X-Message-Number: 2869
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: CRYONICS: re: cryonics: #2856-#2958
Date: Sat, 9 Jul 1994 23:26:01 -0700 (PDT)

Hi again!

About abuse: it seems to me that this feeling would apply to undergoing a 
major operation, too. After all, you're unconscious and can do nothing to
defend yourself. And after all, cryonics IS a major operation, so it's not so
unreal to raise the same question.

About other kinds of abuse, I would say this. No one should ever forget that
cryonics societies exist to maintain and protect their patients. The idea of
somehow preserving ourselves and then leaving ourselves somewhere (say, under
the ice of the Antarctic) comes out of a failure to understand just what 
cryonics societies exist for. Suspension is only the first phase of cryonics.
The longest and most important part is that of preserving and protecting the
patient, from ANY kind of abuse, politically motivated, sexually motivated,
or whatever. It's far from a simple matter of passively putting in a bit of
liquid nitrogen. You may have heard, for instance, of the Dora Kent case: an
illustration of just how far cryonicists will go to protect a suspension 
patient.

Of course it's reasonable to ask about motivation, too. The major motivation 
a cryonicist has to care for a patient now is the understanding that if they
do not do so, their own care will have been compromised when they too have
been suspended.

And of course the same may be said of revival, when and if it becomes possible.
If you are revived, it will be CRYONICISTS who revive you, not faceless people
from some future time. It's quite true: if we throw ourselves upon the charity
of the people of 200 years from now, we are likely to meet the same kind of
treatment that people who depend on charity now (yes, that is a brutal thing
to say, but I think it has validity). Cryonicists, however, would see that 
suspension patients they revived were at least treated decently --- perhaps
not given immense wealth, but not thrown out on the street, either. And they 
would do so for the same reasons as they would care for them when frozen:
if not, they would cast doubts about their own treatment when THEY were
revived.

		Long long life,

			Thomas Donaldson

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