Re: MEDIA: Article on cryonics in Boston Globe

Geoff Smith (geoffs@unixg.ubc.ca)
Wed, 3 Jun 1998 14:03:51 -0700 (PDT)


On Wed, 3 Jun 1998, Roderick A. Carder-Russell wrote:

> On Wed, 3 Jun 1998, Geoff Smith wrote:
>
> > > See
> > > http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/154/Immortality_and_the_chosen__frozen_.htm
> >
> > Just went there and I got a page not found. Maybe your URL is incorrect?
>
> No, this is the correct URL. Perhaps you left off the "_"?

Got it. Thanks.

Has anyone looked at the results poll? The majority wants to be around in
2200, yet only a minority would be cryonically frozen after death even
if financing it wasn't an issue. What other option is there to live to
the year 2200 *after you've died*??? Maybe the public just needs to be
better educated... when's Halperin's miniseries going to be aired?

Also interesting is that all the names I saw were extropians: Robin
Hanson, Ralph Merckle, and Kennita Watson. These people were classified
as "nerds." Is that a fair classification? From just reading the
contributions of these 3 extropians, "nerd" is not a word that pops into
my mind. I always think of a nerd as someone who spends their time
exercising their mind at the expense of their body-- a pretty unextropian
thing to do if you ask me... hardly a good path to physical immortality.

I remember Anders Sandberg classifying himself as a nerd. Why was that?

Another point mentioned by the writer is that of the 26 people he found
signed up for cryonics, only 1 was female... is that a representative
figure? Does anyone have Alcor stats to support this gender gap?

A recommend extropians take the poll and skew their results-- maybe that
will alter the tone of articles like this one, where cryonicists and
physical immortalists are treated as a bizarre and insignificant fringe,
and good fodder for silly jokes about a post-apocalyptic Planet of the
Nerds.

Geoff.