X-Message-Number: 31779
From: Mark Plus <>
Subject: Re: Celebs: Too Cool to be Cryo-Preserved
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:18:48 -0700

In Cryonet #31776, Dr. Harris writes:


>Heinlein was one of the great visionaries of the future, and (by his own 
estimate, at any rate) one of the brilliant and intelligent men of the age.


Some of Heinlein's sociological visions of "the future" seem to anticipate real 
developments, for example the breakdown in sexual inhibitions and the growth of 
Christian evangelical churches based on television. But the space travel part of
Heinlein's "future" hasn't happened for the most part, and it seems even less 
likely now than it did in the 1950's.


And the more I've read into Heinlein, the more absurdities in his world view 
I've noticed. For example, Heinlein, who to the best of my knowledge never had 
children, writes repeatedly about baby-making as the highest value, while also 
showing that civilizations experience recurring Malthusian catastrophes. Uh, 
excuse me? What about preventing these catastrophes by not haphazardly 
procreating in the first place?


The emphasis on baby-making could also account for the absence of extremely 
long-lived women in Heinlein's stories about Lazarus Long. Given the ideology in
that society, what woman would seek rejuvenation (assuming that it restores her
fertility) so that she could bear dozens of children a century over an 
indefinite life span? Apparently it never occurred to Heinlein that some women 
might want to extend their lives for their own sake and not just because they 
serve the needs of others. (For example, we do see a few women in cryonics who 
signed up on their own initiative, unlike the potentially "hostile wives" who 
don't care for cryonics but go along with it reluctantly because they want to 
please the cryonicist men in their lives -- for now.)


Our juvenile literary enthusiasms might have a handful of good ideas in them 
apiece that we can carry with us into adulthood and whatever lies "beyond" that 
if cryonics and radical life extension work. But for the most part science 
fiction writers live conventionally, and they don't try to act upon the edgy or 
radical ideas they present in their published fantasy lives, especially when 
these ideas push their mortality salience buttons the way cryonics does. An 
adult can read science fiction to pass the time while waiting at, say, an 
airport; but he would do himself a disservice to consider this literature a 
guide to practical life.

Mark Plus

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