X-Message-Number: 7525 From: (Thomas Donaldson) Subject: Re: CryoNet #7510 - #7521 Date: Fri, 17 Jan 1997 14:26:09 -0800 (PST) Hi again! This is a (perhaps delayed) response to the postings about "very selfish cryonicists". As many readers may already know, there is a pattern in many myths about people who receive immortality (look at Greek mythology, for instance). First of all, they are GIVEN immortality rather than seeking it for themselves. And second, perhaps most important for its bearing on the "selfish cryonicist" idea, whatever agencies give them immortality do so because they have shown some kind of remarkable ability, either great bravery, great strength, great intelligence/wisdom (it's not clear to me that the Greeks made that distinction) etc etc etc. Lesson: You don't get immortality if you're just an average person, with average traits and ordinary abilities. Enter immortalism and (heavens!) cryonics, stage left. We say that the only thing you need to acquire immortality is 1) special drugs or 2) cryonic suspension. No one will give you an IQ test or test your understanding of semialgebraic geometry or general relativity before we make you immortal. No one will ask that you show a record of virtue exceeding that of Mother Theresa. Just be frozen (or take the (as yet undiscovered) drug). I would suggest that one reason for this public attitude about cryonicists is exactly those myths, remembered unconsciously. Most people would think that you must be somehow special to become immortal. Hence, if Steve Bridge or Charles Platt say that they want to be suspended in the hope of becoming immortal, they are both seen as extreme egotists, highly selfish to boot. How else could they expect to receive such a high reward? I don't claim this is the only reason, though I do note how people tend to form their ideas in patterns similar to those of past myths. It is thus that we have the notion that someday Nanotechnology will bring a millenium free from pain, toil, trouble, etc etc (haven't I heard that idea somewhere else?) --- and don't come back to me, guys, and tell me that this time it's TRUE!). As for countering it, my best suggestion is that we state frankly, whenever appropriate, that we think EVERYONE should become immortal. It is their RIGHT as a human being. And of course that the purpose of medicine SHOULD BE immortality. And one more comment to Joe Strout: As someone who actually faced the problem of dying, if only for a while, I must add one comment. I felt no physical pain, due the nature of my problem (an Astrocytoma Grade II). However I did feel great anxiety and depression --- a different kind of pain entirely. And short of sedating patients, I see no way in which simple painkillers no matter how powerful can deal with the emotional response, most especially because it is (unlike many other cases) a very realistic one. And to have that response lifted for real reasons felt marvellous. If anything I want to live now 10 times more than before, and I'm glad to have been so lucky as to have survived. Clearly I must be an extreme egotist, yes? ;-). Long long life to all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=7525