X-Message-Number: 13772 Date: Wed, 24 May 2000 10:29:27 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: why we don't NEED lots of people To Dave Pizer: Will cryonics die out if we completely conquer aging? I have never believed that, and have some points to make on that thesis. 1. Although aging is NOW our main cause of death and illness, that is only the result of our medicine dealing with many other problems which would otherwise kill most of us around age 50 or so. Not only will we still suffer accidents, but those accidents may well involve technologies we do not now have. Think of the novelty of radiation accidents when people were just learning about nuclear power --- and even now, in cases in which the guards against radiation weren't good enough. And think, too, about just how many new biological problems will arise when we really start changing human genes --- it's not that we'll do anything fundamentally wrong in making such genetic changes, it's just that there will ALWAYS be accidents and mistakes. 2. My interest in living longer will not vanish once I know for sure that I will not age. If anything it will INCREASE, so that lifespans which once may have seemed quite long will at least risk shortening by events which we now ignore because they look so improbable. This point doesn't just come from my own introspection. I will point out that current lifespans in the US are now longer than ever before, long enough that dying at about 50 (which most people in Europe and even the US did only 300 years ago) would seem a heavy imposition, while beforehand it was generally accepted (other than by a few radicals). If we come to believe that we'll live for 2000 years, then anything which might cut our lifespans to only 1000 years will become something we want to take steps against, however we can. 3. The number of people required to keep suspendees in suspension does not increase as rapidly as the number of suspendees. Although research may take much longer than if more people engaged in it, only a few people will eventually work out how to revive all those who can be revived. This becomes even stronger if those few people themselves can expect to live much longer than 100 years. In short, so long as we don't run into ACTIVE OPPOSITION, even a small group of cryonicists will eventually win out. Sure, it will take much longer, but then what is 200 years if you expect to live afterwards for thousands? As for active opposition, that IS a problem (though so far it has been only a few ununited places and people). I will point out that wiping out cryonics, especially after we can travel to the planets, becomes much harder than wiping out cryonics AT A GIVEN LOCATION. It's reasonable to think that there will ALWAYS be a place to go and bring those in suspension. So we should not conclude that because we remain small our suspensions will inevitably fail. I will add here that I, too, would like there to be many more cryonicists, and think we should work to increase our rate of growth. But we should not conclude that if our rate of growth remains small, we must inevitably fail. Best and long long life to all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=13772