X-Message-Number: 31011
Date: Mon, 1 Sep 2008 18:57:36 -0700
From: "Charles Platt" <>
Subject: Communitarian Thinking in Cryonics

> Is there someone who can shake loose the money to try this, or do we
> have to see many more disasters and last minute fundraising efforts?

To me this is a classic illustration of the general pattern whereby
one person's problem or misfortune provokes a proposal to
"collectivize" a system so that the misfortune can "never happen
again."

This is especially ironic since, as I understand it, William O'Rights
is not the kind of guy who is well disposed toward collectivism.

Cryonics arrangements are a contract between an individual and a
corporation. The contract may be lengthy, but the concept is simple:
If I so choose, I can try to protect my future life. Period. No one
else needs to be involved, or should be involved.

While fund-raising efforts may be well-intentioned, they greatly
confuse this simple concept by introducing the idea of "community,"
with consequences that David Stodolsky seems to like, but which I find
disturbing. As soon as we have a community we embark on a journey
toward evils such as peer pressure and guilt, encouraging us to feel a
reflexive obligation to our companions, not because we have an
individual affection for them but simply because they are "part of our
community." Worse, we may see the development of an "us and them"
mentality, with "us" being somehow more worthy than "them" outside the
community.

This leads to the usual entitlement problems. Let us suppose the
supporters of Mr. O'Rights are successful in their effort to seek
donations. Does this encourage other people to feel similarly
entitled? In other words, does it encourage people to be
irresponsible? Or let us suppose they are not successful. Will this
tragedy result in creation of an "emergency fund" of some kind? In
which case, who qualifies for this fund, and how is it controlled, and
how can we protect it from abuse? Sounds as if we need a new layer of
administration. Who appoints the administrators? How do we prevent
them from being more generous to their friends than to people whom
they happen to dislike? And so on.

The concept of community brings other mischief, such as the feeling
that people in the community who are the most fortunate, or well off,
should "give something back" to the community, even if they never took
anything from it to begin with. What this really means, of course, is
that people who regard themselves as unfortunate, or less well off,
may want other people to help them out--because, after all, they are
fellow members of our community.

I realize William O'Rights is not asking people to do anything that
they don't want to do. He's simply trying to evade mortality, and I
don't blame him. I see his well-wishers as the source of all these
problems, since they have made this a public issue instead of a
private one. In the process they have fostered the very troubling
concept that people in the "cryonics community" are somehow more
worthy than people outside it.

I have already seen discussions of Mr. O'Rights' commitment to
cryonics, as if his personal beliefs somehow make his life more
valuable. This, to me, is a short step away from cultism. If my
daughter or my significant other are not signed up for cryonics, does
this count against the value of their lives in some way?

I suggest it is unwise to put ourselves in a position where these
questions can be raised. Fund-raising of this type should best be done
on a private, person-to-person basis, and certainly not by invoking
the concept of community.

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=31011