X-Message-Number: 23512 Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 10:08:27 -0500 From: "Jonathan Hinek" <> Subject: Cryonics is about hope References: <> Jeff Davis <> wrote on 2/25/2004, 5:00 AM: > > From: randolfe wicker <> > > Subject: Arizona Politicians > > <snip> > > The bottom line in this debate is that these > > "legislators" and the public in general think "those > > folks freezing people out there in the desert are a > > bunch of kooks". > > This is indeed central to the problem WE face. Once > you are branded a "kook", social disfavor makes you an > inviting target for political attack. Once "the mob" > has been incited, they contact their legislators and > say, "Something should be done about these people." And that's why the primary focus for those of us writing letters to editors and legislators should be to reframe the debate. This shouldn't be about proving we're not kooks, it shouldn't be about the rational or scientific basis for cryonics. Your average person isn't going to care. The moment they hear 'freezing the dead for revival' they immediately shut down. What I'd like to see is de-emphasis of the indefinite life span and immortality angle. Few have sympathy for a bunch of old people trying to get older (which is seen, in many cases, as stealing from future generations). That isn't the real heart of cryonics, not IMO anyway. That isn't our moral high ground. Cryonics is about helping the sick and dying by giving them the possibility of a future. It's about the twenty-something wife dying of cancer who's afraid she'll never see her children grow up, the quadriplegic who dreams of someday living a 'normal' life again, or the kid whose life was extinguished before he even reached adulthood. For them, Alcor represents hope. The eventual outcome is insignificant when compared to the comfort it brings to them today, and their families tomorrow. No politician has the right to take that hope away. -- Jonathan -- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SpiritualAgnostics/ -- "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." Dr. M.L. King, Jr. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=23512