X-Message-Number: 31524
From: Mark Plus <>
Subject: Alcor appears in Neil Strauss's "Emergency."
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 19:33:37 -0700


Apparently this new book about survivalism by Neil Strauss, better known for his
writings about music, seduction techniques and porn stars, has done well in 
Amazon sales:

http://www.amazon.com/Emergency-This-Book-Will-Save/dp/0060898771

Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Strauss


I've read about halfway through it as Strauss describes his quest to get a 
second passport, other than his American one, from one of those dubious 
countries which serve sovereign individuals (in Strauss's case, the Caribbean 
"nation" of St. Kitts), along with other preparations to flee from and survive 
the collapse of civilization, or at least the end of a tolerable government, in 
the U.S. (I've suspended judgment about whether this counts as Chicken Little 
stuff because the definition of "the sky" changes on nearly a weekly basis.)


Along the way he mentions on pp.101-102 that he accompanied a cryonicist friend 
named Craig to an Alcor event, where he met "A slender woman in her midtwenties 
with long, dyed red hair and large, ratlike front teeth," who "wiped some sort 
of yellow mucus onto her lab coat" while she showed Strauss and his friend the 
operating room. Strauss quotes Craig as saying, "Instead of getting a second 
passport, just get frozen with me... We'll come back when science has solved the
problem of death and people have outgrown old-fashioned ideas like nationality 
and religion."


Strauss finds the presentation underwhelming, especially because he fears that 
cryonics would fail quickly after a civilizational breakdown (and I can't argue 
with him there): "Yet as much as I'd like to live forever, I don't like the idea
of dying during the in-between period. If the Mujahideen forces ever invaded, 
the Alcor Life Extension Foundation is probably one of the first western 
abominations they'd burn to the ground."



"Around 2010 the world will be at a new orbit in history. . .  Life expectancy 
will be indefinite. Disease and disability will nonexist. Death will be rare and
accidental -- but not permanent. We will continuously jettison our obsolescence
and grow younger." F.M. Esfandiary, "Up-Wing Priorities" (1981).
http://www.box.net/shared/static/ay9lub60ha.pdf
http://www.scribd.com/doc/10948503/Up-Wing-Priorities


Mark Plus



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