X-Message-Number: 8928 From: (Thomas Donaldson) Subject: Re: CryoNet #8923 - #8925 Date: Thu, 11 Dec 1997 00:35:18 -0800 (PST) Hi Keith! A small comment. When I read Peter Merel's message I thought he was writing in jest. Even without the ;) sign, what he was saying was so far out of it that he had to be joking. Of course, he may chime in here to give his own statement. In one way, though disappointing, it was still interesting what happened to Leary. We see all these Public Figgers in the newspaper and on Terribleision. Some are scientists, some a politicians, businessmen, etc. ALL have gotten in the public eye (=) (a representation of the public eye). And doing so may give them a feeling of immortality which they do not want to lose. For such people, to actually arrange for your cryonic suspension, and then go through with it, may seem the ultimate betrayal of the public whose attention and acclaim they have come to crave. And so they become very hard to convince to join --- much harder than others who are not "famous" --- and hard to keep once they've joined. While others, not so enmeshed in the web of fame, continue to join (even if slowly) and then get frozen when nothing else can be done for them. I'm thinking of all the many Public Figgers that have briefly turned to us and then turned away. Someday we may actually convince the public that suspension is the wise thing to do. Then we'll see such a person join and stay with it. But to get them to join beforehand is trying to do it backwards: so long as that web of fame holds them, the spiders who built it must first be convinced about cryonics. And its those spiders who control their Figgers even though the Figgers fondly believe themselves to be in control. Best and long long life, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=8928