X-Message-Number: 5900 Date: Fri, 08 Mar 1996 15:50:25 +0100 From: John de Rivaz <> Subject: Re: The cryonics debate on uk.legal In article: <> writes: > About dealing with those who don't "get" cryonics: > > I would agree with Saul that it seems a waste of time. We all know that > we're not going to convince the British lawyers of anything at all. > > But there IS another issue, which depends a lot on just how many people > log into Cryonet to listen to the discussions: our arguments might strike > a chord in someone who is listening. This debate is centred on uk.legal with crossposts to sci.cryonics and sci.life extension. If you post just to cryonet your article doesn't enter the affray unless someone spots it and cross posts it. It is an amazing three threads with a few more smaller ones and has attracted some very high quality articles. It has already been running nearly a month and could continue for years and attract broadcast media attention in due course. Posting to uk.law means that people do read it who otherwise wouldn't. Cryonics has a fascination for most people, even if they don't think deeply about it. They may be made to think more about reading these reasoned debates. We have already had quality media coverage out of all proportion to the number of people signed up or even subscribers to the newsletters. The reason for this is that the interest in the subject is out of all proportion to the actual number of people doing it. [Which applies to a lot of things - American wrestling has a big following on television, that doesn't mean all those people want to participate in the sport/entertainment.] One of the prime focuses on the uk.legal threads (which I started because I perceive that the law is more of a threat to successful cryonics than technical considerations) has been to get the "anti-" lawyers actually to consider the fundamental issues involved. It is difficult to get people to listen, they often jump to a conclusion when you have only said the first part of what you were going to say, and miss the point because the only bit they heard is modified by the second bit they didn't. The threads are not intended to get hundreds of people to sign up, (although they may be instrumental in getting one or two to consider it and maybe do so in a few years time) but to get nay-sayers sufficiently motivated to give us our rights to do our thing, rather than leach away our limited resources in side issues. The government's "right" to butcher our bodies (autopsies) and other people's "rights" to our money on death are not fundamental issues to cryonics in the same way as technical issues, yet they present a very serious threat to its success in individual cases. -- Sincerely, **************************************** * Publisher of Longevity Report * John de Rivaz * Fractal Report * * details on request * **************************************** In the information age, sharing can increase world wealth enormously, because giving information does not decrease your information. http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JohndeR Fast loading, very few slow pictures Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=5900