X-Message-Number: 31484
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:26:37 -0700 (PDT)
From: rr ss <>
Subject: worldviews/resistance to change/kids/religion/secularism


1. On the question of whether secular/western-euro nations are more receptive to
cryonics than America, I think that although they SHOULD BE more receptive, 
they are not because they are more democratic. America is less democratic and 
its constitution was designed to protect a certain minority ("the minority of 
the opulent," in the words of James Madison, the father of the Constitution) 
from the majority. In order to keep the grubby paws of the masses from the 
wealth of the aristocrats, the Founding Fathers created our present 
checks-and-balances-presidential-system federal republic, which is essentially a
form of pseudo-democracy. This system of govt allows much more freedom in many 
ways than do the more democratic parliamentarian forms of gov't found in just 
about every other western nation, which are of course more secular than America.


The thing is that the citizens of both America and all the other western nations
are not really in favor of cryonics. But in america, it is harder for the 
citizens to exert power over their own government, and so here in America, 
cryonics can exist. But it will be much harder for cryonics to do so in most 
other western nations.


Right now we are just too small and in our infancy to make it in more democratic
nations such as the other western nations. 

Cryonics is a minority, and as such it needs the protection of the federal 
constitution, which was designed to protect minorities, or at least one very 
special minority. But the side effect of that design is that other minorities 
also receive more protection.


However, the general mindset of western europeans is probably more conducive in 
many ways to cryonics because they are not as religious, in that they do not 
seem to put as much faith in an afterlife. That would seem to be a good thing.


As for future growth, kids and religion are the key. Kids are not yet set in 
their worldview. So planting seeds in their minds can have a good effect, but 
only decades later.



And religion could also be a possible avenue for future growth. As others have 
pointed out, the Bible itself contains several verses that support the practice 
of cryonics, indeed, that command it from Christians.

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