Teens & Twenties 2011 Gathering

On the evening of Thursday, May 19 and on Friday, May 20, I attended the 2011 (2nd annual) Teens & Twenties young cryonicists gathering which preceded the Suspended Animation, Inc. conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The Teens & Twenties gathering (for young cryonicists having human cryopreservation contracts in place with some cryonics organization) is an offshoot of the cryonics Asset Preservation Group. Like the Asset Preservation Group, this event was created-by and is run-by Cairn Idun. Bill Faloon funds Teens & Twenties through a Life Extension Foundation education grant. Members of the Asset Preservation Group, such as myself, are permitted to attend despite being more than 30 years old. Of the 52 people who attended, ten were Asset Preservation Group members, and 42 were young cryonicists.

When asked who did not want to be photographed, only one person in the group raised his hand. I will refrain from mentioning any of the young cryonicists by name. Writing about this very people-oriented event without mentioning individual young cryonicists is like writing about lemonade without mentioning lemon. Some of the personalities were particularly colorful and memorable. But I know that many of the individuals do not want the publicity, and in my experience people get very emotional about what is said and not said about them. Even with explicit permission I am concerned that many of the young cryonicists might not fully appreciate the kinds of problems writing about them in connection with cryonics might cause for their future careers.

This year the demographics of the young cryonicists more closely matched what is typical of cryonicists. Last year about one third of those attending were female, and there was a high representation of people from the entertainment industry. This year, the attendees were overwhelmingly male, with most of the females being companions of males (which is not to say they were not cryonicists). Many members of this group were impressively highly educated, mostly in computer technologies, and secondarily in biotechnologies.

EXCELLENT MEALS WERE INCLUDED IN THE SCHOLARSHIPS

There were six Russians: five from KrioRus, and one from CryoFreedom. KrioRus is located near Moscow, whereas CryoFreedom is further south in Russia, closer to Ukraine. Dr. Yuri Pichugin (formerly the Cryonics Institute’s cryobiologist, is associated with CryoFreedom. CryoFreedom advertises neuropreservation for $7,500. Although it currently has no human patients, two pets are in liquid nitrogen. (I also learned that there is a man named Eugen Shumilov who is working to start a new cryonics company in St. Petersburg, Russia, but there was no representation of Shumilov’s organization at this event.

There are two overlapping goals of the Teens & Twenties event. One is the opportunity for members of the Asset Presevation Group to meet the young cryonicists. The other is the opportunity for the widely dispersed young cryonicists to become acquainted with each other, and to build lasting networks (community building). Cairn Idun has designed a number of “getting to Know You” exercises to facilitate the networking.

There are two self-introductions: the first lasting one minute, and the second lasting two minutes. I was the most anal-retentive of any of the participants in these exercises. I wrote-out my self-introductions, and practiced reading them to myself until I was sure I was within a few seconds of the one and two minute allocations. The one-minute self-introductions were on Thursday evening, and the two-minute self-introductions were Friday morning.

The Thursday evening self-introductions were followed by the exercise wherein participants classified themselves by “color”: (Green:Conceptual, Curious, Wise, Versatile), (Red:Adventuresome, Skillful, Competitive,Spontaneous), (Gold:Responsible, Dependable, Helpful, Sensible), and (Blue:Warm, Communicative, Compassionate, Feeling), as described in my write-up of last year’s Teens & Twenties event.

Once again, Greens were most numerous, followed by Reds. Cairn directed the participants to gather into groups by color. No directions were given for these meetings, so it was to foster socialization between “like-colored” individuals.

Last year a number of people had little to say in their second self-introductions, imagining that they had said all that could be said about themselves in their first self-introduction. I concerned myself quite a bit about how to prevent this from happening again. I made a number of suggestions in the Young Cryonicists Facebook Group, as did others. Cairn had participants list wants and “not-wants” of various kinds before the second self-introductions as a means of facilitating self-awareness. I tried to make my second self-introduction very personal in the hope that it would inspire others. There weren’t too many who were at a loss for words in the second self-introductions this year. Many of the participants passed-out business cards or other self-descriptive materials in conjunction with their second self-introduction.

There was a breakout session in which those with special interests had an opportunity to discuss their interests or how they might work together on those interests. The interest areas were entertainment, research, computer sciences, communication networking, and psychology/philosophy of self.

INTEREST GROUPS

Bill Faloon encouraged the participants to share thoughts about types of research that could lead to reanimation — with the thought that many of the young cryonicists would be in charge of large revival trust funds with income that can be used for research on reanimation technologies. I won’t attempt to summarize the thoughts of others, but I can say a few things about what I said.

Some people don’t want cryonics because they are afraid that they will not be restored in their original condition. The mother of one cryonicist is a stroke victim, and she has had a frightening first-hand experience of losing mental & movement capacity. Hollywood plays into this vision by depicting reanimated beings as zombies who are criminally insane.

Few people want to be the first of those reanimated — they would prefer that many others be reanimated first to ensure that the process works perfectly. I suggested that the first people reanimated might be brought back by next-of-kin who are overly eager to see their loved-ones as soon as possible. The idea of reviving pets first would not be popular with many pet owners. Reanimation technologies might be perfected on non-pet animals, although even today there is increasing sentiment against animal research. Animal rights activists seek legislation to protect animals from “unnecessary research”, which would likely include anything cryonics-related. Austria banned research on apes in 2006, and the number of countries with similar legislation continues to grow [SCIENCE; 332:28-31 (April 2011)]. Even if reanimation research was conducted on apes, the extrapolation of restoring ape consciousness/identity to restoring of human consciousness/identity is non-trivial.

I worry that as more wealthy cryonicists are cryopreserved, their only concern will be for reanimation research. Many of them will not appreciate that improved cryopreservation methods will advance cryonics and thereby enhance their chances of reanimation.

The next “getting to know you” exercise was what Cairn calls “speed dating”. Each participant is to spend two minutes with every other participant having a one-to-one conversation. For myself, it gave me an opportunity to talk to many people I would not have spoken with otherwise, and to have personal conversations with many individuals that I cannot imagine happening in any other way. Spontaneous socializing more often results in people talking only to those they already know. This exercise is a good ice-breaker, but it does involve some effort. It can be a strain to be starting conversations again-and-again, and again-and-again having to break them off once they become interesting — but the result was well worth the effort for me. Having a personal connection with individuals enables me to interact with them more productively, and this must also be true of the others. I rate speed-dating as the most valuable of all of the exercises, along with self-introductions.

Participants filled out a sheet indicating their interest level in cryonics — including such things as whether they planned to have a cryonics-related career, do volunteer work for a cryonics organization, or simply be a consumer.

GATHERING FOR THE GROUP PHOTO

he final event was the group photo, after which was a dinner and then reception for the Suspended Animation conference. The photographer who made the group photo was employed to make photographs only intended sor private use of Suspended Animation, Inc., but we did not learn this until later (even the photographer did not know).

All the young cryonicists had the fees, hotel expenses, and meals associated with the Suspended Animation conference paid-for. The opportunity for some of the young cryonicists who have an interest in science to directly interact with current cryonics researchers could eventually lead to large scientific dividends for cryonics research in the future.

There were reportedly many exaggerated rumors about what happened in the evening hot-tub sessions in the 2010 Teens & Twenties gathering. I brought my bathing suit this year, but did not spend a great deal of time in the hot tub. The conversation was a bit more playful than it was in other contexts, and there was more of a party-spirit in the hot tub — which some of the participants relished. I would guess that about half of the Teens & Twenties participants spent at least some time in the hot tub.

Despite all of the intensive social interaction and “getting to know you” exercises, I would have a hard time making a connection between names, faces, and biographies of at least a third of the young cryonicists. I don’t believe that I am unique in that regard. The “speed-dating” exercise was particularly helpful in strengthening and deepening the name/face/biography connections. Memories of the individuals and their personalities are likely to be more easily refreshed in the future thanks to the meetings and exercises of this gathering.

YOUNG CRYONICISTS VISIT WITH SAUL KENT

Teens & twenties cryonicist event 2010

teens_twenties_2010

This past weekend (Friday, January 8, 2010 to Sunday, January 10, 2010) I attended a meeting for cryonicists in their teens & twenties near Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The event was funded by Bill Faloon and the Life Extension Foundation. Cairn Idun, creator & coordinator of the Asset Preservation Group, created & coordinated this event as well. Although the Asset Preservation Group was created to devise means of protecting the assets of cryonicists during cryostasis, the group has expanded its concerns to many related issues, including nurturing future generations of cryonics activists to replace the current generation of aging cryonics activists.

The qualification for receiving a scholarship to attend the Teens & Twenties event was applying and being validated as having funding & contracts in place for cryopreservation with any cryonics organization, and being in the 12-30 age range. There were cryonicists from CI, Alcor, ACS, and KrioRus (the latter represented by Danila Medvedev). Some cryonicists were from Canada, Poland, Norway, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Altogether there were 33 cryonicists receiving scholarships, two spouses of those cryonicists who paid their own way plus 13 speakers and Members of the Asset Preservation Group (which includes me) —  for a total of 48 people attending at various times. Among the young cryonicists I believe there were only three teenagers: the two young sons of Bill Faloon, and 19-year-old CI/ACS Member Shannon Blevins,Jr.

By way of introduction, Bill Faloon described his experience of being a 19-year-old cryonicist attending the South Florida cryonics group in the 1970s. Wealthy cryonicists had sponsored him to attend a cryonics training and a life extension meeting in California. He believed that that sponsorship had paid big dividends for cryonics & life extension that he hoped would be comparable to the results of the LEF investment in this teens & twenties group for young cryonicists.

Everyone was then to give brief (under one minute) self-introductions. I won’t give many details, but there was a common theme of growing up with ideas & aspirations that were greatly different from those of friend & relatives. One young man is reputedly the only cryonicist in the state of Alabama. One young woman signed-up at the age of 16 and convinced her father to do so as well. She expressed a sentiment that many resonated with: “even individualists need a sense of community & belonging”. Before the meeting I had been concerned that many of those who had been signed-up for cryonics as young children by their parents would probably not be serious cryonicists. I was impressed by the extent of commitment to cryonics I saw among many of those who had been signed-up virtually from birth.

Although it is stereotypic that cryonicists are single, male computer nerds, 34% of these young cryonicists were female, and quite a few of them were involved with the entertainment industry. During the longer self-introductions Cairn noted five interest areas. The topics were: social networking, promoting cryonics through entertainment, cryonics-related science research, defending & promoting cryonics on the internet, and legal issues associated with cryonics. Cairn had the attendees separate into the five interest areas for discussion, and then we heard presentations from representatives of each group.

The next “getting to know you” exercise involved the participants classifying themselves by personality type as represented by the four colors green, blue, gold, and red:

Green — Conceptual, Curious, Wise, Versatile (intellectual, head rules heart)

Blue — Warm, Communicative, Compassionate, Feeling (seeks harmonious relationships)

Gold — Responsible, Dependable, Helpful, Sensible (dutiful, family-oriented, organization-oriented)

Red — Adventuresome, Skillful, Competitive, Spontaneous (seeks variety and physical involvement)

The participants were given colored sheets that described each personality color in detail as a means of assessing how much of each color composed their personality. Participants were to put various numbers of each color of dots on their name badges corresponding to how much each color is represented in their personality.

I later searched the internet for the basis of this classification system. I found some close matches, but nothing seemed exact:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keirsey_Temperament_Sorter#Temperaments_and_intelligence_types

http://users.trytel.com/~jfalt/Ene-med/true-col.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator#The_four_dichotomies

Because most individuals are a mixture of all colors, we formed groups with others matching our dominant personality color. The largest group by far were the greens, followed by reds. There were only three blues and four golds. I felt that I had so much of all the colors that it was hard for me to choose. I finally decided that I had slightly more green and slightly less gold than the other colors. I joined the green group. Eliezer Yudkowsky regarded himself as so green that he covered his name badge with green dots. Cairn commented that greens generally predominate among cryonicists, and that she was glad to see so many of the other colors because all personality types are required for good teamwork.

On Saturday a presentation by futurist John Lobell was followed by more detailed self-introductions. I tried to tell the story of my life in five minutes. After the detailed self-introductions Catherine Baldwin gave a presentation about Suspended Animation,Inc. and Bill Faloon discussed future projects that young cryonicists should consider to further the advancement of cryonics. Bill was very concerned that there had been no dynamic spokesperson to defend Alcor against the Larry Johnson media blitz in October. Steve Valentine gave a presentation on the Timeship Project, a very expensive storage & research facility planned to store thousands of cryonics patients and transplantable organs at intermediate cryogenic temperatures (about minus 140 degrees Celsius). Although I have thought that the money lavished on this project could be better-spent in other ways, Bill Faloon is enthusiastic that Timeship will convince the world of the seriousness of human cryopreservation in a way that industrial park warehouses cannot.

Sunday morning there was a tour of Suspended Animation, Inc. followed by lunch at the SA facility. The tours were conducted in groups of ten, while the others socialized and watched digitized 40-year-old films (“Ice Men Cometh”) of Curtis Henderson & Saul Kent demonstrating human cryopreservation procedures & equipment during the early pioneering years of cryonics. After lunch there was a final “getting to know you” exercise where most of the participants moved from chair to chair having brief one-to-one conversations with most of the other participants. There were quite a number of people I had not had the chance to speak with earlier, and I found this exercise to be very helpful.

The rest of the afternoon was intended to be available for informal socializing at SA, but with people catching flights and the general restlessness it quickly became fragmented.

Overall I am very enthusiastic with how the weekend went. I made many valuable connections, as did most (if not all) of the others, I believe. It also lifted my spirits, which I also believe was a common experience. Bill Faloon wants to make this an annual event.

In the week after the Teens & Twenties event, I created a Facebook group “Young cryonicists”, and sent invitations to all of the attendee.

Early in the weekend I had asked Cairn to see who among the group did not want to be photographed. To my surprise, only one person did not. I took care not to include her in any of the pictures I took of the event. The following are a few of my photos:

Dinner at the Teens & Twenties event

Line-up for Steve Valentine to autograph Timeship posters

Danila Medvedev wears video/audio glasses that record his life
[Danila calls this Plan C for reconstruction of his personality if Plan A (life extension) and Plan B (cryonics) fail] (The glasses can record 10-12 hours of video with sound before the tape needs replacing. The batteries must be recharged at least every 5 hours.)

Participants watch pioneering cryonics films while others get tours of the Suspended Animation, Inc. facility

Young cryonicists Facebook page

A photo of some Teens & Twenties with Bill Faloon posted on Facebook by Bonnie Magee

A Facebook video of the Curtis Henderson “Ice Men Cometh” films