X-Message-Number: 4843
Date: Tue, 5 Sep 1995 17:42:47 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ben Best <>
Subject: Glasgow WorldCon Report

   The World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon) was in Glasgow, Scotland
on August 24-28. I saw this as an opportunity to promote cryonics to
European technophiles who might not otherwise have any direct exposure to
the idea. I therefore planned to have room parties to distribute literature
and discuss the idea. 

    Unfortunately, the party hotels filled before I received the hotel 
booking forms in February or March. Also, even the party hotels required 
that parties be held in meeting rooms rather than hotel rooms. To have as
large a room as possible I booked into the Hilton, where I was told that
there would be no problem with a room party if there was no complaint.
On Thursday evening there was a complaint almost immediately -- probably 
due to the loud voice of Erwin Strauss (Filthy Pierre). And the only other
guest who made it (before we were shut-down by hotel security) was a 
Life Extension Foundation member in his late 60s who said he had no use
for cryonics because he is certain that he is not going to die. I attempted
to have another party in a Hilton meeting room on Friday, without food 
or drink (the hotel reserved all rights on food&drink service). The only
people to come to this (besides Keith Henson, Erwin Strauss, Keith Lynch
and myself) were a Croatian couple (who were VERY interested).

    On Saturday night I booked a meeting room in one of the party hotels.
This was attended by a large number of people who ate a lot of food and
took a lot of literature. Keith Henson and Keith Lynch were there much
of the time, but there were far too many guests for me to talk to as many
as I would have liked -- especially since I was kept busy replenishing
food and handling logistics. Taking my inspiration from Debbie Wowk, I used
blue squares (representing ice cubes) for my room-stickers. I did have good
conversations with a biologist from Germany and with a biologist from 
Russia. 

    I was kept so busy with logistics problems that I missed a large 
number of the Glasgow WorldCon panels & events. In particular, I missed
the panel "SF Myths -- Biology" at which cryonics was dismissed as 
pseudoscience. Since there were no cryonicists attending the session,
the charges were not disputed.

    Both Keith Henson and I were on the panels "Nanotechnology and the 
Politics of Plenty" and "To Last a Thousand Years". One of the co-panelists
for the first was Jonathon vos Post, Mission Planning Engineer for 
Voyager's flyby of Uranus and a number of other NASA projects. Jonathon
claims to have written the first Ph.D. thesis on Nanotechnology ('75-'77).

    The Nanotechnology panel seemed to consist mainly of the audience 
raising objections to optimism, which were answered by the panelists.
One member of the audience asked why it would be of value to be able 
to increase intelligence if the only jobs available were bus-driving
and similar "menial" tasks.

     Two of the panelists for the "To Last a Thousand Years" panel 
didn't show-up -- leaving two cryonicists and a weak moderator. Keith
Henson didn't hesitate to emphasize the presence of two cryonicists on this
forward-looking panel. I dealt with the elimination of the "Aging Disease"
and the capacity of future science to allow us to radically transform
ourselves. The audience was fairly positive. When Keith asked who would 
want to be alive in 1,000 years, most people raised their hands. Both 
Keith and I handed-out cryonics literature (Alcor and CryoCare, 
respectively). At no time in the conference was there any 
inter-organizational rivalry between us.

    The next WorldCon will be in Los Angeles on the 1996 Labour Day 
Weekend. The last L.A. WorldCon was the largest that has ever been 
held, and it wouldn't surprise me to see 10,000 people (and LOTS of
cryonicists) at the 1996 WorldCon.

                                 -- Ben Best


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