X-Message-Number: 22922 Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 21:10:30 -0500 From: RANDY WICKER <> Subject: Re #22896 Ponzi Games? Bioethicists? Clones? --Boundary_(ID_zy77ZWgCa4OXWmjPwVnBOA) Content-type: text/plain; charset=Windows-1252 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Bioethicists? Ponzi Games? Clones? Thomas Donaldson asks in #22896: >Do you think any ordinary person, when faced with his dying mother, >would listen to a bioethicist tell him about the merits of death? This remarks reminds me of a rather lurid type of bioethicist described by Greg Pence in "Remaking Medicine". They work in hospitals and are paid by insurance companies. Their job is to save the insurer money by discouraging family members from using heroic measures to save the lives of dying loved ones. Then Mr. Donaldson goes on, as several others did also, implying I had called cryonics a "Ponzi scheme". I went to lengths disowning that. In fact, the lack of anyone "cashing in" invalidates that comparison. What I was doing was comparing the financial structure of cryonic organizations to Ponzi schemes insofar as they seemed to promise eternal care (an impossibility) for a set fee. In that regard, I thought Mr. Ettinger's answers were quite poignant, noting that costs per patient had dropped 60% in the last few years, that no rent was owed and there was room for hundreds more. Then Thomas Donaldson became defensive and defeatist: >If you really don't want to accept cryonics, that's fine with me. I'd >feel sorry, but know that I was feeling sorry because of how I would >feel in your position and not of how you feel. And if there were some >way to convince you otherwise, which there never is, then I'd do it. I'm 65 years old, in perfect health. I first became interested in cryonics back in the 1960s but decided it just wasn't practical. Times have changed dramatically. For me, cloning is a serious goal and I have virtually decided to sign up for cryonic preservation so any type of needed cell would be saved. Some small chance of revival is certainly better than no chance at revival. Cloning a couple later-born twins would be "reanimation" enough for me. One thing which puzzles me about those who dream of hundreds, thousands, millions cryogenically preserved. Why do they assume anyone would be interested in reviving them. Perhaps a few special people would appeal across the ages. However, if you could go out into a country graveyard (even Arlington Cemetery) and bring back all those buried there, would you want to do it? What about their need for housing, food and jobs? Don't you think a social debate about reviving so many of the dead would lead to a social debate in which many would argue it was more important to take care "of our own", those living now, instead of burdening an overpopulated with revived "additional people"? Actually, should I succeed in being cloned, my later-born twins would quite possibly become ardent proponents of my revival. Randolfe H. Wicker Founder, Clone Rights United Front www.clonerights.com Spokesperson, Reproductive Cloning Network, www.reproductivecloning.net Former CEO, Human Cloning Foundation, www.humancloning.org 212-255-1439 (3 to 9 Eastern Standard Time) 201-656-3280 (Mornings) --Boundary_(ID_zy77ZWgCa4OXWmjPwVnBOA) Content-type: text/html; charset=Windows-1252 [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=22922