[ExI] Cryonics is getting weird

spike spike66 at att.net
Tue May 18 05:35:59 UTC 2010


 

A missive from our long time absent friend Brent Allsop, who is having
trouble posting to ExI-chat.  Brent I checked your membership and it shows
everything is fine.  Do check your end; perhaps the server is filtering us
for some reason, or ask someone who actually knows something about internet
protocols, such as our highly esteemed john at ziaspace.com.  You checked your
filter, ja? to insure that some yahoo or concerned mo-bot didn't
surreptitiously arrange to send all ExI-chat outgoing mail to the spam
bucket?  Brent, we wondered where the heck you have been for the past long
time.

Here's Brent:


===============================


Spike,

Thank you so much, everyone, for making such a big deal about all this, and
for collecting these survey results.

This is all very difficult for me.  I first saw this story in the paper the
other morning, and have been crying ever since.  This is very relevent to
me, because this kind of family behavior is precisely what my entire
religious mo-bot family seems to be communicating to me, they will end up
doing.  (Not that any of them think about any of this much, or are willing
to talk about it at all.  It seems more like they are afraid to think about
it deeply, and they just mostly have ignorant knee jerk reactions and
comments - mostly based on money and fear - nothing more - it seems to me.)

Thankfully, my oldest son (now 24), and a few hints from my daughter (now
22), who were raised as mo-bots, seem to be coming around.
Finally, neither of them by into traditional Mormonism any more.  And my son
recently indicated he even supports my desire to be preserved, and is even
considering it himself - especially if I want him to be signed up.  (one of
the happiest days of my life when I found this out, along with realizing he
is finally for sure deprogramming himself and escaping the mo-bot cult
thinking - something I've been desperately working on their entire lives -
never give up! )

I pointed the article out to another family member, and they were visibly
troubled by the entire idea, and obviously didn't want to think about it.
They, in some knee jerk quick comment way, (about all I could get out of
them in any kind of intelligent discussion kind of way) that they condoned
the terrible rotting behavior of these siblings.  Then it was back in the
sand with their head, and refusal to even think or talk about it any
further.  I think they at least learned enough, thanks to what Alcor
succeeded at doing, that these siblings completely failed at what they were
attempting - so I imagine them knowing this has had an effect on whether
they might think about trying something like this in my or my son's case -
should they have the chance.

I'm very surprised that there are so many people here that think there is
such a low threshold for 'information theoretical death'.  Is there such a
clear line as this?  If one believes in cryonics, you obviously don't see a
clear line between life and death, I have a hard time understanding how even
death could ever be information theoretically complete - in any kind of hard
line way.  No matter what is saved, that is always better than nothing.  Any
and all information or memory has value.  Even having a grave, or some kind
of memorial item, that helps keep one in the memories of survivors, is
surely a great help, in addition to yet another way to communicate, clearly,
how much one wants to live and to save as much as possible of all loved
ones, even if it isn't much at all.  A frozen dead for a long time head is
better than nothing, I think.

To me, most of doing the right thing, is knowing and valuing what ALL
concerned parties want.  To me, the goal should be to get, as much as
possible, what everyone wants.  And you can't do this without knowing what
everyone wants.  That is one of the main reasons I created canonizer.com,
because I want so desperately to know, concisely and quantitatively, as much
as possible, what everyone wants, just like this.  That is why I am so glad
that Spike is at least in a temporary, non rigorous or non definitive way
especially if someone latter changes their mind, collecting this data.  I
would give so much if more people than just me were interested in rigorously
'canonizing' this kind of data in a topic that would contain much more
definitive, detailed, quantitative and concise survey information.

Another thing that is troubling to me, is the operantly hate for the
siblings, and the apparent desire to destroy what the siblings want.
Very true that not rewarding such terrible behavior is far more important in
this case.  But I would think that getting the siblings what they want at
least deserves a mention, since we seem to be collecting all pro and con
arguments.  I believe that some day true justice might be possible.  So,
rather than just throwing the money away, part of me would hope I could get
it to them, if it could be done in some way that it doesn't promote more of
the same terrible behavior.
Then after everyone is resurected, maybe they would have to be my slave for
a million years to make a restitution for what they did to me, and to pay us
back for the refund they got?  Everyone so hating what everyone that is
different wants, and everyone trying to destroy what everyone else wants, is
what is killing us all.  I think we need to always be aware of what everyone
wants, and work to get as much of all of it as possible.  If you at least
know what everyone wants, and value it at least a little, there is a much
better chance that you might find some creative way to achieve more of it.

If it isn't clear, I'm definitely in the number 4 - never give up -
anything, no matter how small, and no matter how poorly preserved, is better
than nothing - quad.  And I think we should add the benefit to the siblings,
getting the refund, as a pro for the refund quads, if we can do so
indicating that it is much more important not to reward such terrible
behavior in this case.

Thanks!

Brent Allsop


spike wrote:
> OK, so now I have:
>
>   
>> 	Quad 1) refund, no dig
>> 	Quad 2) no refund, no dig
>> 	Quad 3) refund, dig
>> 	Quad 4) no refund,
>>     
>
> Quad 1) 	spike's 3rd 
>
> Quad 2)	BillK?, spike's 2nd, Damien, Samantha
>
> Quad 3)	Tim Halterman's 2nd
>
> Quad 4)	Alcor, Mirco, Dave Sill, spike, Holly Gray, Tim Halterman,
Jeff
> Davis,  Stefano(?)
>
>
> Reasoning:
>
> Quad 1, for:  	best for Alcor PR.  ref: ? 
>
> Quad 1, against:  motivates relatives to burn or bury you. ref: spike
>
>
> Quad 2, for:   	better PR for Alcor than 4.  ref. BillK, Damien,
Samantha.
>
> Quad 2, against:	breaks contract, opens Alcor to liability.  ref.
> Jeff Davis(?)
>
>
> Quad 3, for:	help me here.
>
> Quad 3, against:	Alcor goes broke, risks the currently suspended.
> ref. spike
>
>
> Quad 4, for:	Alcor carries out what it agreed to do contractually.  refs:
> Alcor, Mirco, Dave Sill, spike, Holly Gray, Tim Halterman, Jeff Davis,
> Stefano(?)
>
> Quad 4, against:	bad PR for Alcor, hopeless for the patient, silly,
> gross, etc.  refs:  Damien, BillK(?), Samantha
>
> 	




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