X-Message-Number: 787
From: 
Subject: Re: cryonics: #780 - #786
Date: Fri,  1 May 92 01:32:54 PDT

I was not surprised at the report of Dr. Gerard K. O'Neill's death. 

Both Eric Drexler and I have known about his medical problems for 
several years.   Eric worked closely with Jerry (as he was known to 
his friends) during the mid 70s.  Both of us talked at different times 
to him about the cryonics option after he became sick.  I believe my 
last conversation with him was in 1989 when he was in remission, but 
had a wrecked immune system.  Jerry was quite aware of nanotechnology, 
but I suspect never quite accepted it.  He had his son (an MD) check 
out the medical and cryonics applications and received a not 
unfavorable report.  At least one of the people at his Space Studies 
Institute was a nanotech/cryonics fan who tried to get him to consider 
it.  And he still would have nothing to do with cryonics.  His 
particular objection (as stated to me) was the classic liberal guilt 
meme, "We have had our time on the stage of life, and it is our duty 
to die and get out of the way."  You see this evidenced by so many of 
the Humanist persuasion.  I think Jerry sometimes thought of himself 
as Moses, having seen the promised land, but never to set foot in it.  

In spite of the enormous kink Jerry's space colony meme put in my 
life, I never related well to him personally.  His loss is not as hard 
on me as that of Robert Heinlein.  Heinlein came from an economic and 
cultural background similar to that of my parents, and, from my 
experiences with him on the board of L-5 Society, he was just about as 
reliable a person as one of his heros.  O'Neill came from an eastern 
Brahman background and what with him being a lofty physics professor 
at Princeton, and me being a lowly engineer from Arizona, that was 
just too much of a cultural gap to bridge. 

Eventually you get accustom to the unavoidable fact that where other 
people are involved your influence over events is limited.  If they 
want to die, there simply is not anything you can do about it. 

R.I.P. Jerry.

Keith Henson

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