X-Message-Number: 19040
Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 12:48:50 -0400 (EDT)
From: Charles Platt <>
Subject: science fiction

Mike Donahue asks why science-fiction fans and writers don't sign up for
cryonics. Back in the late 1960s, when I started reading science fiction,
I discovered that most of my contemporaries didn't take it as seriously as
I did. To me, it was a place to test ideas about the future. To them, it
was a form of entertainment.

I found out about Alcor, indirectly, through a writer named Joe Haldeman.
After I had signed up, I met Joe at a science-fiction event and spent an
hour questioning him, trying to figure out why he hadn't bothered to join.
He gave the usual excuses--such as, "I don't want to wake up in a future
which I won't be able to understand," and, "My wife would be unhappy if I
set aside a large amount of money for myself, after I die." Finally he
came up with a really odd reason; he said he was afraid that resuscitation
would be very painful, and as a wounded Vietnam vet, he knows a lot about
pain. I said, "Joe, this is ridiculous. Any future technology that can do
cell repair with nanotechnology is going to have excellent techniques for
pain management." Joe thought about this, and then shrugged. "I guess
you're right," he said. "I don't really know why I don't want to sign up."

I had a similarly frustrating discussion with Frederik Pohl, whom I have
known, and admired, for about 30 years. (When I was a college student, I
used to go out with his daughter!) Again, with Fred, we went through all
the usual excuses. Finally he said, "I guess there's something about the
idea that just doesn't appeal to me."

So, I don't have any answers. I do know that science-fiction conventions
are a really unrewarding venue in which to try to sell cryonics.
Science-fiction fans are generally not interested in cryonics. They're
interested in science fiction.

As for Bruce Pelz and Forrest Ackerman: I knew both of them slightly, and
I am sad that neither of them was interested in seeing the future. But
this kind of thing doesn't surprise me anymore. Greg Bear wrote a lovely
little novel about cryonics, titled "Heads." A. A. Attanasio wrote a
cryonics novel titled "Solis," which features a resuscitated head named
"Mr. Charlie." (Guess where he came up with THAT name!) But so far as I
know, only one science-fiction writer, other than myself, has ever made
cryonics arrangements. We have had much better luck selling cryonics to
computer programmers than to science-fiction writers.

--Charles Platt

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