X-Message-Number: 4049
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 1995 09:58:11 -0500 (EST)
From: Robin Helweg-Larsen <>
Subject: organisations

Thank you Robert Ettinger for an early reply (#4046) to my queries 
(#4037).  I'm afraid I garbled my questions, though.

My main interest is this: upon reanimating, I don't expect to find (as in 
"Age of the Pussyfoot") a world of just 20th century humans ("just" as in 
"only" :) 

Some "normal" humans, mostly "normal" humans, sure; but a lot of 
transhumans too, with a variety of conflicting options available.  The 
medics, inasmuch as they'll be tinkering with my brain, my chemistry, my 
genes, either rejuvenating or growing me a whole new body, should have a 
lot of information about my preferences, or else I'm not going to like 
what I end up with, and would have to go through the whole new-body 
business again, (which may not affordable, who knows).

So they should know:

1) Do I want to be a normal, youthful recreation of who I was in the 20th 
century?

2) In what ways do I want to be improved - immunity from skin cancer, for 
example - and do I still want those improvements if they impact other 
areas of my appearance or function?  (Like changing skin color, or 
looking diseased for one day a month while I slough off old skin.)

3) Or do I want to look normal in terms of the new norms I am waking up 
to, no matter what those norms are?  Or is "normal" irrelevant to me?

4) Do I want to keep certain impediments or disfigurations for my own 
reasons, a scar for example, or violent mood-swings which accentuate my 
appreciation of life, or a metabolism that gives me migraines or makes me 
sick when I over-eat, thereby preventing me from ever putting on weight?

5) Do I want to be a certain age? race? sex? height? weight?  What about 
hair, eyes, shape and details of body?

6) Do I want all this tinkering if it is going to be tremendously 
expensive, and going to come out of my own limited funds?

7) What about wings, gills, additional organs, modifying digestion to 
eliminate elimination, using the extra space to house more brains, computer 
implants, or who knows what?

8) Who is to make the decisions about all this before I am reanimated?  
Who will weigh the risks of experimental surgery, the costs to my 
finances, determine whether I want to fit in with the society of old 
friends and family, or branch out as a new being and have to make new 
kinds of friendships?

And so, the BIG questions: 

A) What kinds of concern should one cover by formal statement in advance of 
being suspended? 

B) What organisational structure will most easily adapt from the current 
activities to dealing with the reanimation concerns?  

C) And where will the reanimation and reengineering funding come from?  
(I know many people assume it will be dirt cheap, but what if it isn't?)

Does anyone have additional thoughts about any of this?

Always optimistically,

Robin HL

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