X-Message-Number: 267 Date: 26 Dec 90 01:04:11 EST From: STEVE BRIDGE <> To: KEVIN <> Subject: Cryonics on CNN Message-Id: <"901226060410 72320.1642 EHI20-1"@CompuServe.COM> The following report is from a friend and incipient cryonicist, Richard Shock, who taped the following inane news story. Richard also provides commentary afterwards. CNN "FUTURE WATCH" Segment on Cryonics, first aired 12/22/90, 4:40 PM -- Central Standard Time. FADE IN: Footage of a conventional old-fashioned cemetery, headstones, mausoleums, etc. Daytime. VOICE OF DAVID GEORGE (CNN reporter) There'll be none of those "Death and Taxes" jokes in this story. Venturists have enough jokes of their own. CUT TO: CLOSE UP MIKE PERRY, "VENTURISTS" PRESIDENT PERRY Many are cold but few are frozen. That's one of our laments, actually. We wish there were more people who would take this more seriously. VOICE OF DAVID GEORGE The Venturists are dead serious about cryonics. CUT TO: CLOSE UP RALPH CHARLES MERKLE, NANOTECHNOLOGIST MERKLE Cryonics is a method of preserving the structure of the human body for a terminally ill patient, so that they can effectively reach a hospital somewhere in the 21st or 22nd century where presumably a more advanced technical capability can be employed to restore them to a healthy state. CUT TO: Alcor footage of a cryonic suspension in progress. VOICE OF DAVID GEORGE Cryonicists want the right to be placed on ice while they're terminally ill, before they die. But all the people who have had their bodies preserved in cryonic laboratories so far haven't been terminally ill -- they've been dead. CUT TO: CLOSE UP RALPH MERKLE MERKLE A declaration of clinical death according to modern criteria should not be taken as a statement that you are dead by the criteria of one to two hundred years from now. CUT TO: Footage of paramedics wheeling a patient into a modern hospital emergency room during the night. VOICE OF DAVID GEORGE Cryonicists point out that modern medicine regularly saves people who just a few years ago would've been considered beyond help. But resuscitation isn't resurrection. CUT TO: Alcor footage of a cryonics patient being lowered into a vapor- filled dewar. VOICE OF DAVID GEORGE 20th century medicine can't do a thing for those who've chosen the freezer over the grave. CUT TO: CLOSE UP CARLOS MONDRAGON, CRYONICS LAB MANAGER MONDRAGON People who are in cryonic suspension now are damaged in such a way that the only way they're going to be recovered is if we develop some kind of cell-repair technology, which means molecular engineering. CUT TO: Footage of an isolation-suited technician working in a recombinant DNA lab. VOICE OF DAVID GEORGE Cryonics literature says the kind of molecular engineering they're talking about is at least fifty to a hundred and fifty years away. Cryonicists predict that by the middle of the 21st or 22nd centuries doctors will be able to repair or replace diseased or damaged body parts, cell by cell. And cryonics will be obsolete. CUT TO: CLOSE UP CARLOS MONDRAGON MONDRAGON -- because if we can manipulate life at that level, and fix people literally one cell at a time, you're not going to have problems like aging, or cancer, or heart disease, or any number of things that kill people, other than accidents. CUT TO: Alcor footage of a cryonics patients being unpacked from dry ice (?). VOICE OF DAVID GEORGE To its advocates, cryonics is a bridge between life's end and an endless journey. CUT TO: CLOSE UP DAVID PIZER, "VENTURISTS" BOARD MEMBER PIZER Cryonics isn't going to guarantee me immortality, but it might get me into the future when that may be possible. CUT TO: Footage of a crowded street scene somewhere in India. VOICE OF DAVID GEORGE Cryonics talk seriously of immortality while mainstream scientists warn the world it's already too crowded. The cryogenics crowd says not to worry. CUT TO: CLOSE UP MAX MOORE, "VENTURIST" BOARD MEMBER MOORE We're not going to be confined to just this one planet. This is really the womb of the human race and we're eventually going to leave this planet, or at least some of us will. And out there in the universe there's an enormous amount of space for expansion, plenty of room for new people. CUT TO: Footage of some kind of high tech lab, perhaps inside a NASA space station mock-up. (?) VOICE OF DAVID GEORGE Such unbridled faith in technology is a cryonicist trademark. There are at least two others, and they are somewhat contradictory. CUT TO: Footage of a standard American city street scene. VOICE OF DAVID GEORGE One is an unwavering fixation on self, at the expense of future generations. CUT TO: CLOSE UP CARLOS MONDRAGON MONDRAGON I'm not going to willingly end my life for the sake of people who don't exist. CUT TO: Footage of a standard American city street scene again. VOICE OF DAVID GEORGE And the other is a belief that cryonic suspension is something undertaken on behalf of all mankind. CUT TO: CLOSE UP MIKE PERRY PERRY In some sense the destiny of the human race is to develop immortality, and we're beginning that project. CUT TO: EXT. LONG SHOT CEMETERY DAY CAMERA tightens its focus into the same cemetery shown back at the beginning. DAVID GEORGE strolls into the scene. DAVID GEORGE So, what is cryonics, and who are these Venturists? Are they pioneers in touch with the future, a bit ahead of the rest of us, or are they victims of their own delusion, out of touch with reality? Is cryonics medicine, or is it merely a morbid scam? Will the 21st and 22nd centuries reveal cryonics to have been a bridge to the future, or will it turn out to be just another attempt to deny some of life's immutable truths? Those answers are so far in the future that chances are no one watching this program will ever know what they are. Unless of course the Venturists are right...and then they'll know, won't they? FADE OUT. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Richard Shock comments: 1) One may never realize the awesome potential for media bias until that media examines a personally familiar subject. Clearly CNN realizes it, however, and so tried to achieve a balance through the running commentary. Still, having read extensive articles written by the men interviewed here and understanding how complex their ideas can be, I found it unnerving that CNN often summed up their view FOR THEM in a SINGLE PARAGRAPH. 2) Context is all important for communication. Taking one isolated sentence each from Mondragon and Perry to "demonstrate" cryonicists' "somewhat contradictory beliefs" was a crock. 3) What COULD the uninitiated learn from this segment? a) Cryonicists have considered the possibility that all legally dead people may not be unrecoverable by FUTURE medical technology. b) Cryonics is a means of getting these currently unrecoverable patients to a future that may be able to revive them. c) In order to be recovered, cryonics patients will probably require the development of molecular engineering that can repair them cell by cell. 4) What MAY the uninitiated learn from this segment? a) Cryonicists are naive technophiles. b) Cryonicists don't give a damn about future generations. c) Cryonicists are megalomaniacs who consider themselves of monumental significance. 5) While items from (4) and (3) were no doubt intended to balance each other, my guess is that more of (4) will be retained than (3). (3) was "complex" information, while (4) was easily absorbed emotion-laden gossip. 6) Why was Ralph Merkle billed as a "Nanotechnologist"? Is he calling himself that now, or did the CNN crew simply assume that's what he is. Granted, he probably deserves the title. Note though that the word "nanotechnology" was never again used in the segment. The uninitiated audience will have no means of connecting "nanotechnologist" with "molecular engineering." 7) Why is Carlos Mondragon listed as "Cryonics Lab Manager"? He may indeed manage the lab -- I don't know -- but isn't his primary function that of Alcor President? 8) Why the focus on the Venturists? This looks like an attempted Venturist focus story that was sidetracked into cryonics. Perhaps that explains why Alcor wasn't mentioned outside the acknowledgement of its suspension footage. 9) In final analysis, the only purpose I can see for this piece was to show the public pretty moving pictures. As with most television news, the visuals completely distracted from the information content. *** Additional comment from Steve Bridge: This shows that many years of media education have still not gotten most of the coverage of cryonics beyond that of "filler" material. All this does is to yell out, "Hey, there is this idea out there. It might be good, bad, or crazy. We don't know, and we don't understand it, but here are some pictures anyway." Every time I see something like this, I wonder how many of the other stories on TV and articles in newspapers are this bone-headed and misinformed. Probably a lot. It's something to think about. Steve Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=267