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 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=9650