X-Message-Number: 9605
Date:  Sat, 02 May 98 22:57:31 
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: "Failure of Cryonics"

Saul Kent's posting, "The Failure of the Cryonics Movement"
(#9556-7) says at the end, "I invite comment, criticism and
discussion of the ideas in this piece." Here are some thoughts on 
some of the issues raised:

The movement certainly hasn't grown as fast as some 
predicted and many hoped; however, 
the present picture is a bit more optimistic, I think, 
than is argued based on membership in CryoCare. Some recent stats 
from Alcor, gotten from the *Phoenix*, Feb. issue of each year except 
that for 1998 it is the Feb.-Mar. combined issue, show the following 
membership totals:

     1995: 360
     1996: 376
     1997: 408
     1998: 431

i.e. a modest but steady growth rather than decline or stagnation.
I think this is true for CI too (Bob Ettinger can judge this),
and these organizations together make up a large majority
of the signed-up cryonicists. Unfortunately I don't have 
age-distributions; as far as I know there is no drastic shortage of 
young people among new Alcor members, however.

As for the reasons for the non-signups, along with some others
I think these are complex and involve deep-seated attitudes people
have about their "place" in the scheme of things. Most people seem 
resigned to their demise and not particularly interested in doing 
anything about it. The advent of reversible suspended animation 
would change this perception, but, 
I think, not gigantically overnight. It would,
though, consititue a new and powerful weapon in our arsenal, to
promote cryonics over alternatives, and I think our rate of signups
would dramatically increase.

For that reason I strongly advocate research leading up to this 
important breakthrough, and also 
for the reason that we don't know how 
damaging present procedures really are and whether and how well they 
will work. Yet I don't think all eggs should be in this 
one basket either. I am cautiously optimistic that suspensions 
performed under good conditions today will allow resuscitations 
eventually, so I think we have something to go on already. People who 
are dying today (and who desire to live) should be frozen rather than
cremated or buried; clearly the preservation is much better no matter
what its problems may be. If suspended animation were perfected, on 
the other hand, it could be very expensive. Cryonics already isn't 
cheap, despite the fact that it is usually affordable through life 
insurance, etc. Thus I would like to see some effort devoted to 
alternative preservation strategies, e.g. chemopreservation or 
combinations of chemo and moderate low-temperature. A possibility
not yet ruled out is that such methods could be better than 
current cryonic suspension, or can be developed to be better, and 
they should generally be cheaper too. 
Another possibility, as some have suggested, is that suspended 
animation may be very long and hard in coming, despite the effort 
poured into it. It may be too late to be of use to you or me. Before 
that, we can hope that at least substantially better cryopreservation 
methods will come out of suspended animation research. I think such 
research deserves strong support, but again would not put all
effort in this one direction alone.

I think that recruitment attempts should continue: we need more 
signups--the more the better. And some of us, at least a small
contingent, should be working in the "philosophy department"--
trying to address the metaphysical and 
world-view issues, social issues, etc. Those too are 
important in their own way, and I 
think, will not entirely take care of themselves, whatever other 
advances we or others may make.

Mike Perry

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