From Ben Best, message on CryoNet.
email: benbest@interlog.com
web: http://www.benbest.com
Subject: Cryonics Presentation at the Annual Mensa Conference
Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2003 04:26:08 -0700
On the 4th of July weekend I attended the joint
annual conference ("gathering") of American Mensa
and Mensa Canada in St. Paul, Minnesota where I gave
a presentation on cryonics. Out of 1,400 attendees
roughly one-in-a-hundred (about 14) attended my
presentation.
The description I submitted read:
Proponents of cryonics claim that low-temperature
preservation of recently deceased persons may allow
them to benefit from a future technology that has cured
all disease and can rejuvenate people to a condition of
everlasting youth. Ben Best will discuss recent technical
advances that are making cryonics increasingly feasible.
He will also address the controversy surrounding the
desirability of cryonics if it proves feasible.
What they printed was:
Hear about recent technical advances that are making
cryonics -- low-temperature preservation of recently
deceased persons -- increasingly feasible. The
presenter also addresses the controversy surrounding
the desirability of cryonics.
Given this description and my title (CAN CRYONICS
SAVE YOUR LIFE?) I would expect that the only people
who would attend would be those suffering from a
"premature" terminal illness -- or concerned about
someone near death. In my informal questioning of
people this was the unanimous perception of the
purpose of cryonics -- life extension, rejuvenation
or the prospect of enduring youth was not in
anyone's awareness.
It is hard to tell, but only a couple of people
out of those who attended my presentation showed
a serious interest. One woman may have
come to heckle. She said that her San Francisco
Mensa group had learned that a couple of cryonics
companies had gone out of business in the last
two years because of the power problems in
California -- with the implication of a
Chatsworth-like disaster for the patients in
storage. I decided that she might be talking
about CryoSpan. I reminded her of what I had
said about patients being stored in "thermous
bottles" not vulnerable to short-term power
loss. And I told her that I had been personally
instrumental in negotiating the safe transfer
of patients from CryoSpan to Alcor.
In general, I was surprised & disappointed
by the lack of technophilia of those attending
the Mensa Conference. There was surprisingly
little reference-to or interest-in computers.
The quality of the presentations was in
general poor, but there were some excellent
ones on sex and on game theory. There were
also some quite interesting people there, but
I was feeling very tired, discouraged and
not inclined to spend time or energy
socializing. Instead I went to the excellent
Science Museum and to the Mall of America. The
Science Museum had a cryogenics demonstration
with no mention of cryonics (unlike a similar
demonstration I saw at the Ontario Science
Centre where the presenter said that
cryonics is a hoax because ice crystals
destroy tissues).
Many Mensans love puzzles and
intellectual games. I was inclined to
indulge my introverted nerdy side
and work on revisions/additions to the
probability puzzles on my website -- and
add some comments about cryonics. For
those interested the URL is:
http://www.benbest.c...ce/theodds.html
