X-Message-Number: 5719
From: John de Rivaz <>
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics,sci.life-extension,uk.legal
Subject: Re: Death (was Donaldson MR and Miss Hindley)
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 1996 16:52:58 +0100
Message-ID: <>
References: <>
<>
In article: <> John Sharman
<> writes:
>
> In article <>
> "Marvin Minsky" writes:
>
> > In article <>
writes:
> >
> > {discussing cryonics and immortality>
> >
> > >Right, when you've got a system which works by all means come back and
> > >tell us. Until then it is clear that the least you can do, as a matter
> > >of common decency, is to shut up.
> >
> > >John Sharman
> >
> > Scientific progress comes from small steps and large ones. If you
> > wait for a complete solution, you'll wait forever. In the meantime
> > the researchers (and their supporters) need to communicate, both to
> > share ideas, and to encourage one another. Why do you say that they
> > should shut up, as though they were speaking obscenities?
>
> Because they are "communicating" to uk.legal. You start successfully
> thawing out a few frozen stiffies and then we'll worry about the laws to
> cope with them. But not until then.
> --
> Regards,
>
> John Sharman
> +====================================================================+
> | John Sharman Internet: |
> | Tel/Fax: +44 (0)1603 452142 |
> +====================================================================+
Thank you for your continued input to this debate - we do need people such
as yourself to state your views and to answer ours, and I also think that
you need to see where the world is going if you are to provide a complete
service to your clients. A few far sighted professionals who do not chose
cryonics for themselves are begining to see that it is a legitimate service
that some people want. They no longer treat them as fools to be parted from
their money but instead they treat them as responsible citizens making a
particular choice. This has, so far, extended their professional
reputation.
In you comment that we should only go to lawyers when we have completed
the freeze/thaw provess, you have missed the point. Cryonics relies on
*future* science to revive people frozen by present science. It is not a
"sure and certain knowledge" that they will be revived - no one in
the cryonics movement offers that. But there is a logical extrapolation
made from the science of people like Dr Minsky (whose work has a world wide
reputation for excellence) to a technology that could revive people.
Lawyers could wait until scientists have made a successful revival before
they offer a fair deal to cryonics people. But what about all those people
who could have been frozen, wanted to, but couldn't or who were persuaded
out of it? And a civilisation capable of reviving cryonics patients won't
have many people to put into suspension - the technology that revives will
be able to cure most ills.
Being in cryonic suspension is the *second* worst thing that can happen to
you. Being burned or rotted is the worst.
The legal profession ought not to deprive people of the freedom to take the
chance that they can be revived from cryonic suspension. It ought to
provide a *cheap and easy* means for them to make the financial provisions
for this. None of us are asking for other people to spend their money on
this chance, we are willing to use our own. But we are not happy to be in
an environment where it is necessary to pay very large sums to
professionals to ensure that our wishes are met and they are not set aside
by so called "rights" of people that are given precedence over our attempt
at extending our lives, **using our own money**. It is not as though we are
asking the National Health for sponsorship.
The cheapest way to make cryonic arrangements is to use a trust. But this
only works if you have money to put in it, so the poorer people have to pay
for life insurance which is more expensive (because you have to pay for the
life cover and professional fees associated with selling life policies and
the professional fees of the managers of the underlying investments).
It would be cheaper to use a will, but the cryonics organisations say that
the delays, uncertainties and possible injustices of probate are such that
they cannot accept wills for funding. This is not their fault, it is the
fault of politicians and lawyers feathering their own nests by enacting
complicated probate laws and denying the deceased complete freedom to
disburse his estate as he wishes. (Yes, I know it is a lot worse in the US
and some other countries overseas to the UK).
I am sure that there are many people who reject cryonics not because they
don't beleive in the sense of it but because they cannot afford to tie up
their money in life insurance or a trust. When they die their estates would
be big enough to pay for a CI suspension at $28k (plus $6k transport from
UK if applicable), but cannot be used because of the aforementioned
uncertainties.
Alright, some of you on uk.legal are by now saying that the family members
of the deceased have a "right" to these funds which exceeds the "right" of
the individual to chose cryonics (which by the statement made above cannot
be proved effective until after the event). But if you accept this, then
you are already on the Hitlerian grounds of saying: Well, Granny can't have
medical treatment because *her* funds are better spent on *the* young, or
even *her* young. No medical treatment is guaranteed, every operation is an
experiment. (Otherwise the first patient to die puts the surgeon out of
business.) Therefore if you disallow cryonics, then by implication you
disallow every attempt by the sick and elderly to improve their health.
"Come on," some of you are now saying "you can't compare cryonics with
professional doctors". To that I will say that professional doctors once
rejected anaesthesia because pain was good for the soul, or antiseptics
because of the credentials of the proposer. Medicine is the most
conservative profession there is. Are you willing to hinder people trying
to save their lives just because the method is outside a cartel?
--
Sincerely, ****************************************
* Publisher of Longevity Report *
John de Rivaz * Fractal Report *
* details on request *
****************************************
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because giving information does not decrease your information.
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