ideas right away, you're 
not worth bothering with." 

Communicating with someone is not merely a matter of spelling 
out facts. A person may automatically reject those facts, 
without even bothering to think about them, if the facts seem 
bizarre. And scientists are probably more prone to this than 
housewives, because they have stronger preconceptions about 
what is plausible and what is not.  

Here's another aspect to this whole subject. There is such a 
thing as a persuasive personality. That's why Brenda Peters 
has signed up more people, face-to-face, than I ever will. 
Would Thomas Donaldson reject those converts because they 
were not persuaded by facts alone? Or would he argue that 
sooner or later they would have come around anyway? Bear in 
mind, some of them had been toying with the idea of cryonics 
literally for years before Brenda got them to sign up. 

There is a whole literature on the process of argument, and 
another large literature dealing with strategies for 
converting people to different points of view. (Much of this 
stuff was written by libertarians.) Thomas Donaldson seems to 
be saying that it doesn't apply here, because cryonics is a 
special case. Why should this be so? 


Lastly, to Steve Harris:

I like the sentiments in your statement about immortality. 
But when you suggest that you want to be free to stay alive 
till you get tired of it, you imply suicide as an option. 
Here we have YET ANOTHER "taboo" subject! (For many people.) 
Shall we start yet anothe thread here? Or can everyone simply 
agree that some subjects are more difficult to deal with than 
others, when talking about cryonics? 

--Charles Platt 

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