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 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14754