X-Message-Number: 8827
Date: Sun, 23 Nov 1997 21:07:46 -0500
From: Robin Helweg-Larsen <>
Subject: Reasons for not joining cryonics
References: <>

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I'd like to suggest a variation of Thomas Donaldson's

> 2. Fear of social isolation after revival
>

I think a lot of (especially older) people are aware of the world changing on 
them

- they are uncomfortable with new technologies like computers, and are disturbed
by the prospects of genetic engineering and new kinds of medical treatment like

fetal tissue for alzheimer's - just as that kind of treatment may be becoming 
more
relevant for them.


A lot of people (young and old) also don't like to see societal changes: shifts 
in

immigration patterns, changing sexual mores, acceptance of different lifestyles,
polyamorous relationships, gay parenting, increasingly complex multiracial
realities, any questioning and destablilizing of the preconceptions they were
brought up with.

Cryonics is only going to be successful if a lot of scifi technology works out,

and that scifi technology is going to drag with it an associated mindset that is
too disturbing for many people to want to be around.


In other words, the "fear of social isolation" is not just "I won't know 
anyone",
it's also "I won't like anyone, no one will be like me, and I'll find the whole
society abhorrent".

Personally, I think they're correct.  If they don't want to change their
attitudes, they're not going to be happy in the future, whether they undergo
cryonic suspension or just live on.  And I'd say it's a waste of time trying to

change their minds, compared with the effort needed to find people of all ages 
who

are already open to the inevitable tidal wave of change.  Unless, of course, 
it's
someone who you particularly love.

Emotional comfort levels are very important.

Proving suspension works will provide comfort: it will eliminates huge areas of
uncertainty, and fear of wasting time and effort and life savings on something
that might be physically impossible.


It will also provide comfort for religious people: if it works, then it is 
clearly

part of how God has structured the universe all along, and we don't need to 
reject
it as a satanic illusion.

Knowing people personally within the cryonics community provides comfort; (and
cryonicists are a sufficiently diverse group of individuals that knowing *a*
cryonicist is not going to give a flavor of the community as a whole!) but

understanding the range of people in cryonics is going to provide strong comfort
for anyone who could be intrested in cryonics.

Honesty provides comfort: knowing when someone is soliciting ideas, or sharing

information, or soliciting money; knowing whether one is being asked for money 
as
an investment or as a donation; cryonicists are not low-IQ; don't play stupid
games.

Comfort also comes from a lot of other things, not all of which are going to be

compatible with any particular individual.  For example, I find an emphasis on 
the
Big Picture of scientific/medical advance over the past 10,000 years to be

reassuring in looking at the likelihood of whether I can be reanimated in the 
next

10,000 years.  I find an attention to all the things we are doing wrong today to
be discomforting.  However, if your entire work is spent trying to fix the
things-wrong-today, then be honest and stay with that emphasis.  Honesty is the
most comforting of all.


I personally find the CryoCare logo with its ice-encrustation discomforting.  
Not

warm.  Think of other medical care programs: hospitals don't emphasize the blood
and sliced-open burn victims, they show people in recovery in a sunny room with

their families.  That's comforting.  All we're working on is a medical procedure

with an end-goal of recovery, sunshine, and reunions.  So focus on the end-goal,

the benefit of the procedure, not on the procedure, the features of how it's to 
be
done.  If you only focus on the procedure, people are going to get a Timothy

Leary-like feeling of men-in-white-coats-with-clipboards, and it's not 
appealing.

It's nice to have an image of a doctor in the background, wise and competent, 
but
the focus needs to be on the joy of the recovering patient - that's comforting.

I tend to faint when people stick needles in me, and I loathe in when the

temperature drops below 80F (27C).  You think I'm *comforted* by the procedures 
of
cryonics?  You think I'm prepared to do this because I think it's going to be
*fun*?  I'm here for the anticipated joy of having recovered.  I like the
sunshine/starshine/ hand-in-hand/greenery/ infinity images.

When more people find realistic projections of life in the future *comforting*
(nanotechnology, genetic engineering, computer interfacing, space habitats, all

the joys and terrors of Varley's 8 Worlds; the wealth and squalor of 
Stephenson's

nanotech Earth) because, for good or bad, they will be richer, vaster versions 
of
human experience, then cryonics will take its rightful place as just another
ambulance service.


In the meantime: people will find it hard to join cryonics unless their 
emotional

comfort is satisfied; which means: honesty, knowledge of other cryonicists, 
trust

in its individuals and organizations, a Big Picture understanding of the sweep 
of

scientific development, an excitement about the future, and whatever human 
warmth
we can portray for all stages of the journey.

Always optimistically,

Robin HL

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