CryoNet #32126 - #32130

CryoNet - Tue 3 Nov 2009

    #32126: Re: Self Sacrifice [John de Rivaz]
    #32128: tautology [Ettinger]
    #32129: Surgery Museum Makes You Grateful for Any Mondern Healthcare ... [Mathew Sullivan]
    #32130: bad "scientific" futurology [Mark Plus]

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Message #32126
From: "John de Rivaz" <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Self Sacrifice
Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 12:08:25 -0000

Luke Parrish makes an argument that is certainly appealing to cryonicists.
However I doubt whether most people in positions of power will read it, and
even if they did whether they would agree.

The sheer logistics of offering cryopreservation at the end of life to
anyone who would volunteer (about a third of the population) may make the
cost per person low, but nevertheless involve a huge sum of money. In the UK
it would be for nearly 20 million people. I would query whether this could
be done for LUK20m, never mind $US20m. If this was ever proposed, even by a
billionaire who would fund it totally, there would be loads of naysayers
wanting the money spent on something else. The would propose using lawyers
to force it to be spent elsewhere, even if only by frittering it away on
useless reports and hearings. (Such "frittering" keeps it in the economy of
the living.) They would prefer potential candidates for cryopreservation to
be used for investigative dissection with possible harvesting of useable
organs for transplant.

The remit of anyone in authority is to help as many people as possible, not
put a large effort into helping single individuals. Therefore if two lives
can be saved by harvesting organs at the expense of one, (and so on in
proportion) this remit is better served. Of course this is only applicable
if the chance of saving the one is very low indeed. The perceived (without
reading learned articles) chance of cryonics is considered too low.

Those in favour of self sacrifice would probably consider being an organ
donor preferable to being a cryonics patient. Further comfort for this point
of view is obtained from thinking that cryonics is "highly unlikely" to
result in a successful reanimation into good health, whereas one or more
lives may "quite likely" be saved by the use of a dissected "remains" either
by transplanted organs or as a result of legal or medical research. Most
people are quite happy to think this to an extent as not to bother to read
the various learned papers written in favour of cryonics. Every so often
there are calls for transplant donating to be compulsory, or a half way
house of making them mandatory unless the person has opted out. No doubt
those opting out would be made to feel uncomfortable about it, although I
can see advantages in this for cryonics, particularly if it was extended to
include post mortem dissection (autopsy).

I am sure that even now if cryopreservation was offered to avoid the late
stages of terminal ageing (or other disease) it would save money even at
present prices because a lot of people would chose it to avoid suffering
without deliberately making the choice of annihilation. However at the
moment such an option would be shouted down as being nothing more than a
scam to save money.

However the further technology advances the scientific logic in favour of
cryonics will also become clearer. After all, in the early 1970s a lot of
big dramatic and expensive operations common today were experimental or
unheard of, and pioneers were considered to be on the fringe of their
professions. Many of these operations cost more than a CI cryopreservation.

-- 
Sincerely, John de Rivaz:  http://John.deRivaz.com for websites including
Cryonics Europe, Longevity Report, The Venturists, Porthtowan, Alec Harley
Reeves - inventor, Arthur Bowker - potter, de Rivaz genealogy,  Nomad .. and
more

----- Original Message ----- 


Message #32123
Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2009 09:04:39 -0800 (PST)
From: Luke Parrish <[email protected]>
Subject: Self Sacrifice

<del>
Cryonics practised on a larger scale is cheaper. If everyone was a
cryonicist, we could preserve people (storage wise) for under a dollar per
year. Nobody would be too poor to afford cryopreservation -- a very small
subsidy by richer people could render the service completely free. It is
thus incredibly selfish not to be a cryonicist in my opinion.

<del>

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Message #32128
From: [email protected]
Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 10:35:43 EST
Subject: tautology

I wrote:
 
> >There is never any conscious self sacrifice, only the sacrifice  of  
> >one want in favor of another. You may sacrifice your  life for 
>>someone or   something you  hold dear, but if  the choice is a 
>>conscious one that simply  means that, at that  time  and place, 
>>you calculate more pain or less  satisfaction in making  the  
>>superficially "selfish" choice.

DSS wrote:
 
>This is a tautology.


Not so, as I have discussed in YOUNIVERSE. Part of the refutation 
of the "tautology" charge is in the recognition that my viewpoint is 
useful, providing incentive to examine more closely the genesis  or 
bases of your choices, conscious and otherwise. 
 
 
As for evolutionary psychology, some of it is complicated and
doubtful, while some is obvious and unquestionable--for example,
it was an evolutionary necessity that parents be disposed to
take risks or/and make sacrifices for their children.
 
 
A remark on the matter of unconscious choice and action
before conscious decision. Choices can occur in several
ways, and unconscious choices e.g. can arise through
mechanisms including mere habit or accident. But conscious
choices do indubitably often occur, and making them
correctly can be vital. Through conscious choices we can
also train ourselves to make more appropriate unconscious
choices.
 
 
The main point, once more, is that it can be extremely useful,
even life-saving, to review your habits of behavior and inquire
whether they serve your real and justifiable interests.
 
 
Robert Ettinger




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Message #32129
From: Mathew Sullivan <[email protected]>
Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 17:04:40 -0500
Subject: Surgery Museum Makes You Grateful for Any Mondern Healthcare ...

--000e0cd28d129d17c004776a917c

Surgery Museum Makes You Grateful for Any Modern Healthcare Whatsoever:
http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2009/11/surgery-museum/all/1

--000e0cd28d129d17c004776a917c

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Message #32130
From: Mark Plus <[email protected]>
Subject: bad "scientific" futurology
Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 20:33:28 -0800

Promises, Promises

		Ill-judged predictions and projections can be embarrassing at best and, at worst, damaging to the authority of science and science policy.

	http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/56082/ 		 	   		  
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