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. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=306