X-Message-Number: 9782
From: 
Subject: RE:Catch-22
References: <>
Date: Tue, 26 May 1998 15:07:01 EDT

To Tom Donaldson:
  As I pointed out, I am a member of Foresight Institute. This
represents a contribution which might be small to K. Eric Drexler,
but is not small to me. I direct my meager resources to nanotechnology
rather than cryonics because I feel that cryonics is a long shot, while
nanotechnology is a *much* better bet. I base my theory on why people
are not signing up for cryonics on my conversations with other people
(yes, I talk about futuristic issues with other people, even if I am a
doubter
about the specific issue). They just don't believe AT ALL that it will
work.
In a way I am supporting cryonics since I support nanotechnology,
which is necessary (but not sufficient) for cryonics to become more than
our culture's equivalent of the pyramids holding their mummies. Cryonics
would not be the Project Apollo of nanotech, but the Starship Enterprise.
Still, if it is to happen at all, nanotechnology is going to be needed. 
If you think that skepticism of cryonics is not the main stumbling block
to
its widespread use, than what is? Of the potential market for a service
that claims to provide a vastly extended (NOT infinite...see my earlier 
posting on "immortality", plus the fact even the stars will die) lifespan
for the cost of life insurance, why has only one in a million signed up?
Why do I keep reading about Gerald O'Neill, Robert Heinlein, Carl Sagan,
Isaac Asimov, Nobel prize winner X, and so forth, dying without
suspension?
If people believed it would work, they would pay, just as they pay for
medical
treatments to only extend their lives a few years, often painfully (ex,
cancer patients).
If they don't, then why pay money for a rather odd alternative to a
cemetery/urn?
Why deprive their survivors of the life insurance? 
Why do YOU think cryonics doesn't sell?
To Saul Kent:
  Thank you for informing me about your research. But I still think that
it will
not affect the growth of cryonics until it reaches the point where we
finally
awaken someone who has "died" and been suspended long term. And then
we *still* won't have huge numbers of suspendees.  Based on the responses
of you and Mr. Donaldson, I will modify my opinion of cryonics long term
future
if we attain revival. However, cryonics still will be a small niche
market, used for
"ambulance service" from places like spaceships that do not have proper 
medical facilities and for the tiny number of people who experience _just
enough_
damage not to be treatable but _not quite enough_ to be hopeless. I still
think
this will be a narrow border region.
Tom Mazanec
 

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