X-Message-Number: 13779
From: "Scott Badger" <>
References: <>
Subject: Re:  The failure to get reanimated - or how to be dead forever
Date: Wed, 24 May 2000 17:05:20 -0500

I'll take a shot at this.

Dave Pizer wrote:

> There comes a time when you have biological-immortal people running the
> world who don't really need cyronics.  There has been the argument they
> will still need it, but if I were biologically immortal - I would feel
like
> I need it a lot less.  And I am one of a mere 1,000 people in the world
> signed up or in the process of signing up.

Thanks for bringing this issue forward Dave. Many of those relatively new to
cryonics have probably had similar thoughts, though perhaps less
well-developed.  I would respond by suggesting that cryonics technology will
be much more widely applied when perfected, and viewed as simply another
life-saving medical procedure.  There'll still be plenty of accidents which
will likely result in deanimation.  It may be true that the average Joe/Jane
may feel little need for cryonics, just as we feel little need for heart
surgery until we have a heart attack.  Eventually cryonics probably wouldn't
be something one signs up for.  It will simply be a another emergency
medical procedure covered by your health insurance plan.

> The question is: "At a time in the future when the world is getting very
> crowded, why would anyone want to reanimate frozen dead people to take up
> more room and resources?"

Oh c'mon.  I don't really think that the scarce resources argument will
carry any real weight when we're talking about such a small number of
people, relatively speaking.  There may be other arguments, but I wouldn't
worry about our future friends saying, "But where do put them?"

[snip]

> If I am correct (that the only reason people working in cryonics today is
> because *they* are going to need it for themselves some day), and if I am
> correct that people in the future will be immortal *before* they can
figure
> out how to renaimate the frozen dead people, then there is going to be a
> time-window when no one is going to want to run a cryonics company for the
> present reasons - and maybe not for other reasons either.

I think you're missing something really important here. Consider present day
medicine and the amazing lengths we go to in order to preserve life.  My
mother has Alzheimers and is little more than a vegetable these days, but
they struggle to keep her alive year after painful year.  Why?  Lots of
reasons. Three examples (not necessarily in order of importance to the
medical community) would be:

1.  It's the moral thing to do,
2.  They make money by keeping her alive, and
3   They risk being sued and losing their licenses if they don't.

As soon as one person is reanimated from cryonic suspension, the whole
medical community will be forced to regard the others as "alive".

> So there are now only two possible reasons why someone who is alive (and
> immortal themselves) might help reanimate frozen people - because they
have
> a loved one in suspension they want back, or because they might get money
> for reanimating the patients.

I think there would be a public outcry to revive the old coots who pioneered
this movement and had the vision to bring it to fruition.  There is a moral
imperative here once we firmly establish that viable human beings are
resting in a frozen state.

I'm in general agreement with the rest of your message re: growth issues.

Vita Perpetuem,

Scott Badger, Ph.D.
Alcor Member

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