Cryonics Mailing List - Feb 3 1995 #398 - Cryonics and Overpopulation [Levy/Brown] #89 - A Deathoid Meme [Brown] #9 - reply potpourri (conclusion) [Brown] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: #398 - Cryonics and Overpopulation >From att!Venus.YCC.Yale.Edu!LEVY%LENNY Fri Aug 16 13:48 EST 1991 Date: Fri, 16 Aug 1991 13:48 EST From: LEVY%LENNY@Venus.YCC.Yale.Edu :Subject: CRYONICS question To: kqb@whscad1.att.COM X-VMS-To: KEVIN Here's a tough question people often ask me when I tell them about my interest in cryonics: "What are we going to do with all those people if no one dies?" I usually answer (1) space exploration, and (2) there's more room on the planet than you think. Neither of these answers seems to satisfy anyone, myself included. Any other ideas? Thanks. --Simon [ Simon, here are a few thoughts about that. First of all, it IS useful to have a quick, succinct answer to a question like this. When speaking to the public (in person or on radio or television) you usually have only a few seconds to utter your "sound bite" before either someone else interrupts or you lose the attention of your audience. Second, in my humble opinion, anyone whose initial reaction to the topic of cryonics is to ask such a question probably is just looking for an excuse to not have to think hard about the feasibility of cryonics. (I prefer people who first question the feasibility rather than the desirability of the success of cryonic suspension.) Your points about: (1) earth not being near its carrying capacity and (2) the immense resources and room available in space are thus good intellectual arguments, but not sufficiently effective in this case because what you need is something that goes for the gut. Some other "intellectual" answers are: (3) Arguments of the form "What if everyone does X?" do not apply when in actual practice only a small fraction actually "do X". (4) Human population has followed roughly a geometric expansion, which has a remarkable consequence. Consider the geometric sequence 2, 4, 8, ... 2^N. If all but the current generation have died, then the current population is 2^N. If nobody ever died, then the current population would be only about twice that amount, which isn't too bad. (Yes, I know that this argument is simplistic, but it's hard to convey anything more complex in a few seconds.) (5) In general, as populations of people become wealthier, their reproduction rate decreases. Any society sufficiently advanced to have a lot of cryonic suspensions will be sufficiently advanced to have a low reproduction rate, so cryonic suspension will not cause a population explosion. Here are some answers with more emotive content: (6) "Cryonics: Reaching for Tomorrow" (msg #351) recasts our situation with regard to how we ultimately will control the growth of our population as a choice between reducing our birth rate or maintaining a high death rate through "not treating deadly illnesses (such as aging)." The punchline is this: "How could a morality respectful of human life ever condone the sacrifice of living people for the sake of unbridled reproduction?" (Note that answer (5) above asserts that the population growth will be resolved by voluntary birth control.) (7) Ask the person the following: "If you were told that we are overpopulated and that volunteers are needed to step forward and have themselves shot to reduce the population, would you volunteer?" (8) Or be more direct: "Do you enjoy living? Do you value your life?" The result depends on the attitude of the person you are speaking with. Some people do not want cryonics to work. Attempting to change their minds is like attempting to change their religion; no logical argument will be effective and answers that really get to the central issues just make them mad. Fortunately, it takes only a small, determined minority to change the world; we do not need to convince everyone. It's like panning for gold. You have to sift through a lot of uninteresting rock to find those few valuable nuggets. So keep spreading those memes! - KQB ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: #89 - A Deathoid Meme Anyone who attempts to spread the cryonics / immortalist memes should be aware of the meme pool already in place in our culture, for that is the ecology in which their memes will thrive, mutate, and/or die. Recently I was handed a copy of a popular book that must surely be representative of some popular memes (for otherwise the book would not be so popular). That book is: "The Road Less Traveled" by M. Scott Peck, MD., 1978 Touchstone, Simon & Schuster, Inc. This book does have several sane and sensible comments, but on pages 71 - 72 Dr. Peck makes a terrible, deadly mistake. He lists some of the "major, conditions, desires and attitudes that must be given up during the course of a wholly successful evolving lifetime" the last of which is "the self and life itself." Peck then proceeds to justify his last line with the following: "In regard to the last of the above, it may seem to many that the ultimate requirement - to give up one's self and one's life - represents a kind of cruelty on the part of God or fate, which makes our existence a sort of bad joke and which can never be completely accepted. This attitude is particularly true in present-day Western culture, in which the self is held sacred and death is considered an unspeakable insult. Yet the exact opposite is the reality. It is in the giving up of self that human beings can find the most ecstatic and lasting, solid, durable joy of life. And it is death that provides life with all its meaning. This 'secret' is the central wisdom of religion." The conclusion above has elsewhere been called "the cult of evanescence", the belief that lack of permanence is what makes something valuable. Normally I would just dismiss it as some blather that somehow got to paper when Dr. Peck got carried away with his oratory. (Surely no modern human would really believe that!) But the (borrowed) copy that I saw had that particular passage carefully underlined, as if it had something especially worthwhile and important to say. Maybe this meme still has the power to infect (otherwise) intelligent people! That is what caught my attention. Rather than rant and rave about how wrong and bad this meme is, I will pose several questions about how it works: What niche does this meme occupy? What other memes occupy this niche? What are the symptoms of being infected by this meme? How does this meme displace an existing meme to control the host? How does this meme reject competing memes and retain control of the host? How is this meme transmitted from one individual to the next? How can this meme be expelled by competing memes? What natural defense mechanisms do we have against this meme? How can this meme evade or subvert our natural defense mechanisms? What kinds of vaccinations can one get to protect one from this meme? Who is most susceptible (resistant) to this meme? What "vectors" can be used to inject this meme (or its antidote) into a host? I have no answer for most of these questions. I do, however, have a few comments concerning the last question. One technique for fighting some types of cancer is to attach a molecule of a deadly poison to a piece of protein that binds well to a cancer cell, thus enabling the poison to kill the cancer cell but not normal cells. I suggest that Peck accomplished something analogous: attaching a poisonous meme to an easily accepted meme. Notice that the key phrase: "And it is death that provides life with all its meaning." would not fly by itself. It needs the preceding sentences for support, ie. it needs the preceeding sentences to initiate infection: A great lie can ride piggyback on a great truth. Peck gains credibility by elegantly describing something with which we all agree (the "great truth" that "the self is held sacred and death is considered an unspeakable insult"). Then he further establishes his wisdom by saying something "profound": This obvious thing with which we all agree is actually completely wrong. (Surely he must be a wise man to tell us that what looks horrible to us is actually quite good for us.) And, to some extent, he is right. Any kind of mental or spiritual growth changes you, which means that the "old you" dies and is replaced by the "new you." But suicide, which would certainly qualify as "giving up of self", can hardly qualify as "lasting, solid durable joy." We thus have a "great truth" (an easily accepted meme) which helps enable acceptance of (infection by) a "half truth" (a questionable meme), which, in turn, helps enable acceptance of (infection by) a "great lie" (a poisonous meme). "Don't it always seem to go, That you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone." - Joni Mitchell (Big Yellow Taxi) - Kevin Q. Brown ...att!ho4cad!kqb kqb@ho4cad.ATT.COM Administrivia: I will be gone for CryoFest May 26 - 30 and therefore will not be able to mailblast any more cryonics mailing list messages until May 30. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: #9 - reply potpourri (conclusion) Roy, Here is my reply to your seventh question in your "question potpourri". Any more questions or comments? - Kevin Q. Brown ...{att|clyde|cuae2}!ho4cad!kqb PS: I forgot to mention in my previous posting that, although I am a member of ALCOR, I am not a representative of ALCOR. < Standard Disclaimer > > 7) Here are some statistics I've gathered. In all of human history, > only about 40 humans have been suspended. Improper arrangements > were made for some suspensions performed in the 1960s: only 15 or > 16 persons remain suspended today (ALCOR seems to hold a majority > of them). Contrary to public conception, suspension has never been > a fad, never been popular. Have you had any success convincing > close relatives to look into this alternative? What arguments > are effective? Do you think suspension is an option which will > only interest the technologically literate? Cryonics is a divisive issue. Marriages have broken up over it. If you think that finding a good, logical argument will be sufficient to convince people that cryonics is a good idea then you are going to be disappointed. Logical arguments are important - you need to show that interest in cryonics is rational and that you are not just a kook - but some (most?) people are, at present, just not open to this idea, no matter how logical it is. For example, surely many of the estimated 4900 readers of sci.nanotech have read Engines of Creation and are familiar with Drexler's arguments concerning cryonics. Yet, only a small percentage of the sci.nanotech readers expressed interest in the cryonics mailing list, so you can all congratulate yourselves on being quite special! My close relatives (parents and sister) were at first skeptical and then turned somewhat hostile to cryonics when I gave them the relative's affidavits forms (which are optional forms in ALCOR's signup procedure) and showed them other legal documents concerning the cryonic suspension paperwork. They thought that ALCOR was just out to rob people of their money. (Maybe I did a bad job of presenting the idea? I forgot to also include the Agreement to Hold Harmless that should go with the affidavits.) I have unfortunately had to just write them off for now, as far as cryonics is concerned, which is not a happy thing to have to do. What sorts of people become cryonicists? Most are young (not old people just about to die). A large percentage of ALCOR's suspension members are computer programmers. (The sci.nanotech USENET newsgroup is one of the best targeted audiences for cryonics that I know of.) Also, according to a straw poll at a recent conference, a large percentage call themselves Libertarians. This surprised me; I didn't even know what the word "Libertarian" meant. ** I have also noticed that people who are signed up with ALCOR tend to be very "cerebral" sort of people; they think a lot, think highly of their thinking, and highly value their minds. ** Now I have a rationale for the Libertarian connection. You have surely heard that the only two certainties in life are death and taxes. Cryonicists seek to avoid death and Libertarians seek to avoid taxes; cryonics and Libertarianism thus make a natural, synergistic pair. :-) Why aren't most people interested in cryonics? Eric Drexler suggested, in a talk at the 1985 Lake Tahoe Life Extension Festival, that evolution selected against people (and cultures) that wasted time on something they could do nothing about. Therefore, most people do not think (seriously) about defeating death. (Note: Drexler's argument is not just about genetic evolution but also, and especially, memetic evolution in our culture.) An article by Mike Darwin ("A World Gone Wrong") in the July 1986 issue of Cryonics suggested that many non-cryonicists lack sufficient self respect to think that they should have a longer life. Also, some people apparently do not enjoy life and do not want to take nonstandard measures to prolong it. The Nov. 1987 issue of The Immortalist had an article by Keith Henson titled "Cryonics, a Very Slow Spreading Meme". Henson suggested that the ecological niche (in meme space) that cryonics occupies is a hotly contested area that is also occupied by the major religions / philosophies. "Most of these memes have been around a long time, are very well adapted, and motivate those they possess to spread them. Most hold their own in the face of fierce competition. Within minds, they help form 'mental structures' that are ordinarily quite resistant to change." Henson also suggested that thinking about death is painful and people don't like to think about it or question the belief patterns they were taught in their youth. Thus, the cryonics meme not only has a hard time getting through the door, but the old, established memes are very good at kicking out the few competitors that make it that far. I read the book "Vital Lies, Simple Truths (The Psychology of Self-Deception)" by Daniel Goleman (Simon & Schuster, 1985, $9.95 paperback). One of Goleman's main points is that one of our main methods of reducing pain is to dim our awareness of the painful thing. This is a pain/attention tradeoff that applies to a lot more than just the general public's lack of attention to rational means for indefinitely postponing death (such as cryonics). The book quotes from the Indian epic, the Mahabharatta: "What is the greatest wonder of the world?" The answer is: "That no one, though he sees others dying all around, believes he himself will die." Belief systems that include reincarnation or souls that go to heaven satisfy this quite nicely. (Even cryonics is kind of like reincarnation.) Also, even though it sounds perverse, death may have a number of "advantages" that people do not often like to admit. Here are some possibilities: (1) inertia, tradition, being part of the group, respectability (All my friends died. The great heros of the past died. If it was good enough for them it ought to be good enough for me.) (2) Death is part of the "Natural Order of Things" (3) Through death good people can receive their reward (heaven) and the others receive their due punishment (hell). (4) Death makes life simpler by reducing the number of things to concern oneself about (those things that will happen in the next 50 years or so). (5) Death makes room (at the top) for new people and new ideas. [This supposes that old dogs can't learn new tricks.] (6) If people don't die, our world population will explode. [The world population would actually not be increased by a large factor if old people did not die. This is because population is increasing geometrically with a doubling time of just a few generations and the last term in that geometric series is a large part of the sum.] (7) Death provides an end to pain (especially for old people who are lonely, miserable, and sick). (8) Death allows one to quit the game (without being called a quitter). (9) Death makes our limited life more valuable (Cult of Evanescence) (10) Nobody ends up any better (off) than you (Great Equalizer) (11) Death allows everyone to be a victim (since everyone ends up dead). [Playing victim is actually a way to avoid responsibility.] (12) Death puts a time limit on getting your work done and thereby helps ensure that you get it done rather than indefinitely put it off. (Parkinson's Law) [However, market windows also put a time limit on getting things done without having to invoke death.] Question: Will the downloader meme be more successful than the cryonics meme? In the July 1988 issue of The Immortalist, Robert Ettinger pointed out that "Cryonics is gritty and demanding and expensive and messy and troublesome and causes friction in the family and confers no status." Downloading at least sounds cleaner and less gruesome. Its main disadvantage, at the moment, is that it doesn't exist. [But that won't necessarily stop people from believing in it. :-)] ----------------------------------------------------------------------