X-Message-Number: 7510 Date: 16 Jan 97 06:05:52 EST From: Michael Darwin <> Subject: Selfish cryonicists There has been a good deal of response to my remark about selfish cryonicists and how "it just ain't so." I know many cryonicists who are generous, lovely people. But they do not predominate, and the in particular they are a rarity among the leadership and activists in cryonics. For sometime I made the observations I have about this type of self-absorbed cryonicist until about a year ago Steve Harris put it succinctly (having accumulated a significant mass of first hand experience as well). He pointed me towards the DSM (the psych guys' diagnostic reference) and a catergory in it called "Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)." Now, whether this is indeed a disease or disorder, I've no idea and could care less. A scant few years ago homosexuality was classed as a disease in the DSM. However, say what you will about the DSM, it often can't be beat for a succinct description of a syndrome or pattern of human behavior (homosexuality included). And, whether or not it is a disease or disorder, I find it damned unpleasant to deal with people who are NPD. As a "victim" myself, I'm sure others feel likewise ;-) In my personal experience, somewhere around 50% of the cryonicists I've met meet the DSM classification for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It has little to do with "selfishness" in the sense it is being discussed here. It has a great deal to do with: *being unable to understand how other people feel *being unable to reasonably anticipate how other people will react to social situations *being relatively insensitive to the subtle, nonverbal cues of others' behavior which are critical to quality communication *having a sense of comic book grandiosity such as renaming yourself Tom Terrific or Super Mann. *being unable to laugh at yourself and to see yourself in the context of your own humanity, and, to quote Robert Burns "see ourselves as others see us." *seeing others as either enemies or friends, as all good or all bad but not being able to deal with shades of gray and to accept people as the complex, flawed and often contradictory creatures they are *believing John Galt, Dagny, Taggart or any other Ubermensch are even possible as real people, let alone desirable as ideals *being unable to focus on the mundane tasks required to achieve dreams and goals because they are always fixated on the ideal, the perfect, THE FUTURE. *not being able to live fully and well now because they are held back by a crude world, full of crude people who are keeping them from success and who will be gone "comes the revolution" or "comes nanotechnology. *seeing solutions to complex problems in terms of narrow, simplistic answers. Such people are tiresome, unforgiving and often vicious. And yes, the world has plenty of them who are most decidedly not cryonicists. Not all the characteristics listed above are in every person with NPD. But enough are. I have met a lot of "nice people" in my life. No, they are not Mother Theresa. They are just people who you feel you can turn your back on without finding an arrow in it. They have an easygoing sense about them that makes the NPD-type look like a wound up clock spring. They can laugh at themselves and they are genuinely interested in others -- and not just because their survival is at stake. I recently received a multipage diatribe about how horrible the situation was for the person who wrote it because the person they wrote it about did not share their values and as a result, might genuinely threaten their survival. Typical NPD. The kind of person I like to be around doesn't try to remake you into them or something like them, nor do they assume you think and feel as they do -- and if you don't then something is desperately wrong -- with you! I sincerely hope Steve Harris, who has a copy of the DSM, will add his comments to mine since he is a far keener observer of cryonicist's behavior and far better at articulating those observations. So, you don't score points as a nice person by saving the whales. Every NPD movie star in Hollywod (and most of them DEFINE NPD) has a "cause" to make them look like caring human beings. Some people are nice just because it feel good. Real mystery, huh? Mike Darwin Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=7510