X-Message-Number: 9946
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 21:32:40 -0400
From: Saul Kent <>
Subject: More Dust

        Bob Ettinger (9942) notes that The First Immortal is
published by Del Rey books, and comments that is ironic that
Lester Del Rey (who is now dust) once participated with him
on the Long John Nebel radio show (in New York), and that
Del Rey (who was a science fiction writer)  was "virulently 
hostile" towards cryonics.

        Lester Del Rey was a frequent guest on the Long
John show.  I listed to his comments on various subjects many
times.  He was a very smart man (Long John used to call him
"The Magnificent"). 

        One time Lester's friend, Fred Pohl (another
science fiction writer) set up a debate on cryonics at a science
fiction convention in New Jersey.  Curtis Henderson and I
debated Del Rey and Isaac Asimov on cryonics.  I found that
Del Rey debated an untenable position (that cryonics can't
work) quite well.  Del Rey claimed that freezing causes too
much damage to patients to work, regardless of future
rapair capabilities.

        Asimov (who is also now dust) argued that it is
undesirable for society for people to extend their lives via
cryonics, and that, besides, most people are worth saving.
He said he *was* one of those worth saving, but that he was
willing to make room for younger people by foregoing
cryonics.

        Pohl, who wrote the article in the June 1964 issue
of Playboy magazine ("Intimations Of Immortality") that led
me to Bob Ettinger's book (The Prospect of Immortality) was
confident that cryonics would work and had no social reasons
to be against cryonics.  Despite Pohl's  favorable outlook
 towards cryonics, however,  he's never signed up to to
be frozen and will, undoubtedly, become dust himself.

---Saul Kent

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