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[Frederik Pohl is considered by many to be the finest science fiction writer alive. Author of the Gateway trilogy, Man Plus, The Seige Of Eternity, and the classic cryonics novel The Age Of The Pussyfoot, Mr Pohl has won every significant award in the science fiction field and was President of the Science Fiction Writers of America when this (here abridged) letter to the editor appeared in our issue of Aug. 1975.]
Your recent articles on cryonics salesmanship started me thinking about why the selling is so hard.
For example, there's me. Why haven't I signed up? It isn't because I think there's anything, wrong with the basic theory or with the strategies employed; that's clear, because I've done quite a lot to inform mass audiences about freezing and have played some part in a few individual cases. I wouldn't sell something that I thought it was wrong to buy ... but I haven't bought. I can distinguish three reasons for that.
First, what the freezing program has to sell is not a thing but a gambling chance of obtaining a thing. It is not certain that anyone frozen now can ever be revived. Revival is certainly possible, and may even be probable. But whether the probability is 0.1 or 0.9 or anywhere in between isn't clear ... at least to me.
Second, it costs -- California organizations are quoting $50,000, which was my estimate seven or eight years ago, when most were hoping it would be much less. Even that figure may be low. $50,000 is folding money, for almost anybody. And it comes out of the pockets of the freezee and his family; it doesn't matter whether the sum comes out of dollar bills in a tin box or the proceeds of an insurance policy; it costs that much money which could otherwise be used for other purposes. My own income is substantial, but to provide that sum for myself would be a problem, and to try to provide it for all the other members of my family who are dear to me would break me.
Third, what is offered is not life extension but life revival. They are not quite the same thing. One reason why I would like to live longer is pure ego: because I don't want to surrender my own existence, capacity to enjoy, input of new experience, etc. Another reason is because I have interactions with a lot of other people and things: my children, my work, my friends. If I spend the next hundred years in the freezer, those interactions are destroyed. Hopefully I am the same but all the relationships that were important to me are gone.
So--putting all those things together--what would I be buying if I signed up? I would be buying a lottery ticket, which might or might not pay off. The prize would be something like a cruise to the South Seas -- probably very nice, and something to dream about, but not a continuation of my present life. And the cost would be a significant fraction of what I am able to earn. It wouldn't mean just giving up that extra trip to Europe; it might mean not being able to finance my children's education.
Of course, most of these calculations are unclear and pretty subjective. If Jane thinks the odds are good and the price is right, fine; if John rates the odds worse and the price higher, that's fine too. I would not try to tell any other person what decision to make. Nevertheless --
Nevertheless, I am very glad indeed that many people have decided that freezing is sufficiently worthwhile for them to devote a great deal of money, effort, and thought to it. Perhaps next week the odds will change and I will recalculate my own position. Even if that does not happen, I will still go on referring people who ask me, discussing it with audiences and writing on the subject. I've talked about freezing to in-the-flesh audiences aggregating hundreds of thousands over the years, not to mention the print and radio-TV audiences that are in the tens of milllions or even more. I know for sure, because I've taken part in hundreds of after-lecture discussion times, that there are a very large number of people out there who share with me the interest, the sympathy and the general encouragement toward freezing, even if they are (like me) not about to become cryonauts themselves. I know they're there, because I've talked to thousands of them..
Frederick Pohl
[Frederick Pohl’s letter was written in 1975, when nanotechnology was not even coined as a word, must less the multi-billion dollar research effort it’s become today. Several of his other objections have also either been completely overcome or moderated: for instance, cryopreservation at CI costs $28,000 -- and that amount is payable by insurance funding. Family funding is also a great deal easier at CI – membership dues for a full family of four comes to no more that $120 per quarter, or about $30 per month. That ‘century’s separation from family and friends and work’ may not apply either – Robert A. Freitas, Jr., author of the three-volume text Nanomedicine, has estimated that cryopreservation revivals may be attempted as early as 2040-2050 – so any of Mr Pohl’s friends and relatives under age 50 may very well be around to say hello whether they elect to accompany him into a cryostat or not. Mr Pohl’s novels will certainly have survived till then – and his many admirers in the Cryonics Institute might hope the same could be said for him. However, in 1979 when he was offered cryopreservation for free simply in exchange for the right to publicize the fact of his cryopreservation, he said he would think about the offer and he did not reply to subsequent queries. ]
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