X-Message-Number: 5361
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: Re: CryoNet #5321 - #5325
Date: Wed, 6 Dec 1995 22:34:43 -0800 (PST)

Hi again!

In answer to Saul's comment about how cryonics WILL grow rapidly, I feel 
dubious still. Naturally with a suitable exponent it does not take very long
for 5% of the population to become 95% of the population (not a large 
number of doublings at all). It's that which may cause the illusion of 
especially rapid growth. BUT (though certainly I may be wrong) I am basing
my opinion first on the present and past growth of cryonics, and second on 
my general understanding of history.

I am presently 51 and will turn 52 on 1 January 1996. I understand why Saul
feels desperate. I myself have had my first serious brush with death, and 
will no doubt have others. I will also add one important comment to my 
previous discussion of the growth of cryonics (and immortalism, too, for
that matter): I was counting number of cryonicists, not probability of 
success. My own opinion is that if cryonicists stopped their petty squabbles
and got to work (either simply donating the required funds, or actually 
doing research, or helping out however they could) then we have a decent 
chance at learning how to suspend BRAINS within a few years.

To me that would be an important milestone. If you were not a cryonicist,
and had given no thought at all to such issues, it would seem quite trivial.
In fact, once achieved it would be hard for us to use such a milestone in
recruiting people. But it would mean that with proper preparations a 
suspension patient could be suspended without worrying about destruction of
their self.

A second event which looks like its very close to happening is the passing
of some kind of assisted suicide law. That's a delicate matter for cryonics
because we don't just want ANY kind of assisted suicide; depending on just what
conditions this (possible) law gives, it may help or hinder us. On the 
optimistic side, one law in one jurisdiction will lead to others elsewhere;
especially if we speak up about it we might push things so that somewhere the
law comes out right. And maybe it will come out right for almost everywhere.

This would mean, of course, that we would have a much better chance of 
arranging our suspensions so that they take place under good conditions ---
from which the issue about suspending brains becomes VERY important.

One REALLY IMPORTANT thing that every cryonicist should understand is that
the success of cryonics is NOT a matter of majority vote. If you insist that
everybody or almost everybody becomes a cryonicist before you feel easy about
your situation, you may as well give up now. But the success (or failure) of
cryonics depends not just on any consensus of society but on REALITY. Even
small groups have managed to persist and achieve their goals, because they 
saw much better than others just how reality was arranged. (Reality, too, is
not a matter of majority vote).

In that special sense, we may indeed win out.... even though our numbers,
compared to the total population of the country or the world, remain small.

For immortalism we just might have a similar situation. One major problem
(independent of politics and the stupidity of institutions such as the FDA)
is that treatments which affect aging will take TIME and lots of it to 
actually show their success. We can look at animals, sure, but if many people
ask for a proof on human beings of the same kind as that in which we prove,
say, that a polio vaccination works, then they miss the point completely.
And such people, if they do want to become ageless, will have to content
themselves with little visible progress. (Yes, some scientists believe that
we can develop tests of the rate of aging. But that too would require lots
of verification in human beings. Suppose I take a drug which results in 
an apparent lack of aging by one of these tests, but possibly not all of 
them. Just how is that to be interpreted?).

Even doing a lifespan test on rats or mice isn't a brief matter, and one 
reason why many more haven't been done is that for scientists, who must
produce (say) 1 paper every year at least to be thought active, running an
experiment which will take 4 years to produce any serious results just 
doesn't look very happy. What will happen to their academic position? Where
will they get the grant money they need to support their lab?

If we seriously wish to prolong our lives, we must accept the idea of using
"unproven" (meaning unproven on human beings) treatments. There is no other
way with ourselves and our current lifespans. In practice, of course, 
no one will instantly come up with an elixer of immortality. Instead we
will have a succession of drugs each one better than the other. Melatonin,
for instance, is now popular. I agree that it has a positive effect; but 
animals receiving it still grow old. 

Given all these issues, I think it quite reasonable that those who DO choose
to take "unproven" drugs will in the end live longer and healthier than 
those who don't. But they, too, will have to accept that most people will
not do this. As for people like Saul who want to help such research along,
I would say that however they fund research, they should take into account
that the results obtained may not ring any bells with most people for a long
time. So we can increase the lifespan of a rat by 50% (a big increase, by the
way) --- that just won't register in the view of most people, not for a long
time.

But whatever happens in the next 10 years or the next 20, remember above all
else that reality is never decided by majority vote. And it is that reality,
not any majority, that we should work towards as much as we can.

			Best and long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson


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