X-Message-Number: 6069 From: Randy Smith <> Newsgroups: sci.cryonics Subject: Re: Fear of the "unnatural" Date: 11 Apr 1996 12:54:37 GMT Message-ID: <4kived$> References: <> "Roderick A. Carder-Russell" <> wrote: > > I have found, as an Extropian, Transhumanist and just of late a >member of Alcor, that despite the vast number of people involved in such >studies, the majority of our society has a very strong "negative" >reaction to our beliefs. I have lost a few very close people in my life >because oof my work and my beliefs. After much discussion, they have >all, independently, claimed to be "afraid" of my ideas. The unfortunate >thing is that these are not pessimistic, uneducated people, they have all >listened to me speak of the subject, digested what I've said, even made >an effort to further there knowledge of the subject, but they all eventually >break down and act afraid, with rather childlike fear. As I indicated to you in my email response, I haven't had quite the level of negative responses that you've indicated here. But of course I think "fear of the unnatural" could well be a component of people's feelings/.reactions to cryonics. And they express generally negative feelings towards cryonics, but are often unable to articulate them fully. And speaking of reactions to "coming out of the cryonics closet," there almost seems to be a standard initial reaction to this, especially if I don't the person well. The first thing I get is this patented "guarded expression." I can just hear their "kook alarms" going off. I haven't done this often but it's kinda funny to see this same reaction in so many. This occurs even if it turns out that they've heard of cryonics before, and most have. As I've noted previously on this forum, about a year ago I used one of Platt's Omni articles in my 7th grade English class a year ago by working it into a series of reaction writings to various esoteric subjects. Of course, I did not bring up my own interest in cryonics. As I said before, the majority expressed negative feeling or indifference. I have, however, had another opportunity to observe reactions in a public forum. I am taking a university calculus class and there is an associated workshop which is more or less unsupervised. While discussing the possibilities of the Internet with a classmate during class (hey,that's related to calculus, right?) the topic of unusual internet discussion groups came up and of couse, so did cryonics. The discussion spread to nearby classmates and soon the entire class of perhaps 15 was embroiled in a semi-discussion. There were many questions directed at me concerned viability, practicality, etc. I would have to say that the reaction was generally mildly negative, mainly in the sense that they did not take it seriously. There was absolutely no fear expressed. There was however, one student who evidenced an unusual knowledge of the subject, a lady of Asian-Indian heritage, who answered a couple of questions directed at me before I could answer them. Her attitude seemed positive, although I didn't explore the topic further with her. I've never spoken to her, as she sits in a different part of the class, but I might ask her how she knows so much about cryonics, given the appropriate setting. Randy Smith -- do not go gentle into that good night rage, rage against the dying of the light Dylan Thomas Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=6069