X-Message-Number: 16719
Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2001 21:48:19 +0000 ()
From: Louis Epstein <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #16678 - #16691

On 26 Jun 2001, CryoNet wrote:

> Message #16678 From: "Trygve Bauge" <>
>  
> 10 years ago there was a company named VIVIGEN that accepted cell samples
> for storage in the
> United States. Then it stopped taking cell samples, and I for one, have no
> idea where the cell samples ended up. One hospital in Norway has misplaced
> (and most likely destroyed) the cells they took of my grandfather.
> 
> Thus, by all means take cell samples, but do it right, and spread the cells
> around on several storage providers.

The June 22nd issue of Science
notes the disastrous damage done
to medical facilities in the Houston
area by hurricanes and flooding.
Cell samples were among the casualties.

I suppose careful DNA-storage strategy
would have several widely spread
survivable facilities used.
 
> Ideally one would like to have the brain cells survive with the mental
> content present.

We don't know that any way to do this
has yet been invented.

And are we really sure cryogenic temperatures
are more effective than any form of chemical
fixation in maintaining the exact brain state
as prior to death as closely as possible? 
 
> ------------------------------------------------------------ 
> Message #16681 From: "Trygve Bauge" <>
> 
> Last fall my plans for a Norwegian cryonic facility was covered by a 4
> minute prime time TV segment on our largest national TV station. This
> spring it was covered by one of our largest monthly periodicals for men.

Your girlfriend didn't mind that,
but broke up with you over
Elizabeth's buried father?
 
> ----------------------------------------------------
> Message #16689 Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 19:00:05 -0400
> From: Jeffrey Soreff <>
> 
> Louis Epstein wrote:
> 
> >Tolerance and inclusiveness taken to extremes are suicidal.There is no
> >escape from drawing lines.They just have to be drawn in the best places.
> 
> Come to think of it, are there _any_ examples of cultures
> that died due to excessive inclusiveness? 

They tend to painfully correct their
excessive inclusiveness.Weimar Germany
allowed the Nazis to rise to power...
modern Germany,after great losses due
to that weakness,bans Nazism.
 
> ----------------------------------------------------------
> Message #16691 Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 19:49:45 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Ruthanna R Gordon <>

(Some of my edu was at sunysb before the Internet era)
 
> The prejudice floating around this group for the last couple of weeks has
> been literally making me sick to my stomach (the fact that I was catching
> up on it over two days time probably didn't help).  In this category I
> include those who think homosexuality is "deplorable," those who think
> that "deathists" are by circular definition insane and incapable of
> giving consent,

Not sure if you're trying to get me twice there.
I don't consider mortalism insanity,just foolishness
(the same as homosexuals' not being celibate)...
what is insane is deliberately seeking death itself,
not the notion that it's inevitable and shouldn't be
avoided.

> The strength of any species is in its diversity, both behavioral
> and genetic. 

It is dangerous to exalt diversity
to a positive good.It is after all
the cause of every war there ever
was.

> Would anyone like to explain to me the advantages confered
> by homogeneity and inbreeding? 

Shared values bring peace.

Inbreeding has certainly got
disadvantages,but positive
traits can be reinforced just
as negative ones can.I've read
that research on ages at death
in Austrian villages where 
nobody married outside the
village for centuries(historically
peasant inbreeding has been more
common than royal inbreeding,
whatever the stereotypes) shows
a double-peaked bell curve,with
the positive and the negative 
traits showing up.

> In the same way, its useful to have a small portion of the species be
> non-breeders willing to adopt, and another portion who prefer to focus
> their lives on something other than child-rearing (incidentally, desire
> to breed is in my experience an entirely separate trait from sexual
> orientation).
> 
> It gets more complicated, because someone might think one of the traits we
> value makes us unable to give informed consent.  For example,
> homosexuality has in the past been considered a form of insanity.  If
> "sexual inversion" makes it's way back into the DSM-X, I could wake up and
> discover that I no longer love the partner I planned to spend the next few
> thousand years with.  The thought gives me the creeping willies. 

Like parenthood,love is a separate thing
from sexual orientation.I see no reason
why you can't regard a person with deep 
affection without having a desire for
sexual activity between you...isn't this
the norm for blood relatives,after all?
Are you calling it unnatural otherwise?

> Another example:  the idea has been expressed here that *any*
> willingness to die is insane, and that those who do should be forced,
> "kicking and screaming," to live. 

Force-kicking-and-screaming is called
for only when the person insists on a
course of action that inevitably 
results in death,with the intent of
dying.

> Now, I have things, and people, that I am willing to die for. 
> There are causes for the advancement of which I would go into a situation
> that I knew I would not survive.  If this part of my personality were to
> be altered, something vital would have been lost.  To me this is not
> insane "deathism," but life-affirming, because the things I'm willing
> to die for are among the most important things that I live for. 

There are things that I would die for
too...actions I might take that some
would call suicidal...but that would
never have death as their *desired
end*.If a man points a gun at me and
I scream at him to hand it over and
surrender at once,I want him to do
as I say,even if the result is that 
he kills me.

It's insane to believe that one's death
would be a good thing.Not that it may
for some reason be worth risking.

> I'm not telling people to stop the uploading debate (I retired from
> cat-herding a while back), but suggesting that we also talk about how
> we can ensure that our individual desires for survival are actually met.

As I've mentioned,I firmly disbelieve
in "uploading" constituting survival;
certainly any computer program represented
as being me that did not regard being a
computer program as disqualifying it from
being me would not be accurately representing
my thinking on the matter!

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