X-Message-Number: 2572 From: (Thomas Donaldson) Subject: CRYONICS:reply.to.mike Date: Wed, 26 Jan 1994 09:13:45 -0800 (PST) Hi Mike! The first thing I will say is that your rabbit experiment looks like a well planned one, and it should definitely be done. It is a pity or perhaps even worse that work of this kind has not had the public notice it deserves, even within the cryonics community. It's also quite true that some cryonicists may be upset by these results. But anyone who thinks the problem is trivial has simply not thought it through. There is a great deal we can do NOW to improve our suspension. Work that tells us in detail just what CURRENT methods do to us will define much better what we must do to fix the problems found. The second point I wish to make concerns the issue of public opposition to cryonics, and/or opposition by public officials. You clearly believe that the current level of harassment by officials will increase. I do not... which is not to say that we will experience no more difficulties in the future. But I do consider the Dora Kent experience as a test case: it certainly gave Alcor a LOT of trouble ... but Alcor actually WON in the end. The matter goes even farther: the previous message, by van Sickle, the "reluctant cryonicist", when we consider it calmly, actually PROVES my point. There he is, with his former certainties shattered, and wondering just what will happen to him, when before he had begun to listen to us, all was calm and determined. But note very well the DIRECTION in which he finally jumped: he became a cryonicist, rather than join any kind of opposition group. Furthermore, if we listen to the kind of response the media makes to cryonics, it is simply not true that we are presented as "kooks", nor is it true that the public is "indifferent". It is an old and frustrating paradox that we can and have constantly gotten tons of media attention ... out of which crawl a few milligrams of people who actually join. Nor does anyone put us in the same box as the faith healers, the homeopaths, the people with some new cancer cure provided by Ayurvedic medicine, etc. Even though it is very frustrating if we look at RECRUITMENT, this kind of response tells me something. It is a sign of FASCINATED PARALYSIS. When these people finally decide to move, they simply will not move against us. They will join, either slowly or all at once. Finally,, it is not even enough to suppose great opposition from the AMERICAN medical establishment. A lot of cryonicists, with planning, could make use of facilities outside the US. No, that would not be easy, but that is exactly what isolated American groups, or groups and members in countries which lack facilities, hope to do: go elsewhere to be frozen. I've written about the mechanics of this several times in the past, particularly when I myself lived overseas. And even some LARGE countries MIGHT welcome us, if the US does not. As you know, despite their other problems, Russians still retain a much more positive attitude to science and technology than that now common in the US. I would suggest that the REAL policy question we must face is that of whether or not by messing up repeatedly we could actually manage to turn all these people against us. As we've seen, even Chatsworth has not ended this public fascination; but ENOUGH incidents like Chatsworth and we very well might lose out. However, even that looks like it would take work BY US to totally discredit cryonics. And finally, if what you really want to say is that we should make as many preparations as we can, in advance, for another Dora Kent problem, I cannot agree with you more. My arguments are NOT arguments to simply ignore a possible problem. There are arguments not to get carried away by it. Best, and long long life, Thomas Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=2572