X-Message-Number: 32263
From: Mark Plus <>
Subject: Re: Rebranding cryonics
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 2009 07:24:06 -0800

In Cryonet #32262, David Stodolsky writes:


>Transhumanism is already rebranding (actually repackaging) cryonics by 
including it a sequence of developments. Some of these are available already. 
The WTA also organizes local groups, etc. so there are ongoing activities. The 
results for cryonics are positive.


Cryonics has always associated with transhumanist thinking. Robert Ettinger and 
F.M. Esfandiary made that explicit in their respective futurological writings 
published back in the 1960's and 1970's; Ettinger even uses the word 
"transhuman" several times in his 1972 book "Man Into Superman," available 
online:

http://www.cryonics.org/book2.html


A number of cryonicists, myself included, have begun to question whether this 
association has resulted in "positive" results for cryonics, given that enough 
time has passed to falsify early transhumanist predictions with dates about 
medical & technological breakthroughs, including ones in cryonics. And as you 
point out, some schools of transhumanist thinking have led to passivity or 
terror management, like Ray Kurzweil's consumption of "life extension" quackery.
Kurzweil might have arrangements for his cryonic suspension (a recent "Popular 
Science" article states that he does); but for an inventor and engineer obsessed
with his personal survival, he seems incurious and unmotivated about trying to 
improve cryonics as a technological product, probably because he believes that 
the bowls of pills he swallows every day have put him on the path to "living 
well forever." Even if he knows he lacks the expertise to help cryonics, he has 
the money, status and connections to attract people who do.


I've also run across transhumanists who dismiss cryonics, even if is succeeds, 
because they believe that AI's will make humans "obsolete" and human life not 
worth preserving in a few decades. This sort of transhumanism sets itself up as 
explicitly hostile to cryonicists' goals.


So, Mr. Stodolsky, excuse my skepticism of your claim that transhumanism helps 
cryonics.

Mark Plus





 		 	   		  
_________________________________________________________________
Your E-mail and More On-the-Go. Get Windows Live Hotmail Free.
http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/171222985/direct/01/

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=32263