X-Message-Number: 18511
Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2002 07:38:49 -0500
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: CryoNet #18504 - #18510

A short comment on Kass and the desire for death AND the comments:

I do not write this in support of Kass. However I will point out
that first, his approach is a literate version of one taken by
many people, and second, it implicitly raises a problem we should
think about ourselves. The problem is that many human traits combine
both highly desirable features and much bad. Color blindness helps
those who are color-blind detect attempts to hide invisible to
normals. Depression and creativity have a connection, not total, but
one which links them in a high proportion of those who are creative.

Any serious attempt to redesign ourselves will have to look closely
at just what a change will imply. That's neither simple nor easy.
I have thought about this problem as it bears on longevity, and 
the complete abolition of aging, and decided in favor of it. I
will have to add, though, that even though I have spent some thought
on working out what its consequences will be, I would not be 
surprized if I haven't imagined some of them at all.

Kass, unlike cryonicists, may have a problem with stepping into
a fundamentally unknown state (I know no immortal being whom I can
consult about what it will be like!). But rather than simply write
him off as stupid and ignorant, he seems to me one of the best
examples of just why some people DON'T LIKE either cryonics or
immortality, and in that way may have something to teach all of
us.

		Best wishes and long long life,

			Thomas Donaldson

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