X-Message-Number: 7550
From: Brian Wowk <>
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 15:52:56 -0600
Subject: sci.cryonics crosspost

In <5bpb4r$j7u$>  (Bruce) writes:

>I just find the whole issue (cryonics)
>childish.  I guess one might find it admirable, sort
>of a "win at any cost" attitude, or a James T. Kirk beating
>the Kobiashi Maru Test. <sp>

	Yet Kirk (and even Spock more circuitously) *did*
beat the Kobayashi Maru test.  More to the point, just 
where would medicine be today if everytime a deadly 
disease was encountered we threw up our hands and
said, "Oh, well.  Game over.  Mustn't break the rules!"? 
(Who's rules?)  We'd have people dying all over the place
the instant they got diabetes, kidney disease, or even
scarlet fever.  

	Here's a sample of some people now in cryopreservation:

	* An 11-year-old girl whose doctor miscalculated a 
          morphine dose.

	* A 15-year-old girl bludgeoned during a convenience
          store robbery.  

	* A 20-year-old with a glioblastoma brain tumor.

	* A 25-year-old hemophiliac with AIDS.

	* A 30-year-old attorney shot by a crazed client. 

You've suggested that cryonics is an attempt to "break the 
rules" or otherwise disturb the order of things.  I submit
that the death of people like those above should not be
part of the order things.  We should develop and utilize 
whatever medical technologies are necessary to change such an
"order", including suspended animation (medical time travel).  


>I see it (cryonics) as an unwillingness to accept reality.  

	I see it as an attempt to deal with reality, rather
than just sitting in our cold damp caves waiting for the next
caribou herd.

***************************************************************************
Brian Wowk          CryoCare Foundation               1-800-TOP-CARE
President           Human Cryopreservation Services   
   http://www.cryocare.org/cryocare/

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=7550