X-Message-Number: 17838
From: 
Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 10:12:00 EST
Subject: Families

Cryonics Institute has its 39th human whole-body patient, a cancer victim, 
the widow of another CI patient.

A third of CI patients are related by blood or marriage to other CI patients. 
Other patients were friends or acquaintances of each other. There are also 
some ties to patients of other organizations. What does this tell us?

To begin with, it is unlikely that you will be revived with only strangers 
around you. Many of us would rather be alive among strangers (at first), 
rather than dead among friends and relatives; but the (expressed or 
unexpressed) fear of being alone, or/and leaving others behind ("forsaking" 
them), is not infrequently felt. If already a third or more of patients have 
close ties to other patients, then your chance after revival of having 
companions with a shared past looks pretty good.

We have usually tended to look at the gloomy side of family statistics. Since 
only a small fraction of the populace is currently very favorable toward 
cryonics, obviously there will usually be disagreement within families, with 
the proponents in the minority. These outnumbered pro-cryonicists will tend 
to be dissuaded, and we have often seen this happen.

But the other side of it is that, if at least one family member is pro 
cryonics, the chance of other family members coming around is thousands of 
times as great as it would be for a random individual. This throws additional 
emphasis on your ability and responsibility, not only to save yourself, but 
to help save your relatives and friends. Another link between love and life.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
www.cryonics.org

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