X-Message-Number: 16097
From: "Tim Freeman" <>
Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2001 09:12:02 -0700
Subject: Who does cryonics (was Why more males?)
References:  <>

From: "Matthew S. Malek" <>
>Looking at the larger cryonics community, is it true that we are mostly male?

Yes.

>If so, why?

My mom and I came up with a theory about what it takes to do cryonics
when we went to the Alcor conference in Asilomar recently.  (I want to
give her credit for participating, but she hasn't signed off on what
I'm about to say, so hold me solely responsible if you disagree!)
Based upon the people we watched while we were there, these
personality traits seem to be required:

1. You can't care what other people think.  (You should see how I
   dress; it's obvious that I fit this one!)
2. You have to have enough financial and emotional stability to do the
   paperwork and pay the money. 
3. You have to have optimism about the future.
4. You have to be able to think rationally about death.

I don't have research to support it, but I believe that women have a
lesser tendency to fulfill criteria 1 than men, and pehaps 4 as well.
I could rattle on about evolutionary psychology and make this seem a
plausible consequence of the different roles that the sexes have in
the reproductive process, but that's not research either and it's too
easy to justify too many things that way.

People can sign up if they don't satisfy criterion #1 if they have
friends who are signed up for cryonics.  This worked for my mom and
her fiancee and my ex-wife and it looks to be working for my present
wife too.  (As you can tell, serial polygamy is alive and well in my
immediate family tree.)

Most people aren't signed up because of their friends because there
are so few people signed up, and because the people who go first
because they don't care what other people think tend to be socially
isolated anyway.

-- 
Tim Freeman       


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