X-Message-Number: 10547
From: "den Otter" <>
Subject: Re: Where is the rush?
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1998 12:08:14 +0100

> From: 

>    I hope, that I am not posting something, already posted to the point of
> nausea. But perhaps the principle reasons that the great rush to sign on to
> cryonics has not happened are profound philosophical conflicts and strong
> emotional conflicts.
> 
> 1. The fundamental philosophical conflict is that if one believes in an
> afterlife (as most people do), then being returned back to life would be
> having oneself suddenly yanked from heaven, and deposited back into the real
> world. This is a daunting prospect - of course most people would consider
> themselves worthy of the best that their religious beliefs have in store for
> them after life. And thus to suddenly be returned to present reality would be
> a form of damnation. "Unnatural" would probably be a word that would be used.
> "In conflict with God's purpose" might be another. 
> 2. The attraction for athiests becomes obvious.
> 3. The attraction for agnostics is wonderful - you are get to hedge your bet
> both ways!
> 4. The attraction for the followers of the major religions is greatly
> diminished. 

[snip]

> My conclusions from all this are 
> 
> focus on atheists and agnostics

I've done that a lot. It would indeed seem logical for
this group to be interested since there is no religion
to hold them back, and atheists are (supposedly)
more individualistic and rational individuals than 
believers.

However..., in reality they are hardly any better than the
bible thumpers. The arguments are a bit different, a bit
more sophisticated, but the message is the same: _I don't
want to hear about this_. Typically, they start off with the
usual cliches about overpopulation, uncertainty of progress,
feasibility of nanotech etc. etc., and when you've refuted
their arguments they move into the realm of, for want of a 
better word, vague mysticism. They tell you that "we'd lose
our humanity" (whatever that may be), that "it's unnatural"
(ah, now nature is their god), that death is an "essential
part of the cycle of life" and that sort of thing. New Age-
esque BS, coming from people that only moments before
were fiercely rational. Clearly, virtually all "arguments"
against cryonics are just manifestations of some basic,
innate fear, instead of critical, open-minded research. Any
*rational* person would check it out and then go for it, for
reasons I don't have to repeat on this list.

> focus on the wealthy

Wealth is (apparently) no guarantee for an open, critical mind.
Worse yet, it seems that the few wealthy persons that *are*
involved with cryonics (signed up as members) don't use their
power and money very much to further "the cause", not even in 
a selfish way (afaik, please correct me if I'm wrong). If *I* were 
rich, well...you'd see a small revolution. Keep your fingers 
crossed! ;-)
 
> get some big names

Basically the same objections as with the rich people, for some
reason, they just "don't", even the ones whose image would allow
it. But we could keep trying, who knows...
 
> let the independant minded find their own way to cryonics by having the
> information out there.

As the saying goes, perhaps all rational people are already signed up. ;-)

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