X-Message-Number: 27148
Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2005 08:28:21 -0400
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: accidents & cryonics, for Flavonoid

Hi everyone:

For Flavonoid: will cryonics EVER cease to be needed?

I am sure that all medical and aging conditions presently known to
us will SOMEDAY because curable. However, this does not deal with
the possibility (and I would say likelihood) that we'll find other
conditions which could kill us, totally unknown right now. I do not
mean that such conditions would relate to aging itself; it's enough
that we remain subject to them at the same rate we're subject to
accidents today.

In this light it's almost trivial to think of some of those conditions.
We get damaged or killed in various ways while riding a spaceship
to Mars (which has been thoroughly settled for years). Our spacesuit
breaks down while we're on the Moon, and no one reaches us in time
(yes, I can believe that we'll make spacesuits much safer than those
we have now, but not 100% safe). Various methods developed to heal
us from current conditions raise other problems after long term 
use --- or perhaps the treatment used with YOU had something go 
wrong with it during its construction, and "kills" you because of
that.

Before automobiles nobody died in auto accidents. Ditto airlines, or
private planes.

Even when we can eliminate aging entirely, we'll remain subject to
accidents. And we cannot eliminate accidents entirely, though I'm
sure we can bring the likelihood of particular accidents way down.
Treating patients whom we don't know how to cure so that they 
won't go downhill further, and keeping them in storage until we
learn how to fix them, --- cryonics --- will not go away, even if
most conditions it treats will someday become those we're no longer
used to at all right now.

          Best wishes and long long life for all,

              Thomas Donaldson

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