X-Message-Number: 764
Date: 23 Apr 92 19:06:03 EDT
From: Michael <>
Subject: Another Unnecessary Loss

     In 1965, one of the first people to walk in the door of
Saul Kent and Curtis Henderson's New York Cryonics society was
Dr. Gerald Feinberg.
     Over the years, according to Curtis, Gerald wrote "50"
articles about cryonics in their journal.
     As Dr. Feinberg became more famous as a world reknown
physicist, Curtis assumed that Gerald had taken care of his
paperwork with the new cryonics organization--Alcor.
     Gerald Feinberg, a member of the board of the Foresight
Institute--the guiding body of K. Eric Drexler's nanotechnology
effort, became financially independant over the years through
his outstanding work in physics.
     No one could have been more likely to be suspended than
Dr. Feinberg, a visionary, an early cryonicist, a wealthy
individual. Few would have understood better how nanotechnology
would have been able to revive him.
    Few could have done more for cryonics, now, or would have been
more valuable to all mankind in the future.

Dr. Gerald Feinberg is dead at 58 years old. He is dead forever.

He died of cancer on Tuesday. He surely knew he was ill.  He surely 
could have afforded suspension without insurance.

He, in effect, committed suicide. He didn't want to even try to come back.

Why? Dr. Gerald Feinberg of all people.

    I've tried all day to get a reason from those who knew him.
No one has been able to make much sense of it.

    Curtis Henderson is at a loss. He thought Gerald must surely be 
signed up. Bob Ettinger said he's seen it often before. A fellow doctor at
Columbia postulates that Gerald's illness sapped his will to live or even
his will to try to live again. There is a suggestion that Dr. Feinberg's
family was against cryonics and that he couldn't fight them.  He might
never have initiated any suspension paperwork with Alcor.
    So, maybe, like Bob the Florida TV repairman who was being 
suspended when news came that Robert (another Bob) Heinlein had died,
Dr. Gerald Feinberg wasn't such a visionary after all. Maybe like
Isaac Asimov or countless other great thinkers, the reality of 
immortality isn't that attractive a prospect.

Whatever the reasons, it's all conjecture now. We'll never know why.
        
    I've tried all day to curb my anger at Dr. Feinberg for abandoning
us like he has.
    Committing eternal suicide, like he has.
    He could have been such a strong role model for cryonics. We, in 
New York, had hoped he would be on our advisory panel. We hoped, with
all his success, that he could finally afford to "go public" with his
belief in his own revivability.
    Now all that's gone. His only value to cryonics, now, is as a role
model of what not to do.
    We can't let him die in vain, though. He owes the rest of us.
    Each of us knows people who believe that cryonics might work, but
haven't signed up. We know people who have had the papers for years.
    We must find a way to stop the Gerald Feinbergs of the world
from leaving us, even if it is their fondest wish to do so.
    Were Gerald Feinberg, or anyone over whom we have any influence,
to be revived, would they be grateful?
    Would they then, knowing that they didn't have to die, choose to 
die again? 
    I can't believe they would. The despair of the present has to 
turn into the elation of the future. If I didn't believe this,
I wouldn't believe in cryonics.
    My anger toward Dr. Feinberg for his selfishness and thoughtlessness
toward the rest of us, who are struggling to keep people alive, has to be
turned into productive energy.
    Let's use Dr. Feinberg as a motivator to help those we can influence,
finish their sign up.
    Talk to those people who are procrastinating. Cajole them. Needle them.
Be a pain in their ass. Do whatever it takes. We mustn't let any more
people die due to procrastination.
    There is an understandable concern about privacy in this most private
of decisions, whether or not to be frozen.
    Somehow, however, those who have initiated their paperwork, should be
made known to the rest of the group, so we all can take turns trying to
get them to finish the process.
    In the name of Dr. Gerald Feinberg, who voluntarily extinguished
his personality forever by allowing himself to die of cancer--unsigned up,
let's redouble our efforts to disallow death from happening to someone
we know, love and can influence.

My best as always,

Michael Paulle

[ FYI: After someone has been buried for a few days (or cremated) it is a
  safe assumption that he or she was NOT signed up for cryonic suspension.
  Until then, though, the suspension organizations can only say "We can
  neither confirm nor deny that ... is a suspension member." - KQB ]

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=764