There are ways of speaking about dying that very much annoy Peggy Jackson, an affable and rosy-cheeked hospice worker in Arlington, Va. She doesn’t like the militant cast of “lost her battle with,” as in, “She lost her battle with cancer.” She is similarly displeased by “We have run out of options” and “There is nothing left we can do,” when spoken by doctor to patient, implying as these phrases will that hospice care is not an “option” or a “thing” that can be done. She doesn’t like these phrases, but she tolerates them. The one death-related phrase she will not abide, will not let into her house under any circumstance, is “cryonic preservation,” by which is meant the low-temperature preservation of human beings in the hope of future resuscitation. That this will be her husband’s chosen form of bodily disposition creates, as you might imagine, certain complications in the Jackson household.
I hear this one a lot when I talk with people about cryonics:
"I just don't understand the appeal. You die then get revived 100-200 years later to find that anyone you've ever cared about has long since died."
People you care for may die before you, even without cryonics: happens with parents, friends, even children. So, what are we supposed to do in these cases? Kill ourselves, or mourn our dear ones for all the time we need and then go on with our lives? And cryonics is available to everyone. I don't try to "evangelize" people, but all my dear ones know about cryonics, they know that they could do it... If they don't take the chance, well, it's their choice, I can be sad, but after all everyone makes his choices.
I also tell everyone I know about cryonics. That argument is simply invalid because I know I chose to sign and they can all do so too. Plus, why suicide/die because others did? Not fun that they died but hey, I am a person too. I don't want to die. Lucky for me, my boyfriend doesn't want to die either
I hear this one a lot when I talk with people about cryonics:
"I just don't understand the appeal. You die then get revived 100-200 years later to find that anyone you've ever cared about has long since died."
Notice the zero-sum thinking involved: It implies that your survival somehow caused your loved ones to die.
How do you figure? All it's saying is if you are revived in the distant future, you won't know anyone. It's a good argument for cryonics on the friends & family plan.
Well, why not admit it is a sad thought that all the people that we loved - if they did not sign up - would be gone? It is certainly a very sad thought to me.
However, it is not so sad that I would prefer oblivion. Why, I wont be together with them in death! I will likely have no awareness, therefore I will have "lost" them all as well. The only thing that would really be silly and sad is if there is indeed an afterlife - maybe that is what people who say this believe? Personally, I would be happy if they are right and I don`t rule it out 100% (after all, I dont know everything about the origin of the universe, of life itself and of all possible dimensions), but scientific evidence, brain damage and desperate tries to prove any form of afterlife which have seemingly all failed show me it is very unlikely indeed. Therefore, I choose to take my only chance at surviving death which is cryonics. At least, my loved ones will be remembered if it works, yes?
The most frustrating aspect of this article, aside from her ignorant statement that cryonics is somehow "selfish", are the comments on the article. Try to find the comments tab and read through them. It gives an incredible cross section as to why the general public completely rejects cryonics. Though I was beyond irritated by the faulty logic in nearly every single post, it really gave me a better insight into how people are thinking. One of the biggest questions people have in the Cryonics community is why nobody else seems to care about it, or want to get involved. The comments on this artcile give a startling and comprehensive look into their mindset. It fascinates me how many people agreed that Cryonics was narcissism and selfishness. I believe people are basically sheep - even the Bible calls us mindless sheep who follow the crowd - and since this article attempts to label Cryonics as selfish, so in turn everyone and their simple minds seemed to agree it was selfish, in their comments.
I highly encourage everyone to read through the comments though. Brace yourself for frustration. But its truly fascinating the utter denial, delusion, and absurdity that people have about the concept of death, and why they think its "super cool" to just "roll with it", and allow themselves to die. **cking idiots ... (sorry) It takes real idiocy to consider dying and rotting in a grave to be preferrable over living, loving, hoping, and dreaming.
The most frustrating aspect of this article, aside from her ignorant statement that cryonics is somehow "selfish", are the comments on the article. Try to find the comments tab and read through them. It gives an incredible cross section as to why the general public completely rejects cryonics. Though I was beyond irritated by the faulty logic in nearly every single post, it really gave me a better insight into how people are thinking. One of the biggest questions people have in the Cryonics community is why nobody else seems to care about it, or want to get involved. The comments on this artcile give a startling and comprehensive look into their mindset. It fascinates me how many people agreed that Cryonics was narcissism and selfishness. I believe people are basically sheep - even the Bible calls us mindless sheep who follow the crowd - and since this article attempts to label Cryonics as selfish, so in turn everyone and their simple minds seemed to agree it was selfish, in their comments.
I highly encourage everyone to read through the comments though. Brace yourself for frustration. But its truly fascinating the utter denial, delusion, and absurdity that people have about the concept of death, and why they think its "super cool" to just "roll with it", and allow themselves to die. **cking idiots ... (sorry) It takes real idiocy to consider dying and rotting in a grave to be preferrable over living, loving, hoping, and dreaming.
-SB-
I've come to realize that most people are just plain dumb just like sheeps that follow the crowd with simple minds as you said. I frequently feel people like us on Imminst(and other transhumanists) are a new breed of human or something or at least have an evolved mindset. There's just something that's different(but good)about most of the people I've met on Imminst (myself included). Has anyone else noticed this? Most people I've met here are freethinking intelligent individuals who don't follow the crowd.
is frequently following the crowd a symptom of stupidity and low IQ?
I hear this one a lot when I talk with people about cryonics:
"I just don't understand the appeal. You die then get revived 100-200 years later to find that anyone you've ever cared about has long since died."
I don't get it. IMHO I would rather have it so that I am still alive with all my loved ones dead than being dead with all my loved ones dead. I believe my loved ones would want me to live on, that is what would keep me going, and besides I can always make new friends if I get revived from cryonics. Time heals everything.
Seriously the inconsistency is obvious. Nobody in their right mind wants to die. Nobody. The comment that its a natural part of life is just utter hogwash. Therefore wanting to live is not narccisistic, nor is it selfish. What cracks me up is that 95% of the people who commented on that article are also believers in evolution. The foundational premise of evolution is survival. Adaptation for survival. The natural (yes NATURAL) selection so as to what ? ... to remain ALIVE. Everything that every single animal on this planet does somehow relates either to SURVIVAL or procreation or both. Adaptation is 10000% about survival. Avoiding prey. Acquiring food. Everything from A to Z about every living thing on this planet does everything in its physical power to stay alive. To avoid death. Even to the point of its own genetic structure mutating to give it bigger wings, better eyesight, sharper teeth ... all for what? To stay alive. So all these people who claim that wanting to remain alive is selfish, completely contradict themselves. And yet they dont even know it. The poster above is correct. There's something in our brains that makes it painfully obvious to us, while everyone else is floating around in a cloud of denial.
Some of the highlights of the absurd thought processes of the general public:
1) "Doesn't the world already have enough people. give it a rest." 2) "Can you imagine the horror of waking up to a world that is vastly different from the one you left? All your friends, your children and their children dead and gone? Not being able to work the technology? Helpless and unwanted?" 3) "It is the very pinnacle of conceit and delusion for anyone to think for even an instant that their individual being has or could have any value outside the context of his or her "life". Basically, there are only so many parking spaces. It does the rest of the world good to relinquish yours eventually." 4) "In my humble opinion, immortality sounds exhausting." 5) "I find this pretty creepy myself." 6) "I would not wish to return here in the future. Look around, the world is not just 'going downhill', it's flying off the cliff into the abyss." 7) "A fool and his money are soon parted. Who the hell are these people that they think they should live forever? No wonder their wives think they're nuts." 8) "The reason both my spouse and I reject cryogenics is that it's a scam and we choose not to be taken for fools. There's no possible advantage to the poor suckers conned into wasting money on cryogenics or to their loved ones. Dead is dead and, they're not coming back" 9) "From an environmental point of view, it should just plain be illegal to waste precious energy preserving nothing more important than an enormous ego. Anyone who wants to cryonically preserved is an eco-criminal." 10) "what an idiotic folly. once the body dies, the spirit form leaves NEVER to return. the ego/personality/character dissolves. nobody will ever be reunited/restored to a dead body. this is against the laws of creation." <<-------------- LOL !!!!!!!!!! 11) "For me, when my times comes, I will go. If there is an afterlife, great, I look forward to seeing my grandmother again. If not, it was a good life." 12) "I'll take cremation, but turn me into a diamond if I have enough mass left following the process. At least I will enrich someone's life!" 13) "bottom line is that these people have a fear of death that consumes them. Imagine the freedom of not fearing it. That's the way it is, folks. All things end. Accept it" 14) "There is no need to be scared of death. Close your eyes lights out- forever but your molecules disperse and become part of someone else, or something else. We've just had use of those molecules for a while and then it's time for someone else to have them." 15) "It is SUCH a joke! Why do this people think that two hundred years from now, when the appropriate technology is developed, somebody would be interested in taking pains (and expenses) to revive their (likely inadequately) preserved heads? I mean, really, there is nothing special about them, there are (and will be) milliards other living people on this planet."
There are several pro-cryonics responses as well, all of which sound astoundingly logical to me on every level. And I trust my judgment on what is logical.
Well, it is their opinion. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I dont care if they want to die, but it is very worrisome if people demand that WE die irretrivably. They are intolerant - and intolerance is really at the heart of all humanitys problems.
Also, I would indeed rather survive all my loved ones than be dead with them. So what good is it if we are all senseless forever? At least, if cryonics works, I will survive and remember them.
And I do not think any one of us believes they are more important to the universe than the other 150 billion humans who ever lived. This is not the point. To ME I am the only one that truly matters because the universe, for all I know, ends with my death since I cannot perceive it. And this is not "selfish", it just is.
Does someone want to start a mock list to put the stupider anti-cryo quotes on? Not that I like mocking people or anything, but it seems people don't realize how silly the things they are saying sound. I get tired of seeing the same fallacies and excuses not to think or be optimistic about the future, repeated over and over again.
There could be a series of standardized tags that can be attached to each comment: Did Not Do The Research, Does Not Follow, Sourpuss, Intolerant, Phobic, Apparent Sociopath, etc. Then pro-cryonics people could write a detailed rebuttal as a reply directly on the list, and link to it from the comment section of wherever it was posted. This might cut down on the workload of defending cryonics.
I get tired of seeing the same fallacies and excuses not to think or be optimistic about the future, repeated over and over again.
Just one of those things, the phases of truth has to be worked through. The time-frames on the tech talked about here means that it will take a long time for the ideas to be accepted. I am surprised that even those who aren't afraid to adopt controversial ideas early have not taken these longer-time frame ideas up in any significant manner.
pro-cryonics people could write a detailed rebuttal as a reply directly on the list, and link to it from the comment section of wherever it was posted...
There could be a series of standardized tags that can be attached to each comment
There is NO DOUBT each of the responses fits into a specific category. Every time i pasted something into my post I was thinking that exact thing. One could absolutely take all possible responses and categorize them quite neatly. They're that predictable, and that simple to stereotype and debunk.
There could be a series of standardized tags that can be attached to each comment
There is NO DOUBT each of the responses fits into a specific category. Every time i pasted something into my post I was thinking that exact thing. One could absolutely take all possible responses and categorize them quite neatly. They're that predictable, and that simple to stereotype and debunk.
Those who react, almost blindly, in opposing the idea of cryonics, using a great variety of passionately defensive comments, may all have just one mentality and purpose in common, and that is to share words and phrases, "memes" by means of which they might be able to convince others, if asked, that cryonics is a worthless, even a dangerous idea. They will come up with any blustering, emotional negative thing they can, with which to fight off this demon, which threatens their view of 'how life should go on'. Their statements are a superficial pretense at logic, at best. it's more as if they were looking for the biggest club at hand to use, in beating off an enemy who would disrupt their accepted ways of looking at life.
So, what they say, if one were to scratch the surface of their extremely small minds, might not need to make any make any sense, at all. All that is required, they might feel, is to be able to frighten or intimidate others into rejection of this horror which suggests that they have so far lived their lives unthinkingly, blindly, in too many ways like sheep going to the slaughter house, oblivious to what is about to happen, instead of attempting to invent a way around it (other than fantasizing about mystical immortality that will causelessly and effortlessly rescue them from any possibility of oblivion, when they finally die, as they are quite ready to do).
They have grown comfortable with the paradigm of accepting of aging and death. They are satisfied with things being "as they should be", and who are we to question their "wisdom". The very idea that they are fundamentally wrong, that they are no different in principle from from fantasy cultures which believe that they must sacrifice a maiden to be eaten by the dragon once a year, and so on, to preserve the rest of them, would be extremely offensive to them. They would find it intolerable to have to face that in too many ways, they are akin to the Aztec citizens of the great cities of ancient Mexico, where stacks of skulls by the hundreds or thousands at the feet of their temples represented a very different, but in some ways not so different, acceptance of death.
The fact that the odds are stacked against radical life extension does not mean it has to be overwhelmed by that. If even one in each thousand persons were positive and receptive to the idea of living on indefinitely through advances in science, and ready to take action to achieve it, then for each billion of world population, this would represent an potential advocacy core of one million. But, the odds that your neighbor, coworker, or even your husband or wife will be one of those "one in a thousand" are small. Your outreach has to be focused, selective, and that's what this Discussion Board is all about.
Rather than leave these observations for 'what they may be worth', I'll paste in a "description block" that might be of interest, from a group of videos related to cryonics just uploaded to Vimeo. Just ignore the "SORRY, NO PERMISSION TO EMBED" notice. The "view on Vimeo" link, however, will get you there:
This video is a beme-intensive document for Fred & Linda Chamberlain, and does not necessarily relate to current practices within the cryonics community. However, the ideas here could be of value to those with arrangements for cryonics, since they relate to the kinds of personal interactions (and possible misunderstandings) that could arise during a cryonics rescue.
The content reflects experience gathered over 28 years of our participation in cryonics, serving for periods of four years (twice) as leaders of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, with a gap of two decades between those two periods of intense activism and major responsibilities for the lives of others, and another decade since that time. Our wish, particularly, is to share our experiences with all who are allied with and part of Terasem, without regard to which organization they may have chosen for their cryonics arrangements.
Since our earlier days with Alcor, we have become strongly involved with Terasem, whose programs are described online at http://www.terasemcentral.org/ and at its many other websites (search "Terasem" on Google). In December 2009, we presented a paper in which cryonics and Terasem's programs were related to each other, in Second Life on Terasem Island. A text-version is on line at http://www.lifepact.com/cybertwins.htm and it in turn has a link to a video Power Point of the talk as given in Second Life.
In June 2010 we relocated to Melbourne, FL, Terasem's location and are now involved there with a podcast on Terasem's proposed ethical principles for safely navigating the Singularity. There's a link from the Terasem Radio website at http://www.terasemradio.com/ to the iTunes podcast postings at http://itunes.apple....010/id383099543 .
Cryonics still plays a strong role in our lives, through fully prepaid Life Membership with the Cryonics Institute. A video of a planned site for emulation of the Cryonics Institute's facility, in a holodeck hovering 3000 meters above Extropia Core in Second Life, is elsewhere on Vimeo at:
. Terasem's programs anticipate that many of its research program participants will want cryonics arrangements, and in anticipation of this it is developing a First Responder Team at Melbourne, FL, centered around volunteers from local paramedic "911" rescue organizations. This effort is being actively supported by the Alcor Life Extension Foundation and local members of the Cryonics Institute. It is partly by way of interests of ours in making a contribution to this, that this video has been posted on Vimeo.
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