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WARNING: Comments counter to the policy at the end of this post will be removed.
I've now handed over the contracts; I'm Cryonics Institute member #1039. My next step is going to be to help other people who've expressed an interest to sign up. From those of you who don't consider signing up advisable, I'd like your recommendations on what you'd want them to read before they sign on the dotted line. I've asked something similar before.
If someone were to ask me this about Scientology, I'd point them to Operation Clambake. For homeopathy I'd go to 1023. For global warming, I might start with the New Scientist guide. But as best I can tell, there doesn't seem to be a similar resource for cryonics. Some have tried to argue that writing such a thing is impossible, that cryonics is simply too vague to coherently attack, but it frankly seems a bit of a stretch to say that of all the wrong ideas in history, cryonics is unique in that nothing useful can actually be written in opposition to it, despite the volumes written in favour that are ripe for attack (eg this); if there's enough to convince someone, there must surely be enough to challenge that conviction. Others say that there are simply bigger skeptical fish to fry, and that may be so, but given all the anger that seems to pour out when this topic comes up, it's a shame that so little of that energy goes into doing what would be most useful to challenge it.
However, I may be wrong about this; you may know of something I haven't found yet, or you may feel that an existing resource -- perhaps the RationalWiki article, or something else -- is better than I give it credit for. Either way, I welcome your links here, and when I'm talking to someone about signing up I'll be sure and direct them to read this post before they do.
Remember, you're not writing to address me; you're writing to address the people I'm going to point this article out to.
COMMENT POLICY: What I'm not interested in is direct discussion here of whether or not cryonics is advisable. It seems like every post that touches on cryonics gets used as a general discussion forum for anything and everything people think that relates to the subject, but I've had lots of discussions like that already both in this journal and elsewhere, and in this post, I'd like to keep some focus. This post is not for the argument - it's for the argument about the argument. Comments that insist on directly discussing the advisability of cryonics, without explicit linked reference to articles specifically about cryonics elsewhere, will be screened so that no-one but me and the commenter can see them. If you feel you have to make some direct argument, please post about it in your own journal and post a link here.
I've now handed over the contracts; I'm Cryonics Institute member #1039. My next step is going to be to help other people who've expressed an interest to sign up. From those of you who don't consider signing up advisable, I'd like your recommendations on what you'd want them to read before they sign on the dotted line. I've asked something similar before.
If someone were to ask me this about Scientology, I'd point them to Operation Clambake. For homeopathy I'd go to 1023. For global warming, I might start with the New Scientist guide. But as best I can tell, there doesn't seem to be a similar resource for cryonics. Some have tried to argue that writing such a thing is impossible, that cryonics is simply too vague to coherently attack, but it frankly seems a bit of a stretch to say that of all the wrong ideas in history, cryonics is unique in that nothing useful can actually be written in opposition to it, despite the volumes written in favour that are ripe for attack (eg this); if there's enough to convince someone, there must surely be enough to challenge that conviction. Others say that there are simply bigger skeptical fish to fry, and that may be so, but given all the anger that seems to pour out when this topic comes up, it's a shame that so little of that energy goes into doing what would be most useful to challenge it.
However, I may be wrong about this; you may know of something I haven't found yet, or you may feel that an existing resource -- perhaps the RationalWiki article, or something else -- is better than I give it credit for. Either way, I welcome your links here, and when I'm talking to someone about signing up I'll be sure and direct them to read this post before they do.
Remember, you're not writing to address me; you're writing to address the people I'm going to point this article out to.
COMMENT POLICY: What I'm not interested in is direct discussion here of whether or not cryonics is advisable. It seems like every post that touches on cryonics gets used as a general discussion forum for anything and everything people think that relates to the subject, but I've had lots of discussions like that already both in this journal and elsewhere, and in this post, I'd like to keep some focus. This post is not for the argument - it's for the argument about the argument. Comments that insist on directly discussing the advisability of cryonics, without explicit linked reference to articles specifically about cryonics elsewhere, will be screened so that no-one but me and the commenter can see them. If you feel you have to make some direct argument, please post about it in your own journal and post a link here.
