X-Message-Number: 21837
From: 
Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 09:54:48 EDT
Subject: the last dinosaur

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Ron Havelock wrote in part:

> each step brings 
> bioscientists and biotech closer to something akin to physical immortality.  
> Of 
> course, they don't dare say so in so many words, but the more obvious the 
> direction becomes, the more people will start thinking the unthinkable. 

This is (or will become) what I sometimes call the "last dinosaur" effect. 
People tend to be satisfied with the tragic status quo because they see 

themselves as part of an eternal cycle of generations. But when they begin to 
realize 
that their grandchildren, and perhaps their children, will never die of 

"natural" causes, everything changes. Instead of being a part of the grand 
scheme, 
you are one of the last dinosaurs.

What we can do to speed up the change in viewpoint is the question. Ron's 

first doctorate was in psychology, and Jerry Lemler is a psychiatrist, and Dave
Pizer is clever at business advertising, but none has ever found a key to this 
puzzle. Probably there isn't any magic slogan or magic PR approach that will 
do the trick. But if we just keep on doing what we're doing, and trying to do 
it better, the wind is at our backs.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
www.cryonics.org

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