On Supporting Cryonics
The folk of the People Database Project have transcribed Aubrey de Grey's presentation from the 7th Alcor conference: "the idea that a biologist can go out and just assert ex cathedra that [cryopreservation] for most organs is a wonderful thing to be researching, and doing it for the brain is simply outrageous, it's just so exceptionally not true. But you have to ask, how you can get away with it. And the answer is of course, he's relying on the public's yuck factor. What it means is that publicly funded scientists, you can't trust what they say in fora that may influence their subsequent funding. If they say, at the moment that cryonics is reasonable because it's reasonable for other organs, then they know they're going to be in trouble the next time they try to get a grant application funded. I don't want to be too dismissive. In a real sense it's not their fault. So, we have to take the lead and point these things out, and essentially help these people out of the trap that they find themselves in. ... you should not treat the battles that you fight, in terms of controversy, as being independent from each other. Expediency, the attempt to sound reasonable but to pull the wool over people's eyes, that tends to get spotted these days." When the rest of the world is wrong, you're not going to become a better person or achieve great things by bowing down to the crowd. Remember that and you'll do well in life.