X-Message-Number: 14754
Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2000 08:10:23 -0400
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: about fears on revival

Hi everyone!

Yet another message, I would guess highly pertinent this time.

Several times now writers to Cryonet have raised the possibility
that we might be enslaved, modified against our will, etc etc
after we are revived in the future.

While that possibility, by its nature, cannot be disproven, there
is something which the questioners seem to ignore. If we are frozen
and revived, it will probably be not by society at large or people
indifferent to us, but by OTHER CRYONICISTS. And these other 
cryonicists will do so because they are members of our cryonics
society or one descended from it.

This changes the situation a lot when you ask about the social
relations we'll have after revival. Cryonicists are very unlikely
to ignore the rights of those who have been suspended ... they'll
want their own rights to be preserved, also. And mistreating
suspendees is hardly a way to arrange that.

Some will claim that cryonics will only be used for a short time.
I disagree strongly. Yes, the number of people per year who 
need to be suspended will go down over time, but it's in the nature
of things that it will never EVER go to ZERO. Sure, it may go
to ZERO for a month or a year, but we'll never fully understand
the bad things that can happen to us, nor give up on the possible
discoveries of ways to mend those bad things in the future. It
doesn't even take many ACTIVE cryonicists to carry on a cryonics
society into the indefinite future.

And even if cryonics only happens for a short time, then just who
is it that will help revive you? Other cryonicists, again. The
job of a cryonics society does not end until no one needs to be
suspended, and no one needs to be revived.

Finally, we can expect lots of changes of the technology. It may
well become true that records of us, rather than frozen or     
vitrified people, will be kept someday. But I am not discussing
the technology of cryonics but its MOTIVATION.

		Best wishes and long long life,

			Thomas Donaldson

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