X-Message-Number: 23529
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2004 08:00:05 -0500
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: modestly not wanting immortality

Hi everyone!

The comments by Paul and Kitty Wakfer about life extension, and those of 
others who want immortality minimized in our material, suffer from one
major fault: What is there is going to be seen, whether we try to
minimize it or not. Perhaps I respect our audience more than Paul Wakfer
does, but once this particular genie has come out of his bottle pushing
him back in just won't work. 

And I'd expect our audience, such as it is, not to agree on the benefits
either of cryonics or the potential immortality which it will bring.
So we'll not move a thing merely by describing what we're doing with
a more modest vocabulary. We might even find ourselves worse off, with
some people jumping up and saying that we're trying to hide our real
purposes in such modest language.

As for those who claim they don't want immortality, fine --- and if we're
to be literal, immortality can never be attained because it will take
forever to attain it. But I personally would like to live a very
long time, far longer than now, because I'd then have hope of doing
things which I can only dream about doing now. If that in effect is
immortality, fine with me.

                 Best wishes and long long life,

                       Thomas Donaldson

PS: and when we really succeed in our endeavor to improve and promote
cryonics, I suspect that many more people will feel as I do than 
will bow to their Gods and accept their own finite desires.

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