X-Message-Number: 16977
Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2001 21:24:43 +0000
Subject: Re: It is perfectly reasonable to reject cryonics (not!)
From: "" <>

> From: "Raphael T. Haftka" 

> >Why people reject cryonics
> 
> Looking for reasons that make us look smart and others look dumb or
superstitious is gratifying, but may not get us much mileage in terms
> of 
> changing the situation. I believe that most people reject cryonics
> because 
> it is eminently logical to do so.

"Most people" are, in varying degrees, religious. ~I rest my case~ (nah,
can't help myself -- read on).
 
> There are thousands of fringe movements like us. 

Only to the most casual observer. "We" are in fact almost(?) unique due
to the fact that we actually have a complicated, at least partially hard
science-based procedure for "saving" our dead. Also we're very open about
it, no secret rituals or other mumbo-jumbo. No deity worship either.
This puts us in a different league than 99.9..% of the "competition",
something which even a relatively unbright person should notice while
glancing one of our pages. 

> If I took the time
> to 
> evaluate each one of them, I would be likely to make costly mistakes.

What can be a more costly mistake than permanent death? 

> Say 
> that I can spot what is wrong in 99% of the movements I will check.
> If I 
> check 200, this will still leave two lunatic movements that will win
> me 
> over. This can be disastrous. 

The worst that can happen is that you'll get killed, but if you do nothing
you'll die for sure. When death is the default outcome, it becomes inherently
rational to take chances. Merkle's matrix says it all.

> So I and others have a very sensible
> defense 
> mechanism to ignore claims by fringe movements rather than try to evaluate
> them seriously. 

The basic idea is right, but "your" defense mechanism is too crude, and
indeed potentially lethal. "Natural" cryonicists such as myself (ahem)
apparently have a much more sophisticated BS detection mechanism (aka
common sense), one that knows how to separate the wheat from the chaff,
and therefore doesn't throw out the baby with the bathwater. If your
mind is sufficiently open, you'll immediately see the logic of cryonics:


Fact: cryogenic temperatures effectively stop decay. 
Fact: we are biological machines -- preserve the brain, and you preserve
the person. 
Fact: science keeps advancing rapidly, and there doesn't seem to be any
"absolute" limit on progress in sight. It certainly isn't inconceivable
that at some point the technology will exist to repair frozen bodies/brains
and bring them back to life. 
Fact: your only alternatives are: 

a) hoping that you'll survive until death, disease and aging are eliminated.
Certainly if you're still young, this may very well be the case, but
since anyone can die anytime (accident, terminal illness, murder), it
is a rather reckless thing to do. Why take this unnecessary risk at the
edge of infinity? 
b) religion and other superstitions that promise life after death, one
or a few of which *might* of course be true due to some cosmic coincidence,
but then again there *might* also be pink unicorns, leprechauns and jolly
gnomes. Relying on primitive, usually self-contradictory superstitions
for one's survival cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be called
"rational". 
c) a meek, defeatist acceptance of death (the humanist way). Not very
appealing either, is it?
d)...there is no d! You've run out of options.

> So when you make a cryonics pitch, most people will
> try to 
> find something to say that will shut you up. 

And you reply: got anything better, you walking corpse? That should get
their attention.

> I know that I do that
> routinely whenever I hear a get-rich-quick pitch. I may have missed
> a good 
> one now and then, but overall I am sure that I would have fallen for
> a bad 
> one had I taken the time to check carefully on each scheme.

Nothing ventured nothing gained (or in this case: paradise lost). Sorry,
but I still don't see any valid, rational excuse -other than extreme
poverty- for not signing up. Like Mr. Smith said, cryonics is the supreme
IQ test of our time. Those who fail it are stupid, and eventually dead.

P.s: thanks to Jonh Grigg for posting that review of _Chiller_ -- now
at least I don't have to buy the book ;) (strange; I thought that the
story was about a serial killer who specifically targets cryonicists,
which would have been a lot more original and interesting. Ah well...).


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