X-Message-Number: 20313 Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2002 12:02:12 -0400 From: "Stephen W. Bridge" <> Subject: RE: Reward murder? To CryoNet From Steve Bridge In reply to: Message #20310 Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2002 23:08:37 -0700 From: James Swayze <> Subject: Reward murder? I don't get in on many CryoNet discussions these days, but I think I need to put in some practical thought here, from my several years as Alcor President. Note: I am not currently an Alcor official, employee, or Director, although I am still an Alcor Advisor; and I do not claim to speak for Alcor's current management. I do believe that my perspectives on this are relatively typical of Alcor's current Board and management team, however. James said: >What happens to our credibility and public opinion, should freezing murderers >become actual sentencing practice, the minute some selfish bastard figures out >that though he personally might not be able to afford cryonics and longevity >methods, he could just kill someone, pay his penance and enjoy immortality? First, it is important to realize that part of this discussion is theoretical in the extreme. We cannot currently prove that cryonic suspension works or will ever work as a life-saving technique. It will be decades, I suspect, before sufficient proof is available to convince more than 1% of the population that placing people into suspension is anything other than a variant method of cadaver disposition. I think it is highly unlikely that freezing murderers will be a "sentence" option anytime within a practical frame of reference, and certainly non-profits like Alcor and CI are even more unlikely to be involved in something like that. The legal fees alone would make it a prohibitively expensive and time-consuming tangent. The possibility that cryonics would EVER become so successful that people would commit murders with the object of evading justice through cryonics seems incredibly far-fetched science fiction. If it were to happen, it would only be at a time when the criminal believed the likelihood of success to be very high; and THAT is only likely at a time when cryonics is so successful that it is a daily part of the public consciousness, like banks and funeral homes. People do get mad when bankers or funeral directors evade the law or public decency in publicly destructive ways. But they don't advocate the destruction of the banking of funeral industries. Regulation, yes. Today, right now, there are MANY public relations or legal disasters that are much more likely to happen to cryonics companies than freezing murderers, and any of these potential disasters could terminate a cryonics company and make cryonics difficult to do anywhere. But to the basic philosophical principles involved: 1. Many innocent people have been convicted of crimes. Many guilty people have gone uncaught or unconvicted of committing a crime. When a doctor sees a gunshot victim in the emergency room, it is not up to the doctor to be a judge and a jury. He is not supposed to decide if the patient is a criminal or a victim. He is supposed to save the person's life and let the appropriate jurisdiction decide the legal issues. Alcor is in the same position. In general, once Alcor has accepted a person as a member, it would be morally wrong for Alcor to refuse to freeze that person at death, based on an assumption of the guilt or innocence of the member. Other legal entities would be responsible for determining what happened to that person after revival was successful. 2. On the other hand, this basic medical principle didn't do Dr. Mudd any good when he treated John Wilkes Booth. Cryonics officials today must be aware that blind faith in a set of principles could lead to the destruction of ALL the patients in suspension. So Alcor does have a policy (at least it did for many years and I do not believe it is ever likely to be dropped), that Alcor can refuse to accept the human remains of a member if such acceptance would compromise the continued existence of Alcor, the safety of its patients, or the safety of Alcor's employees. This also applies to someone who dies of a virulent, contagious disease like the hemorrhagic viruses. Right now, Alcor could not accept a victim of the Ebola virus. There is a zero % chance that the local coroner or CDC would LET a suspension team handle such a victim, and the danger of infection to the suspension team is far to great for Alcor to allow that anyway. Yes, I am sure that your creative minds could spin out all kinds of scenarios that might make Alcor's management turn one way or the other to balance practicality and principles -- but that is what *management* is for. Each case is separate and must be decided at the time, based on the various details that present themselves. I don't see much to be gained in starting a CryoNet discussion in which we speculate about which hairs can be spilt how thin. Steve Bridge Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=20313