> I had thought that RAW was a cryonics enthusiast.
He had his daughter Luna cryopreserved, so he at least was pro-cryonics.
> 1) Can anyone explain to me what's going on psychologically with people
> who are on death's door? How can they spend so much of their thought-time
> getting the rest of us to value life so much, only to be willing and ready
> to give up life in favor of death the nearer it approaches?
Perhaps cognitive dissonance? They know they approach death, and they
value life, so to avoid mental pain they begin to value death too.
> 2) Does anyone have any suggestions for what we can do to prevent this?
> How many more of our luminaries will go gently, peacefully into oblivion
> before we begin to stem the tide?
As long as the best we can present is cryonics, I think they will
continue to slip through into oblivion (cryonics, while intellectually
appealing, lacks the necessary emotional "strength" to resist the
very powerful psychological pressures on the old and dying, both
from others and themselves). As soon as we have something that can
be shown to work at least sometimes, then people will come rushing.
So my advice is: research, research, research (but what did you
expect from a scientist? :-) And perhaps try to create a stronger
emotional framework around cryonics; making it a religion might
work, although the side effects would likely be troublesome.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y