From: zeb haradon (zebharadon@hotmail.com)
Date: Sat Feb 10 2001 - 19:15:02 MST
>From: Spike Jones <spike66@attglobal.net>
>
>I can think of only four references to cryonics in film/TV:
>
>1) Clarke's 2001
>2) 6 Million Dollar Woman
>3) Woody Allen's Sleeper
>4) Austin Powers
>
>
>Any others that come to mind? spike
>
Futurama.
Lots more, go to http://us.imdb.com/search, scroll down to the "Word Search"
option, select "Keyword" from the dropdown menu, and type in "Cryonics".
Also try "Cryogenics", as thats what people with a faint familiarity with
cryonics think its called.
Personally I would prefer that very few people sign up for it or take it
seriously for many reasons. One is that, as it becomes more widely known,
there will be wider opposition to it. The idea that we all have a certain
alloted time here, and that to want to live forever is unnatural, horrific,
and worst of all "selfish", is going to be deeply rooted in most people's
minds. I hope I'm the first person revived because unless there is a serious
change in most people's moral attitude about life (fingers crossed),
cryonics will be banned and agencies shut down soon after the first success.
The reason this isn't happening right now is because it's not taken
seriously. If someone with enough power started taking it more seriously
then the public, then the agencies would be shut down under the pretense
that they're defrauding their members. The fact that the members are willing
participants and will vocally defend their right to be "defrauded" has never
seemed to make a difference in the legislation of other victimless crimes. I
tell people that I've signed up despite the fact that chances of my revival
are slim, because slim is better then nothing. And when I say the chances of
revival are slim, the scientific feasibility is the smallest part of the
barrier preventing it. They should do the first revivals in secret and do
them all at once.
When/if it is banned or fought against, a possible legal defense would be
that a ban would violate freedom of (from) religion. My partaking, and that
of others I assume, is very much tied to not having any religious beliefs
about an afterlife. To allow other practices which rely on the belief in a
supernatural afterlife, but disallow those that depend on belief in a
potential natural "afterlife", is religious discriminiation. Similarly to
the way that atheists and agnostics are allowed to be conscientious
objectors.
The downside of low signups is that is results in less money coming in to
cryonics agencies, and also that there will be less research into revival
scenerios.
---------------------------------------------------
Zeb Haradon (zebharadon@hotmail.com)
My personal webpage:
http://www.inconnect.com/~zharadon/ubunix
A movie I'm directing:
http://www.elevatormovie.com
"What is this, some Three Stooges episode where everyone is armed with pies?
Bill Gates is supposed to walk through the airport with an armful of pies
so that he can stoop to the level of his attackers?" -Chris Russo
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