X-Message-Number: 23015 Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2003 15:59:16 -0500 From: RANDY WICKER <> Subject: Times are changing --Boundary_(ID_CF5GI+oec1UmkOWer43PIA) Content-type: text/plain; charset=Windows-1252 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Times are changing. I had a "working session" with a key science reporter from a major publication last night. We viewed early footage of a documentary on cloning featuring Dr. Zavos with veiled patients and technical assistants. Fortunately, I was able to identify at least one of them. I'd taken along a copy of "Physical Immortality" that Mike Perry had sent to me and a membership card and bumper sticker for the Immortality Institute. I took the opportunity to broach the subject of cryonics, life extension and immortality. He seemed surprised to discover that CI was being hassled in Michigan and didn't know about the zoning games in Boca Raton, Florida. Somehow, the subject of financing came up. He said that aging millionaires were constantly pulling him aside and asking if he knew where the latest breakthroughs against aging were coming in medicine and biotechnology. When I asked why he hadn't written about cryonics or those seeking immortality, his reply was "because it is too kooky". I'd been urging him to read Brian Alexander's "Rapture:How Biotechnology Has Become The New Religion". I told him his thinking was out of date, that Brian Alexander's entire book was about how what was considered "kooky" even a decade ago was becoming mainstream today. I pointed out an excellent article "Towards a Philosophy of Immortality" by Marc Geddes, "Cryonics: Background, Overview, and Bioethical Implications" along with an "Imaginary Conversation About Cryo-preservation" by Gina Miller. Like most reporters, he didn't realize that many supporters of cryonics simply saw it as an avenue of "possible hope" for revival and realized such revival might not be possible for a long time. I also told him I was working on storing some of my own cells, even my entire body for future cloning. I felt that if I succeeded in doing this the argument that cryonics organizations were only caring for the dead would be mute because at a cellular level I would still contain the spark of life necessary for cloning, that whoever was responsible for those cells would have to be viewed as storing living tissue. He was familiar with the outrageous story from France where someone had been denied cryo-preservation. When I told him my fears that once cryonic organizations were deemed to be "regulated cemeteries" laws or even regulations by appointed bureaucrats might effectively ban cryonics by ordering "every deceased person must be buried in a certain period of time". In any event, after taking a few pages of notes, he announced that, indeed, he was going to do a story about those seeking immortality. So, the times are changing. Randolfe H. Wicker Founder, Clone Rights United Front www.clonerights.com Spokesperson, Reproductive Cloning Network, www.reproductivecloning.net Former CEO, Human Cloning Foundation, www.humancloning.org 201-656-3280 (Mornings) --Boundary_(ID_CF5GI+oec1UmkOWer43PIA) Content-type: text/html; charset=Windows-1252 [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=23015