X-Message-Number: 306
From att!uucp Wed Apr 17 09:58 EDT 1991 remote from whscad1
>From uunet!m2xenix!agora.rain.com!batie  Wed Apr 17 09:51:47 1991
Message-Id: <>
Subject: Re: cryonics #303 - Re: Motivation for Reanimation
To: 
Date: Wed, 17 Apr 91 6:33:51 PDT
From: Alan Batie <>

> I myself would be willing to part with a substantial amount of my income if
> I could meet someone who lived in a long time ago.

This is a fascinating argument, and one that intrigues me a lot.  But
let me summarize.  The responses I've seen so far boil down to:

1.  People will be reanimated because the organizations will exist for
    the sole purpose of doing so, in both the sense of business
    organizations such as Alcor and in the sense of a group of
    people interested in the same thing.

2.  ...because it would be criminal (murder) not to.

3.  ...because of curiosity: the chance to meet someone who was actually
    there.

As long as overcrowding isn't an issue, I agree that #1 is sufficient.  If
overcrowding does become an issue, I think you'll see violence against the
storage facilities.

At the risk of starting an emotional debate relatively unrelated, I don't
agree with #2 ethically, and find the thought of legal versions of the
concept (and derivatives) frightening.

#3 will likely result in favoritism over who gets reanimated first, which,
now that I think about it, it isn't something I've seen discussed.  I think
I implicitly assumed that it would be first in - first out.  Is there
something in the contracts about that?

One of the earlier responses made me think also that perhaps we're on
different time scales, although it's being discussed in a separate
thread:  I've sort of assumed that the folks in suspension will be there
for a long time, and that by the time reanimation is possible, no one
they know will be around.  I think I had a vision of a bunch of people
being suspended today, then nothing happening for a long time, then
reanimating them.  Instead, it's more of a continuous process, with some
being suspended for maybe a few centuries, and others only for a few
years, and a full spectrum in between.

#3 also brings up the reverse thought: forward time travel, as in
Heinlein's "Door Into Summer".  Another book (whose title and author
I've forgotten) had a concept about a group of people in stasis fields
whose lives were spent flitting through time, spending a while here,
a while a few years later and so on.  Most of the rationale for cryonics
has been targetted at serious, life-saving issues, but I wonder at
how the more frivolous uses could affect society and/or individuals?
Not that I think the effects will be good or bad, I'm just curious as
to what they might be.
-- 
Alan Batie                                     Some people believe they have
                           never met a gay person.
+1 503 640-4013                                That's what we get for hiding.

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