X-Message-Number: 8774
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #8758 - #8765
Date: Thu, 13 Nov 1997 00:27:22 -0800 (PST)

Hi again!

To Charles Platt:

First of all, I have thanked David BE in my own messages several times. His
reporting is very useful. I hope that one of the cryonics journals goes so
far as to print it.

Second, an important point. Nanotechnology in the sense of Drexler is NOT
a presently existing technology. It is a name for a group of technologies,
in teh first place, and in his original book he even included biotechnology,
which presently remains the most advanced means by which we manipulate
atoms on the nanoscale. For that matter, chemistry can be seen as a nano-
technology. 

So if there was an increase in cryonicists, that increase came not from 
the presence of an actual technology but from the publicising of a set of
ideas which might lead to the needed technology. To anyone with common sense
(and we are noticing this now) the issue of how long that might take remains
open. We'll have to see. The year 2000 approaches, with no signs of any
sudden upsurge in our ability to control the world on a nanoscale (yes,
work does continue, and we are improving --- I even report such work in 
PERIASTRON). 

Furthermore, I used the word "publicising" above quite deliberately. Long
before Drexler came on the scene, cryonicists did not spend their time
simply wishing for some unknown undescribed means for their revival. There
was a strain of active speculation about how it might be done. Drexler
even credits this strain and those involved in it as one of the early cases 
of nanotechnological thinking.

It seems to me that using Drexler's book as a demonstration that a fully
perfected suspended animation would increase our recruitment has some shaky
assumptions in it. If we follow the issue through, we might even have a case
that ACTIVE RESEARCH toward suspended animation will increase recruitment,
regardless of just when that research bears fruit.

Moreover, I note that the increase in growth rate did not last very long. 
This fits with the suggestions I made in my posting on this Cryonet. While
you can be forgiven for thinking that I believed that suspended animation
would cause NO increase, I have now made clear just what I think will 
happen.

Sorry that you don't bother to read what I have to say. That's your right,
of course. But you should not comment on something you have not read, not
a wise thing to do. It can make you look damned foolish, and clearly you're
not really that way. 

For Marty Nemko: Congratulations. I agree that we should try to get a better
idea of just why people aren't joining. Reliance on subjective theories just
isn't going to be very accurate. 

It does cost money and effort to do this, naturally. The benefits might be
considerable --- not to any increase in our lifespans, which is what 
the biomedical research is for, but for recruiting and increase in the number
of cryonicists. As it is, we blunder about trying different things. Perhaps
someday we'll find something; or someday people will slowly start waking up
to what we're saying.

To Michael O'Neal: What you suggest will happen will only happen if the FDA
retains its present power by that time.

However, rather than get into a discussion of the future of the FDA I'll
add something to what you said. It seems to me that you've brought out one
really fundamental issue in cryonics with which even perfected suspended
animation does not deal. Suspended animation deals only with a PART of
our problem, and many cryonicists may not see that other part because they
assume (from their own feelings) that it simply isn't there.

It's this: cryonics is NOT for young people suffering from conditions which
will become curable with high probability within the next 10 years. It's 
for all those who come down with some "utterly incurable" disease, one for
which little research goes on at present because no one sees any clue to 
how to cure it. And to anyone with such a disease, suspension is just as
much a leap in the dark as it is now. Sure, he doesn't have to wait until
"death" is "declared". Whoop de doo! He can be suspended while alive so
that he can comfortably believe that he'll wake up 200 years from now to
die soon afterwards of hisiomatically incurable disease. 

In that sense, even with the FDA we might still remain free. We just go
on as before, freezing those who have been "declared dead", with all the
proper rituals and papers to show it. Right now, most forms of "death"
are considered (by most people) to be axiomatically incurable: 5 minutes
and you're gone. Cryonicists have not believed that for many years, and
now some CRYONICISTS have actually found consistent ways to push that
5 minutes up to 15 minutes. Good work. (They weren't the only ones working
in that field, of course, but so far as I know they've gotten the most
consistent results). Lots of other axiomatically incurable conditions
exist, too. 

This set of beliefs: that if the Authorities say that nothing can be done,
then nothing can be done, not just now but into the indefinite far future,
that is the real barrier we must break down to come near to widespread
recruiting. And it is a hard barrier to break, for the simple reason that
once some condition becomes curable, then everyone forgets how impossible
they thought such a cure to be. Why of course! I had hints it was going to
happen years beforehand ... And then they ask the Authorities about other,
different axiomatically incurable conditions, which will never ever in the
history of mankind or the universe meet with a cure. (Actually, we may get
wiser about this once we start living for hundreds of years: we'll get
to see the whole pattern happen again, and again, and again --- not that
this helps, much, our recruiting for NOW).

As for the FDA, you're probably right. You've given one more argument as
to why the FDA, and the medical establishment, should be abolished. Just
how and why THAT will happen I can't say.

			Best and long long life to all,

				Thomas Donaldson

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