X-Message-Number: 16552
Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2001 00:06:17 -0700
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #16536 - #16548

>Message #16536
>From: "John de Rivaz" <>
>...>     #16504: Reply to Epstein #16482 [Mike Perry]>>>>>>>
>I'm not expert in mausoleums and crypts but I've heard that unembalmed
>bodies stored above ground must be in hermetically sealed containers if
>stored more than a few days. ...
><<<<<<<
>
>Surely a hermetically sealed container could contain the body and then the
>whole system (container with body inside) could be immersed in liquid
>nortogen?

Yes, in principle (and this is one possibility I overlooked). But very 
difficult in practice, as Hugh Hixon, who knows more about this than I do, 
just confirmed. You'd have to use a weld seal, for instance, or something 
else that would remain intact on cooling nearly 200 C below ice temp, yet 
you still must not damage the contents. A lot of extra trouble to meet, in 
ludicrous fashion, regulations that were clearly not formulated with 
anything like cryonics in mind.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

>Message #16538
>Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 10:34:24 +0000 ()
>From: Louis Epstein <>
>...> ----------------------------------------------------
> > Message #16533 Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2001 21:37:28 -0700
> > From: Mike Perry <>
> > Subject: diversophobia
> >
> > ...
> > Though not homosexual myself, I strongly disagree with those who consider
> > the condition in some intrinsic way deplorable.

>...And I regret refusal
>to face the functionally deficient
>nature of sexuality directed toward
>persons of one's own sex.

As Kennita Watson points out (#16546), celibacy too is "functionally 
deficient" (thus also "deplorable"?). As far as the functional deficiency 
issue is concerned, though, I don't find sterility intrinsically 
deplorable, either, since not everyone wants to have children. And clearly 
the whole issue is gradually becoming moot as we are discovering other ways 
to produce offspring (by cloning as a start, though no doubt more than this 
will be possible). Sexual reproduction is a way of keeping life going when 
said life is ignorant and mortal, but we are hoping for better than this, 
aren't we?

> > ----------------------------------------------------
> > Message #16534 Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 01:47:05 -0400
> > From: Deathist Lurker Girl <>
> > Subject: Marketing cryonics
>
>...> However, a major stumbling block to me is the seeming lack of a warm,
> > welcoming community of cryonicists who seem genuinely interested in
> > "evangelizing" cryonics, *yet at the same time* are respectful of the
> > rights of others to decline their chance at immortality.  The overall
> > approach being something like, "You're fine just the way you are, and we
> > accept your right to make your own choices, but we have something we think
> > is very desirable, and we'd like to tell you more about it..."
>
>When you're trying to get the attention
>of someone floating along on a river
>that is headed for a monstrous waterfall,
>I don't think a soft sell is going to
>do it.

And I agree with this. I think that DLG has good intentions, but 
identifying as a "deathist" (we don't know your real name) is tough on us 
who value the opposite of deathism so highly. (I think it's safe to say we 
also *deplore* deathism; I for one certainly do; I feel very sorry for 
people whose state of mind causes them to label themselves in this way, and 
hope somehow they'll come to what I consider a more positive attitude.) By 
analogy, one could imagine the problem that would be created if someone 
logged into a Christian fundamentalist forum as "hellbound satanist" or 
perhaps an NAACP group as "KKKME2".

>A cultivated hostility to mortality is
>what drives many immortalists,and an
>attitude that this doesn't really matter
>doesn't mesh very well.

Again, Louis, though I don't agree with everything you say, here we're 
seeing eye to eye. (So perhaps this is a time to state that, even though I 
see diversity as a healthy thing overall, it does have its proper limits 
and should not be seen as an end in itself!)

>Again,this is a
>case where most people here are closer
>to the DLG than to me,

In one important respect, not so, for those of us (like myself) who are 
signed up for cryonic suspension.

>but I have noted
>my intense opposition to people deliberately
>choosing death.

Hope you get signed up soon.

Mike Perry

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