X-Message-Number: 9650
Date: Fri, 8 May 1998 06:10:20 -0400
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: CryoNet #9642 - #9648

Hi everyone!

To Saul, once more: the "trees" to which I refer come from the story I
told (a true story) in my very first posting about your essay. I assume
that you have that posting or can get it easily. I did correct myself
on one point: the trees were sequoias, not redwoods. 

And as I said, they are no longer there, only 13 years afterwards. They
were removed "because they were growing too slowly".

I believe this is a sufficient explanation, and the relation between the
trees along Northbourne Avenue and the "failure" of cryonics should be
clear.

As for research, I have always felt strongly that we should support
much more research than we have been. Nanotechnology is all very well,
but what all the arguments on its merits seem to forget is that it must
have something to work on. With some poor suspensions we may find with
all our advanced nanotechnological tools and instruments that this
patient cannot be revived. We badly need research to improve our methods.
And without that research, our chance of survival becomes less --- not in
any clearly quantifiable way, but less nonetheless.

However you seem to equate the success of cryonics with its GROWTH. You
do so again in your message in this Cryonet. For me, cryonics will have
succeeded if someday I awaken from suspension to find myself alive, with
most of my memories intact, and in very good health (and rejuvenated).

It's not that I am in any way against growth. It's simply that growth is
subsidiary. Sure, it would be nice. Many other developments would be
nice. And they would all help, in their own way, to produce the outcome
which I want, which is to someday awaken alive, myself, and rejuvenated.
But when I think about the present state of cryonics for myself, I must
say that NOT ONE OF THESE is really ESSENTIAL.

After all, very small groups have persisted for centuries. And cryonics
itself HAS grown, even if very slowly. For that matter, if we really
decided that growth would inevitably be slow, then that might change
our collective strategy for survival but still make it far from impossible.
Consider Ralph Whelan and his girlfriend: if we all accept that cryonics
will not provide a lucrative career, then we could still have younger
people (and older people) doing a term of service for their society,
not because they will make money, or become famous, or reach any 
deep truths, but as something done in return for their own eventual
suspension. As you know, some religious groups do exactly that.

Sequoias, of course, eventually grow in large and magnificent trees. I
myself still believe that someday cryonics will become overwhelmingly
dominant in society at large. But whether or not that happens is 
independent of just how rapidly it happens. Those sequoias have not
failed at all. They were chopped down by shortsighted humans unable
to see more than 5 years into the future.

And so I come to a question for you, Saul Kent. Suppose (hypothetically)
that you were given a choice: either cryonics would grow slowly but
eventually revive YOU and rejuvenate you, or cryonics would grow very
rapidly ... but then flame out, still reviving you for some years,
only for you to discover that you have a previously unknown disease
which will kill you (but by then all the cryonics societies had wound
uup and you had no recourse). Do you want growth or do you want 
immortality? And if you believe that rapid growth is necessary for 
the TRUE success of cryonics, then please explain why --- none of your
postings have done so. (I mean by the "true success" not that cryonics
becomes accepted by lots of people, but that you are suspended and
later revived and rejuvenated, not a test which requires the agreement
of many but one which you yourself can verify regardless).

			Best and long long life to all,

				Thomas Donaldson

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