X-Message-Number: 18227 Date: Tue, 25 Dec 2001 14:37:26 -0500 (EST) From: Charles Platt <> Subject: narcissism, Hollywood, and cryonics There is still something more to be said about Vanilla Sky, which is that it displays an aspects of cryonics which we might prefer to forget or at least downplay: Narcissism. Hollywood is of course the world capital of narcissism, and Cruise movies have their fair share ("I do my own stunts! I look as beautiful as Barbie's boyfriend Ken!"). It certainly makes sense to find this narcissism in a cryonics movie, because cryonics of course makes no sense at all unless you like yourself to a healthy (or unhealthy) degree; if you hate yourself, why would you want to be brought back? Thus in this sense Hollywood and cryonics are made for each other, but in a way that may make us feel a bit uncomfortable. Because when we sell cryonics, we do not sell it in the same way as, say, LEF sells Rejuvenex. We sell it for "rational" reasons, and we are careful not to make exaggerated claims (well, some of us are), and we dwell more on the tech side than on the touchy-feely side. Most of all we try to avoid overtones of religion, afterlife, and all that mystical stuff which we feel would undermine the solid scientific basis for cryonics. We want to sell cryonics rationally. This is our great ethical virtue and our biggest commercial mistake. When I saw Steven Valentine's superb presentation for his Timeship project, I realized that he had taken all the stuff I found most hokey and embarrassing about immortalism--the 1950s B movies, the religious iconography, pyramid power, mysterious powerful rays, people in white robes and Lucite sandals--and instead of sweeping this stuff under the rug, he had recognized it and enshrined it as the true essence of cryonics. And from a mass-marketing perspective, he was right! We're crazy to try to get away from these wacky overtones. They are in fact the core of the matter to most potential consumers. We *need* a building shaped like a mandala, with a promenade where mirrors trap the sun and reflect it through swirling clouds of LN vapor, while Scientists walk priest-like through the mist, pondering some 1930s Vision of Tomorrow. If you find this stuff embarrassing and you try to talk about nanomachines and the composition of vitrification solutions, you've lost 99 percent of your potential audience right there. People WANT white robes and lucite sandals, and cryotoriums with a vaguely Egyptian/mystical look, built above ground where they will be vulnerable yet cinematic. Personally this paraphernalia still makes me feel slightly nauseated, because it is a gross misinterpretation of science and the transcendent impulse. It's the comic-book version of cryonics. But long ago I became reconciled to the fact that most people do not think as I do. If they want the Timeship version of cryonics, or the Tom Cruise version ("This face is too beautiful to die, because it is my face!") then in a free-market system, that is the cryonics they will have. And here is the take-home message: There is nothing we can do about it. Every small group of extremist visionaries tends to find that its pure good ideas are used and abused selectively by the media, and turned into trash. This is the way of the world. Complex concepts are oversimplified. This to me is the message of Vanilla Sky. It is the first step (there will be more!) toward a bowdlerization of the cryonics philosophy as established by Kent, Henderson, Leaf, Darwin, and yes, Harris, and maybe even me. It is just as much a travesty as Star Trek was, relative to the stories in those 1950s science-fiction magazines (so carefully and logically worked out, and now forgotten). When cryonics acquires mass appeal, it will offend us. I guarantee it. And Tom Cruise has taken the first step in this direction. --CP Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=18227