X-Message-Number: 267
Date: 26 Dec 90 01:04:11 EST
From: STEVE BRIDGE <>
To: KEVIN <>
Subject: Cryonics on CNN
Message-Id: <"901226060410 72320.1642 EHI20-1"@CompuServe.COM>
The following report is from a friend and incipient cryonicist, Richard
Shock, who taped the following inane news story. Richard also provides
commentary afterwards.
CNN "FUTURE WATCH" Segment on Cryonics, first aired 12/22/90,
4:40 PM -- Central Standard Time.
FADE IN:
Footage of a conventional old-fashioned cemetery, headstones,
mausoleums, etc. Daytime.
VOICE OF DAVID GEORGE
(CNN reporter)
There'll be none of those "Death and Taxes" jokes in this story.
Venturists have enough jokes of their own.
CUT TO:
CLOSE UP MIKE PERRY, "VENTURISTS" PRESIDENT
PERRY
Many are cold but few are frozen. That's one of our laments, actually.
We wish there were more people who would take this more seriously.
VOICE OF DAVID GEORGE
The Venturists are dead serious about cryonics.
CUT TO:
CLOSE UP RALPH CHARLES MERKLE, NANOTECHNOLOGIST
MERKLE
Cryonics is a method of preserving the structure of the human
body for a terminally ill patient, so that they can effectively
reach a hospital somewhere in the 21st or 22nd century where
presumably a more advanced technical capability can be employed
to restore them to a healthy state.
CUT TO:
Alcor footage of a cryonic suspension in progress.
VOICE OF DAVID GEORGE
Cryonicists want the right to be placed on ice while they're
terminally ill, before they die. But all the people who have had
their bodies preserved in cryonic laboratories so far haven't
been terminally ill -- they've been dead.
CUT TO:
CLOSE UP RALPH MERKLE
MERKLE
A declaration of clinical death according to modern criteria
should not be taken as a statement that you are dead by the
criteria of one to two hundred years from now.
CUT TO:
Footage of paramedics wheeling a patient into a modern hospital
emergency room during the night.
VOICE OF DAVID GEORGE
Cryonicists point out that modern medicine regularly saves people
who just a few years ago would've been considered beyond help.
But resuscitation isn't resurrection.
CUT TO:
Alcor footage of a cryonics patient being lowered into a vapor-
filled dewar.
VOICE OF DAVID GEORGE
20th century medicine can't do a thing for those who've chosen
the freezer over the grave.
CUT TO:
CLOSE UP CARLOS MONDRAGON, CRYONICS LAB MANAGER
MONDRAGON
People who are in cryonic suspension now are damaged in such a
way that the only way they're going to be recovered is if we
develop some kind of cell-repair technology, which means
molecular engineering.
CUT TO:
Footage of an isolation-suited technician working in a
recombinant DNA lab.
VOICE OF DAVID GEORGE
Cryonics literature says the kind of molecular engineering
they're talking about is at least fifty to a hundred and fifty
years away. Cryonicists predict that by the middle of the 21st or
22nd centuries doctors will be able to repair or replace diseased
or damaged body parts, cell by cell. And cryonics will be
obsolete.
CUT TO:
CLOSE UP CARLOS MONDRAGON
MONDRAGON
-- because if we can manipulate life at that level, and fix
people literally one cell at a time, you're not going to have
problems like aging, or cancer, or heart disease, or any number
of things that kill people, other than accidents.
CUT TO:
Alcor footage of a cryonics patients being unpacked from dry ice (?).
VOICE OF DAVID GEORGE
To its advocates, cryonics is a bridge between life's end and an
endless journey.
CUT TO:
CLOSE UP DAVID PIZER, "VENTURISTS" BOARD MEMBER
PIZER
Cryonics isn't going to guarantee me immortality, but it might
get me into the future when that may be possible.
CUT TO:
Footage of a crowded street scene somewhere in India.
VOICE OF DAVID GEORGE
Cryonics talk seriously of immortality while mainstream
scientists warn the world it's already too crowded. The
cryogenics crowd says not to worry.
CUT TO:
CLOSE UP MAX MOORE, "VENTURIST" BOARD MEMBER
MOORE
We're not going to be confined to just this one planet. This is
really the womb of the human race and we're eventually going to
leave this planet, or at least some of us will. And out there in
the universe there's an enormous amount of space for expansion,
plenty of room for new people.
CUT TO:
Footage of some kind of high tech lab, perhaps inside a NASA
space station mock-up. (?)
VOICE OF DAVID GEORGE
Such unbridled faith in technology is a cryonicist trademark. There
are at least two others, and they are somewhat contradictory.
CUT TO:
Footage of a standard American city street scene.
VOICE OF DAVID GEORGE
One is an unwavering fixation on self, at the expense of future
generations.
CUT TO:
CLOSE UP CARLOS MONDRAGON
MONDRAGON
I'm not going to willingly end my life for the sake of people who
don't exist.
CUT TO:
Footage of a standard American city street scene again.
VOICE OF DAVID GEORGE
And the other is a belief that cryonic suspension is something
undertaken on behalf of all mankind.
CUT TO:
CLOSE UP MIKE PERRY
PERRY
In some sense the destiny of the human race is to develop
immortality, and we're beginning that project.
CUT TO:
EXT. LONG SHOT CEMETERY DAY
CAMERA tightens its focus into the same cemetery shown back at
the beginning. DAVID GEORGE strolls into the scene.
DAVID GEORGE
So, what is cryonics, and who are these Venturists? Are they
pioneers in touch with the future, a bit ahead of the rest of us,
or are they victims of their own delusion, out of touch with
reality? Is cryonics medicine, or is it merely a morbid scam?
Will the 21st and 22nd centuries reveal cryonics to have been a
bridge to the future, or will it turn out to be just another
attempt to deny some of life's immutable truths? Those answers
are so far in the future that chances are no one watching this
program will ever know what they are. Unless of course the
Venturists are right...and then they'll know, won't they?
FADE OUT.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Richard Shock comments:
1) One may never realize the awesome potential for media bias
until that media examines a personally familiar subject. Clearly
CNN realizes it, however, and so tried to achieve a balance
through the running commentary. Still, having read extensive
articles written by the men interviewed here and understanding
how complex their ideas can be, I found it unnerving that CNN
often summed up their view FOR THEM in a SINGLE PARAGRAPH.
2) Context is all important for communication. Taking one
isolated sentence each from Mondragon and Perry to "demonstrate"
cryonicists' "somewhat contradictory beliefs" was a crock.
3) What COULD the uninitiated learn from this segment?
a) Cryonicists have considered the possibility that all
legally dead people may not be unrecoverable by FUTURE medical
technology.
b) Cryonics is a means of getting these currently
unrecoverable patients to a future that may be able to revive
them.
c) In order to be recovered, cryonics patients will probably
require the development of molecular engineering that can repair
them cell by cell.
4) What MAY the uninitiated learn from this segment?
a) Cryonicists are naive technophiles.
b) Cryonicists don't give a damn about future generations.
c) Cryonicists are megalomaniacs who consider themselves of
monumental significance.
5) While items from (4) and (3) were no doubt intended to balance
each other, my guess is that more of (4) will be retained than
(3). (3) was "complex" information, while (4) was easily absorbed
emotion-laden gossip.
6) Why was Ralph Merkle billed as a "Nanotechnologist"? Is he
calling himself that now, or did the CNN crew simply assume
that's what he is. Granted, he probably deserves the title. Note
though that the word "nanotechnology" was never again used in the
segment. The uninitiated audience will have no means of
connecting "nanotechnologist" with "molecular engineering."
7) Why is Carlos Mondragon listed as "Cryonics Lab Manager"? He
may indeed manage the lab -- I don't know -- but isn't his
primary function that of Alcor President?
8) Why the focus on the Venturists? This looks like an attempted
Venturist focus story that was sidetracked into cryonics. Perhaps
that explains why Alcor wasn't mentioned outside the
acknowledgement of its suspension footage.
9) In final analysis, the only purpose I can see for this piece
was to show the public pretty moving pictures. As with most
television news, the visuals completely distracted from the
information content.
*** Additional comment from Steve Bridge: This shows that many
years of media education have still not gotten most of the coverage
of cryonics beyond that of "filler" material. All this does is to
yell out, "Hey, there is this idea out there. It might be good, bad,
or crazy. We don't know, and we don't understand it, but here are
some pictures anyway."
Every time I see something like this, I wonder how many of the
other stories on TV and articles in newspapers are this bone-headed
and misinformed. Probably a lot. It's something to think about.
Steve
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