X-Message-Number: 15573 Date: Wed, 07 Feb 2001 07:27:30 -0500 From: Paul Antonik Wakfer <> Subject: Re: The Big Picture - #15568 References: <> I was tempted to title this one "Georgie One Note" or perhaps "Recycled Smith" because Mr Smith seems to have little new to say but remains constantly running the same loop. His verbiage is not even an iteration narrowing down on some goal. > Message #15568 > From: "George Smith" <> > References: <> > Subject: The Big Picture > Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 12:56:51 -0800 > > It's all really very simple. > > If I or anyone in my family dies TODAY, our physical remains will be frozen > and stored in Michigan. > > Someday we MIGHT be restored to life. > > No ONE can PROVE this CAN'T happen. Mr Smith keeps attempting to make big capital out of something which is not even related to cryonics, but merely a logical impossibility. > Many experts believe it CAN and WILL happen. Sorry, but I am not interested in the "opinions" of experts (especially those not trained in life sciences). Mr Smith has told us repeatedly how often such experts have proven to be wrong. I am interested in experimentally proven scientific facts. These are seldom shown to be wrong. > (See the CI website at http://www.cryonics.org for examples of and links to > such expert opinions). > > Anyone TODAY not signed up for cryonics who DIES will be cremated or buried. This is simply not true. Many people have been cryopreserved who only signed up very soon before death or even after death. Would Mr Smith or Mr Ettinger please tell us what percentage of CI patients were signed up more that two weeks before cryopreservation? For ACS and for CryoCare I know these statistics. It would also be interesting to know them for Alcor. > Cremated or buried. > > Period. > > It is simple. It is black and white. Not at all. There are many ways of dying. Many of them will allow signup when knowledge of impending death is certain. > In the meantime if you DON'T die, it is perfectly sensible in my opinion to > seek out additional life extension methods, endorse or carry out related > research, etc. Why not? It might make a difference LATER. Then I will expect Mr Smith's "perfectly sensible" choice to be actioned within the next few days by first a donation to the Institute of Neural Cryobiology for its ongoing research and second, a message stating that CI should immediately begin work at all possible speed to upgrade its cryopreservation methods to be consistent with the latest clearly proven scientific results. > And cryonics is not expensive IF you are still insurable. (Through CI > cryonic suspension is actually very inexpensive). Most people have sufficient funding to finance CI's procedure if not that of Alcor. It is almost always cheaper to have invested and built up you own cryopreservation fund over a lifetime than to buy insurance. > Get insured first and do it now. Don't wait until you can't be insured due > to possible injury or disease. From a cost/benefit analysis viewpoint, insurance for the young, while inexpensive, is pretty useless since their mortality rate for ways in which it will helps them receive a good cryopreservation is very small. > If you wonder whether or not the cryonics organizations in existence today > can be trusted to preserve YOUR body, you only have to note that they > already have been doing so for OTHERS who are now in suspension and these > organizations have been doing so for many years. Although the ability of any cryonics organization to continue to keep a patient in suspension over the long-haul is very important, no one here is questioning this currently. > But apart from any other consideration, the Big Picture is that if you die > TODAY and you are NOT signed up with a cryonics firm, you are going to be > buried or cremated. Please see my remark above which refute the fact and logic of this statement. > The choice is yours and it is not difficult to understand. Implying that if those who do not chose as Mr Smith advocates are either dolts or willfully evading the obvious. > Some chance is better than no chance. > > That's the Big Picture as I see it. > > Don't let lesser details cause you to miss the Big Picture. > > That's my advice to one and all. And free advice is worth just that. > Be careful. > > Think clearly. More implications (tantamount to insults) that we aren't careful and we don't think clearly. -- Paul -- The Institute for Neural Cryobiology - http://neurocryo.org A California charitable corporation funding research to perfect cryopreservation of central nervous system tissue for neuroscience research & medical repair of the brain. Voice-mail: 416-968-6291 Fax: 559-663-5511 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=15573