X-Message-Number: 435
From att!compuserve.com!73647.1215 Wed Sep 11 02:12:58 EDT 1991
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: Re: cryonics #419 - Cryonics and Politics (Re: Write ... Watson!)

As with most people, we try to balance convenience (read labor cost,
time, trouble, etc) with safety. That is why Alcor is presently a publicly
visible organization, with publicly visible storage location. HOWEVER
the idea is certainly not to blithely go on without paying attention to
the current political, social, legal milieu. If it becomes necessary to
scatter and run for the hills, neuropreservation gives us a good way to
cconceal storage and move the patients about. And especially to smuggle
them away to a country where the laws and people are more reasonable.

I have no problems with people who want to hide their own lives. The
problem with cryonics, of course, is that hiding it raises lots more
and different issues}i than would hiding an individual. For instance, 
just how are we going to get recruits? So far, cryonicists have not taken
to replenishing their numbers by the usual sexual processes (though 
many do not abstain ...).

As for protection against political trends, my own impulse, especially
as someone who has spent a substantial part of his adult life outside
the United States, would be simply to go away to a more friendly clime.
And of course, to do that, we have to be closely aware of adverse 
political/social/legal trends: keep a close watch.
				Thomas

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