X-Message-Number: 4588
From: 
Date: Sat, 1 Jul 1995 20:17:27 -0400
Subject: fear

Michael Riskin (#4584) says: "Hard core cryonicists are among the most
frightened people I know."

This doesn't square with my observations, and it also plays into the hands of
our detractors, who say (among other things) that our excessive fear of death
leads us to embrace a fraud and prevents us from coming to terms with death
in a "normal" way. 

I can't read the minds of our members, but, as far as I can judge from their
words and actions, they are, if anything, less fearful than others.

Maybe it's partly a matter of age. Young people tend to be more fearful (even
though also more reckless, a seeming contradiction). I don't think I ever had
an unusually high fear level--although I did, when young, have a rather high
anxiety level associated with pride or shame in performance. 

Now--although admittedly I can't speak for my subconscious--I seem to have
very little of either fear or undue anxiety. It's probably partly hormones,
but I think I have succeeded in internalizing some intellectual lessons, i.e.
turned cerebral convictions into emotional convictions to at least a
substantial degree. I'm not afraid of death, first,  because death is nothing
painful--it's just nothing (to a high degree of probability); and, second,
there isn't any POINT to being frightened--you do your best and let the chips
fall where they may. Being fearful is basically a HABIT, and habits can be
changed.

We know there have been some depressed and suicidal people in cryonics, and
there have been some people attracted to cryonics for the wrong reasons.
That's par for the course, but not really material. When I look around at the
people in cryonics I know and have known, there are very few visible signs of
unusual fearfulness.

On the contrary: while no statistical study has been done, I have a clear
impression that cryonicists tend to be risk-takers, both physically and in
their enterprises. In particular, if you look at the leaders and former
leaders, you find (for example):

Curtis Henderson, who trained as a fighter pilot and still rides motorcycles;

Saul Kent and Bill Faloon, who battle the FDA;

Mike Darwin, a sky-diver;

Richard C. Davis (a Cryonics Institute founding member and director), who
once captured three armed hoodlums in a shootout when they tried to rob him;

Art Quaife, who once kept a lion in his apartment;

Yours truly, who kept his cool as an infantry officer under fire in Germany;

Walter Runkel, Cryonics Institute Vice President, who died slowly and calmly
of pulmonary fibrosis before being suspended, and kept his sense of humor....

I'm sure I've omitted many interesting people, to whom I apologize.
But the point is clear: it would take a great deal of evidence to convince me
that cryonicists are more fearful than others.

In fact, MOST people are less afraid of death than of many other things, such
as arousing the disapproval of the neighbors or accepting unusual
responsibility. If that were not the case, our "business" would be booming.

Robert Ettinger


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