X-Message-Number: 9713
Date: Fri, 15 May 1998 07:22:26 -0400
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: CryoNet #9709 - #9712

Hi everyone!

Though I have disagreed with Bob Ettinger on various points, and still do,
I think his message on this Cryonet (that we simply must accept that
dogged application of our known recruiting methods will probably give us
the best return) deserves a lot of weight. I am skeptical that any one
thing prevents people from signing up --- including the belief that 
cryonics does not "work"... or does not YET "work".

And as to that last issue, cryonics is funny that way. I can just as well
argue that cryonics will NEVER work, and still have reason to join and
be an active member. For cryonics is not the same as suspended animation,
cryonics is the idea that whenever we have someone whose disease or 
serious problem we cannot cure, we should put them into storage rather
than simply abandon them. And so we will always have some people who say
that no cure of condition X will ever happen, and hence cryonics does
not "work". Sure, condition X will change over time, though not in any
consistent way. And when we consider our present situation, though the
damage of our suspension methods bulks large in our imagination, it's
far from obvious that some won't attach the same feelings to that other
condition X. Cryonics is not just for conditions which we confidently
believe technology will soon produce a cure. Cryonics is for conditions
which most people cannot even conceive a cure.

This is not an excuse for ignoring research. After all, we store patients
because we believe that research will bring about a cure. And who else is
going to improve our storage methods than we ourselves? But it does help
to try to look at cryonics, sometimes, as a historian of the 25th
Century might look at it.

			Best and long long life to all,

				Thomas Donaldson

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