X-Message-Number: 32255
Date: Sat, 26 Dec 2009 13:52:14 -0500
From: Robin Helweg-Larsen <>
Subject: Religion as a coping mechanism
References: <>

The danger that I see is that, as indefinite life extension and then 
physical rejuvenation become available to some but not all people, there 
could be a massive upsurge in fundamentalist extremism within all 
religions, making common cause against secularism and transhumanism in 
particular.

> popular religion is usually a superficial and flexible psychological 
> mechanism for coping with the high levels of stress and anxiety 
> produced by sufficiently dysfunctional social and especially economic 
> environments.
The US is in the forefront of allowing social experimentation. 
Conversely, it lags in providing social protection. Cryonics, being 
experimental, has benefited from US conditions to date; but in the 
future we may need more protection from violence and extremism than the 
US affords.

Long-term strategy should include plans for possibly moving cryonics 
patients to more receptive and/or more isolated locations. Isolated 
islands of Scandinavia, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and the Bahamas 
come to mind.

Robin Helweg-Larsen

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