X-Message-Number: 3225 Date: Sat, 8 Oct 1994 01:02:45 -0400 (EDT) From: Charles Platt <> Subject: CRYONICS:Reasons not to sign up There is really no mystery about people's reluctance to sign up for cryonic suspension, and it troubles me when cryonicists sometimes seem exasperated, unsympathetic, or downright disgusted by people who opt for mortality. Elitism always bothers me. Too often it is a sign of closed mindedness (exactly the sin which we ascribe to non-cryonicists). Here are some typical (and in the subjective sense, valid) reasons why people don't sign up: 1. Most people have religious faith which provides reassurance. 2. Most people are to some extent afraid of the future. 3. Many people do not trust current medicine, let alone future medicine. 4. Many people feel their first obligation toward their families, and would feel guilty about spending money on life insurance for themselves. 5. Most people are preoccupied with the short term rather than long term. 6. Cryonics may seem a form of wasteful self-indulgence. 7. Cryonics is likely to seem wacky. "If my business associates ever find out about this, my career will go down the tubes." 8. Cryonics organizations are small and relatively under funded. 9. Cryonics is unregulated, untested, unproven. 10. Cryonics groups are staffed by activists or underpaid employees, many of whom have no professional qualifications or business experience. 11. No human being or mammal has ever been revived after 100% freezing. 12. Orthodox scientists mostly laugh at cryonics. 13. There is no guarantee that people in the future will defrost anyone. 14. Signing for cryonics entails the most painful acknowledgment of one's own mortality. 15. Cryonics sign-up paperwork tends to be overwhelmingly complex and full of worrisome disclaimers of liability. 16. Some cryonics patients were allowed to thaw in the past. 17. There is no known way, as yet, to prevent or repair freezing damage. 18. The idea that life processes can be arrested and restarted is a gross violation of most people's instinctive ideas on the subject. 19. Anyone who dies in an accident is likely to be autopsied, which will probably include dissection of the brain. 20. If you allow yourself to believe that cryonics has a chance of working, you have to reconsider many fundamental aspects of your life. I could go on, but you get the general idea. There are, in conventional terms, excellent reasons for ignoring cryonics. Our task should be to acknowledge those reasons and understand the feelings that are associated with them, as a preliminary process before trying to "convert" anyone. If you don't show some sympathy toward a potential client's point of view, you probably won't succeed in selling him anything. And since cryonics should always be a freely chosen option, the "hard sell" approach is out of the question. Naturally, I believe there are good answers to all the points I have listed above, otherwise I would not have signed up, and I would not be trying to promote cryonics. But I still respect other people's points of view. ############################################################ Charles Platt, 1133 Broadway (room 1214), New York, NY 10010 Voice: 212 929 3983 Fax: 212 929 4467 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=3225