X-Message-Number: 9998
Date: Tue, 7 Jul 1998 10:15:59 -0400
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: CryoNet #9993 - #9997

Hi everyone!

In reverse order, for Mr. Skrecky: if someone is young, their 
life insurance rates are also low. Can you expand on your claim that
they cannot afford cryonics? If they are working and young, and have
a decent job (ie. they aren't just uneducated laborers) then the money
is there. It is not expensive to get life insurance, especially term
life insurance. 

For Mr. Unroch: without being too intellectual about it, I will point
out that those who are convinced cryonicists apply the same set of
ideas to the issue of whether or not their suspension will "work" as
they apply to the notion that if they are successfully suspended then
the conditions which caused their suspension will someday be curable.
That is the basic point made by Ettinger: in his book, he pointed out
that if we believe we will someday be able to cure such things as
brain damage and aging, then it's not a very great leap to also 
believe that we can cure whatever damage is caused by our primitive
suspension methods.

To actually argue validly for the idea that the problems are similar
rather than wildly different (after all, we're now suspending "dead"
people) requires much more information about what happens when
people "die" (as seen by current medicine), the effects of suspension,
and so on. I do not know of any VALID argument which does not require
such information, although some cryonicists would claim to have an
argument on much more general grounds. Basically such an argument
would describe these conditions in detail and point out that compared
to total destruction, the damage is minor. It is basic here that
cryonicists do NOT believe that merely because our current legal
system and medicine have declared someone "dead", that they are REALLY
dead. There's even some precedent for such a belief: with proper
methods, people can be revived fully after the "5 minute limit", and
that period is slowly increasing. Lots of things are going on here,
and I will not try to summarize them in thismessage. I'd suggest 
that you look back through older cryonets and older issues of 
CRYONICS. And as for optimism, remember that the claim is not just
that we can suspend people by means which MAY someday be reversible,
but that we can cure their aging and anything else wrong with them too.

And I will leave you with one thought: one cryobiologist who disbelieves
in cryonics has said that there will be no good grounds to accept it
until someone has been frozen, revived, and then made immortal. We
better be careful about just what is meant by cryonics "working".

Just like Saul Kent, you are arguing that no one will take up cryonic
suspension until we prove it is reversible. Your opinion will be
proved or disproved as we improve our methods, which we are working to
do. But for any individual, cryonics will not "work" unless they 
are not only revived from suspension but also they are revived with
their medical problem (including their aging) completely removed.
Who wants to be suspended with a fatal, presently incurable cancer
only to awaken and die of it 100 years from now in a totally 
unfamiliar setting? I suspect you do not see that issue because
you too are optimistic about what future technology can do. Pleased
to meet you. I am too. But that optimism is not as widespread as
you may think (I think). 

Finally, as someone who has also been to Japan several times, 
cryonics is not exactly outlawed there --- it's just that their laws
decree that (except underVERY special circumstances, such as being
a foreign diplomat) on death you must be cremated. Cremation makes
suspension kind of difficult. 

			Best and long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson

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