X-Message-Number: 32319
References: <>
Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2010 11:43:49 -0800
Subject: Re: CryoNet #32315
From: Michael Smith <>

On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 2:00 AM, CryoNet <> wrote:
>
> CryoNet - Sun 17 Jan 2010
>
>    #32315: Re: Stressing rejuvenation to promote cryonics [Mark Plus]
>
> Rate This Digest: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=32315%2D32315
>
> Administrivia
>
> To subscribe to CryoNet, send email to:
>    
> with the subject line (not message _body_):
>    subscribe
> To unsubscribe, use the subject line:
>    unsubscribe
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message #32315
> From: Mark Plus <>
> Subject: Re: Stressing rejuvenation to promote cryonics
> Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2010 07:34:12 -0800
>
> In Cryonet #32314, Ben Best writes:
>
> >> I was asked to concentrate on the scientific
> >> aspects of cryonics. I will devote the first
> >> half of my presentation to rejuvenation science because
> >> I believe this is an essential part of the cryonics
> >> program that is too often missed, and which provides
> >> so much incentive (a marketing benefit for outreach).
>
> >David Stodolsky wrote:
>
> >> What evidence is there to support this view?
>
> >   I have drawn this conclusion from the hundreds if not
> thousands of conversations I have had with people
> about cryonics.
>

> I've also noticed that several components of the cryonics idea fail to 
communicate well, including the role of rejuvenation as part of the revival 
process, and the expectation that progress in trauma medicine will lead to the 
ability to repair "whole body frostbite," as someone called cryonic suspension.
>

> Instead I read or hear misconceptions about waking up in Future World with the
aged body that killed you in the first place, or "skepticism" that because 
nobody can revive you from suspension now, the whole cryonics exercise can't 
possibly work.
>

> Of course, "skepticism" of that sort rationalizes not doing anything to make 
cryonics better, and therefore guarantees its continuing underperformance. As I 
feel tempted to say to such people, "Okay, brainiac, tell us your plan for 
staying alive."
>

> Given that cryonics idea has circulated in the culture for almost 50 years, 
and that people can now easily read about it online, I'd like to know why such 
misunderstandings about it persist.
>
> Mark Plus


At a guess, I would suggest that it's because people are scared of
looking socially deviant.  I think we're all familiar with the
standard litany of illogical arguments against both cryonics and the
whole idea of immortality.  The fact that the same arguments appear in
people who don't collaborate and often clearly haven't put much
thought into the issue suggests that the primary resistance to
cryonics is cultural.  The arguments, I would wager, are completely
secondary to the primary drive to belong to and be accepted by a
community.

There are a few memes in particular that I think compound the problem.
 The two that I think are the most difficult to overcome are (1) the
idea that aging is an integral and therefore inevitable part of life
and (2) the idea that everyone has a proper time to die.  Since being
part of a culture is to a large extent a matter of adopting the memes
of that culture, we immortalists can often appear as though we're not
part of the same "tribe," so to speak, as those whom we would like to
persuade.  I suspect it has absolutely nothing to do with the logic of
life and death and has everything to do with the sense of belonging.

Mind you, this is largely guesswork - well-researched guesswork, but
still very uncertain.  I and a few others who attended the Teens &
Twenties conference in Florida this last weekend are planning on
performing a study to explore this and other hypotheses (e.g. that
people with an inclination towards cryonics have a fundamentally
different psychological constitution than the general populous).  If
I'm right, then that's actually a really good thing.  Yes, it means
people are frustratingly unreasonable - but we already knew that.
What this would tell us is WHY people appear unreasonable by pointing
us to their actual motivations for rejecting cryonics and other
immortalist endeavors.  Once we know that, we can change our tactics
in presenting cryonics so that our presentations come across as more
compelling, meaning that we can really make progress in saving lives.

That's just my personal take on the matter.

 ~Michael Smith

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=32319