X-Message-Number: 4901
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 1995 08:50:54 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robin Helweg-Larsen <>
Subject: Re: Bahamian cryonics

Doug Skrecky's hypothetical situation reminds me of an event that 
happened on Eleuthera earlier this century, before planes and phones were 
available:

A man's wife fell ill, and there was no doctor on the island.  So the man 
walked and ran from the southern part of the island to the northwestern 
tip, about 65 miles, and then waded and swam 50 miles to Nassau along a 
string of occasional sandbanks to get a doctor.  When they got back to 
the man's house, the wife was dead.

Doug's also correct that two problems with cryonics in the Bahamas could be:
	1) time is not as important as it is here, deliveries are weekly rather 
than daily, weather can hamper you, etc; therefore you need back-up supplies 
and plans;
	2) immigration and other bureaucracies can present obstacles; 
therefore it's good to have a long-standing working relationship with the 
community as a whole, because the community is small enough that 
solutions can be negotiated informally (Governor's Harbour pop. 1200, 
Eleuthera 8,000, Bahamas 250,000).

One of my real concerns is that the operation would simply be too 
small-scale to justify the expense of setting it up.  Obviously the main 
advances in cryonics are taking place in a few select locations in the 
US.  Unless an entire retirement community with terminal care facilities 
grew up there, it could be just a useless thinning of resources.  The 
other justification would be for medical research and treatment, not 
subject to the restrictions in the US, but I have no idea whether that is 
actually necessary or not.

The Bahamas is small - but it is a good retirement place near the US, and 
there is wealth there, and its smallness does have benefits in terms of 
not having to explain what you want to an unlimited number of bureaucrats.

Robin HL


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