Depressed Metabolism: Is That What Love is? The Hostile Wife Phenomenon in Cryonics Tuesday, Jan 5 2010
cryonics 9:44 pm
Mike Darwin, a cryonics figure who led Alcor 1983 to 1988 and acted as Research Director until 1992, apparently kept an eight-year log (1978 to 1986) of incidents where hostile girlfriends or wives “prevented, reduced or reversed the involvement of their male partner in cryonics”. In a blog post on Depressed Metabolism, Is That What Love is? The Hostile Wife Phenomenon in Cryonics, Darwin and cryonics experts Chana de Wolf and Aschwin de Wolf summarize the phenomenon and the history behind it. They point out that the hostility reaches back to the very dawn of the idea in 1968.
Hostility to cryonics is not always all harmless or in fun: it can lead to divorce or even contribute to accidental death via carbon monoxide poisoning. (See the blog post for details.)
Why are women more traditionally hostile than men to cryonics? I don’t think the answer is rocket science: it’s just that men are more familiar with, skilled in, and comfortable with technology than women. For better or for worse, that’s the average case. This is changing, but still, the average man is more comfortable with technology than the average woman. The flip-side of this, in my eyes, is that women are more likely to express a reasonable degree of skepticism about the ability of new technologies to improve our lives whereas men are more likely to be naively enthusiastic. (Engadget, anyone?)
Thankfully, in my own case, my girlfriend supports cryonics and is signed up for cryonics with me, so I was able to avoid all the nastiness described in the article.
January 6th, 2010 at 6:58 am
Apparently straight men in cryonics should (1) avoid getting married, unless they can find women in cryonics who signed up on their own initiative and thus favorably “prescreened” themselves; and (2) treat their noncryonicist companion females like temp workers instead of getting too emotionally invested in them. (And you should NEVER pay your temp worker females’ expenses, like their rent, student loans or credit card bills.)
Can you just imagine the pettiness the women mentioned in this article display? They want their husbands or boyfriends to die FOR SURE instead of running the risk that these men could survive cryotransport and have relationships with negligibly senescent Future Women. “Honey, I think you have tremendous value. But you have to die forever so that no other woman gets to experience your wonderfulness.”
January 6th, 2010 at 7:31 am
Let’s not use this as a blank cheque to just rant at women. Women are wonderful, they have their flaws, but so do men.
As to the specific women (AND in some cases men) concerned, they probably didn’t realize the full magnitude of what they did. I would hope that society as a whole has matured enough that this kind of thing doesn’t go on any more.
January 6th, 2010 at 7:46 am
Gee, Roko, you might have a point there. I mean, women could retaliate against me by withholding sex or something.
January 6th, 2010 at 9:15 am
I myself do not take a superstitious outlook, but imagine the implications of cryonics and the indefinite preservation of a person in the eyes of what may very well be a wonderful and completely devoted spouse of a religious, or simply more traditional, background. Is it really “petty” or selfish of these people to want their marriage commitments honored, or for them, as spiritual people (and the spirituality of women compared to men could be analyzed here) to maintain a seemingly more natural mating ritual?
Imagine that when you and your spouse die, you will be buried and forgotten when they will be potentially reanimated at some point in the future; without you. This, at least, can bring up some interesting questions in a marriage and I find it somewhat insulting to think that such a deep issue could be boiled down to pettiness or ignorance of technology - not to say that these factors may not enter the equation from either side. The point is that it may not be as much a factor of gender as a factor who becomes a popsicle and who becomes a memory.
January 6th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Mark, you’re especially bitter about women because of your own experiences, and you’re just embarrassing yourself (and me) by airing it here. If you didn’t give up at love, you might have a chance. Maybe stop being so damn gruff or something?
Jeff, you’re right. I don’t mean to focus exclusively on ignorance of technology. I agree that it would cause separation among two people with different views. However, it’s probably true that if women were more familiar with technology they would be more likely to embrace cryonics. I think the tendency of women to embrace spiritualism and men to embrace technology are both informative here. Regardless of the reason, I have to take the cryonicists’ side here, because according to my current knowledge, cryonics is merely our best chance at “life after death” in a godless world.
January 6th, 2010 at 12:32 pm
> The point is that it may not be as much a factor of gender as a factor who becomes a popsicle and who becomes a memory.
Well said. I’d rather be single than dead ;-0
January 6th, 2010 at 8:32 pm
Well, this is a lovely little example of misogyny within the community. I refer to the comments, though the entire theme makes me wary. Initially, the linked article gives solid reasons for the observed hostility other than different average attitudes toward technology. The financial incentive could explain a lot, as women tend to live longer and men tend to have more money. The exploration of social dynamics also resonates.
The three authors lose me completely when they bring Charles Murray of all people into the mix. What were they thinking? No one should be surprised that white dude reviewed who white dudes thought were important and came up with a list of a bunch of white dudes. It’s wildly irresponsible to employ Human Accomplishment uncritically. The book demonstrates the enduring power of white supremacist thinking more than anything else.
This makes Darwin, de Wolf, and de Wolf’s ending remarks rather ridiculous. While cryonics can be classified as a risk-taking activity, it can just as easily been seen as the exact opposite. It’s a way of reducing the risk of missing the Singularity. Nor it is necessarily exploratory. By preserved your body here, you avoid the chance of traveling to an entirely different reality. Their argument, based on dubious sources to begin with, falls into incoherence.
January 7th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
Summerspeaker, for a cryonicist, broken cryonics contracts lead to what is seen as unnecessary death and oblivion (no afterlife). So, the cause, whatever it may be, is cause for worry. If some aspect of female psychology lends itself to dismissal of cryonics, then it ought to be analyzed and addressed so it can be overcome legitimately, by mutual consensus.
I didn’t notice the Murray reference, and I probably wouldn’t have linked the article if I had, but retroactively removing it from this site seems like a bit much.
Some transhumanists are certainly misogynistic, but I think that you may have a temptation to grab anything unflattering of women written by a male transhumanist and use it as an example to support your overarching theory. Whether we like it or not, males and females have deep psychological differences because different selection pressures crafted us. We have to, like, y’know, study these differences, in the way that cognitive psychologists already do all the time.
When someone dies without being vitrified, their “soul” (the neural and chemical patterns of their brain) is eaten by fungus and bacteria. Imagining a soul devoured by bacteria is not a pleasant thing. Anything that leads to this outcome must be understood, even if unpleasant.
January 8th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Deep sexual psychological differences based selection pressures remains unproven, Michael. To date, most studies on the subject are only useful as cultural artifacts. Investigations into how sex affects the mind apparently cannot be divorced from the social and political implications. Considering the fundamental cultural importance in the gender distinction, I guess this shouldn’t be surprising. Countless genetic and biological traits influence thought, yet no one particularly cares unless these differences are connected to established social categories such as race and gender.
With regards to cryonics and the afterlife, I’m no opponent to former or believer in the later. I was simply trying to undermine Darwin, de Wolf, and de Wolf’s characterization of body preservation as risky and exploratory behavior. However, like so many things, oblivion is what you make of it. At times it seems as desirable to me as any description of heaven. Why should nonexistence be frightening? Neither of us were alive in the year 1337, but we don’t go around regretting that. Personally, I fear pain and typically traumatic process of dying, not the state of being dead. You yourself have noted how cryonics only tones down the gruesome aspects of death. As such, I have less interest in the practice than in Aubrey de Grey’s rejuvenation therapy.
I would still consider preservation for myself if I stumbled across a bag full of money, but the social justice critique attributed to women in the linked article resonates. Few things scream privilege like having your brain saved with the assumption that future society will resurrect you, hand you a beer, and point you to the nearest party. While I applaud cryonics for unapologetically opposing death, indefinite lifespans need to be available to all, not only a tiny elite.
Finally, if any of y’all straight cryonicists stand in mortal terror of hostility from a female partner, I invite you to consider relationships with men. (I’d be curious to hear how this issue plays out in same-sex couples.) Better yet, give up traditional notions about marriage and monogamy altogether. I have the funny feeling that narrative stands at the heart of the observed conflicts.
January 8th, 2010 at 8:27 pm
This is ridiculous. They certainly are proven. Yes, cognitive psychologists can and do study the differences between the sexes in an empirical sense, leaving the social and political implications to others. To imply otherwise suggests that you are against the scientific investigation of human biodiversity in all its forms.
Why? It costs very little, and even people like Ben Franklin speculated about it. Is it really that radical to want to continue living? Does electricity scream privilege as well? Technology moves forward, and gets cheaper. What is “privilege” for today, like protein-rich vegetarian diets, could be considered the norm for others in a decade or two. Same thing with potential cryonic revival. The cost of upkeep is minimal, so there’s all the time in the world to wait.
No, it’s possible for some people to enjoy things and others to not be able to afford them yet. People need to stop trying to control one another so aggressively. It’s not a sin to be rich. (I am not, personally.) Misguided hatred of the “bourgeoisie” led to over a hundred million deaths in the 20th century, so how about we just advocate liberty with a social safety net? We can be in favor of progressive taxation without second-guessing every benefit that comes from money. Even when I was very poor, I didn’t spend my life jealously wanting to restrict the freedoms that wealthier people enjoy. In fact, the very idea seems insane to me.
In any case, it is available to all, even young people. Are you aware of how cryonics is funded and how much it costs?
January 10th, 2010 at 7:01 pm
We should probably establish what you and I respectively mean by deep psychological differences based on sex before we go any further, Michael. To me, the concept implies the traditional Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus garbage. It’s not a detached description of empirical findings but an assertion of meaning. Perspective, purpose, and context determine how we understand magnitude and importance. Unsurprisingly, the subject remains intensely controversial within the field of psychology. You express the evo psych angle, not a consensus position.
Concerning cryonics, are you familiar with the notion of dominant privilege as used by sociologists? (Benjamin Franklin really isn’t the dude to employ in a counter.) In a world filled with oppression and early death, I don’t know how else to describe the attitude I listed. This isn’t an indictment of the goal of preservation. As with many privileges, I think this one should be extended to everybody on the planet. I’m more interested to furthering that process than insuring myself a shot at the Singularity, though I might well attempt both. (While I hope to eventually be able to afford the $10-100 a month required for cryonics, that’s hardly available to all. Take a gander at global income statistics sometime.)
Our political differences, the classic divide between anarchism and liberalism, deserve a thorough treatment I can’t provide here. Look for numerous investigation into that subject on my blog in the future. For now I’ll say that anger at the bourgeoisie isn’t misguided, but instead based on experiential reality as well as solid social theory. Simply compare the current system with our technical capabilities and the problem emerges. Capitalism utterly fails to provide the good life to the majority of the species, despite the fact that we’ve had the technology to do so for at least a century. The bourgeoisie benefits from and supports this insane economic order.
January 14th, 2010 at 10:01 am
Oooh, (scratching head) let me think guys, maybe the women don’t like it because the whole idea is a pile of dog-doo-dah, and while they think it, you apparently haven’t twigged yet. Sorry to bust your bubble. Try skepticism as a reason why they won’t necessarily agree to you freeeezing your bods, but that does not in any way diminish the actual love they feel for you geeks. Be humble!
Also, women in most societies and cultures are fundamental in very special ways to any burial rituals, has no-one worked that one out yet in your particular space???? Not do much other reading then, do you? Wow, you are all amazingly tuned out to society, it is freaky man. Go for it. You are screwing your living lives in so many unecessary ways, it should be a sociology project.
January 14th, 2010 at 11:11 am
Summerspeaker, the evopsych perspective has become way more mainstream and standard in recent years. You can just simply state it in mainstream articles nowadays. I’m not familiar with Men Are From Mars crap, but I’ll take your word for it that it’s garbage.
I understand that you’re a radical socialist, and all I can say is that I disagree with those politics strongly. If a technology needed to be available to everyone on the planet for it to be introduced throughout history, today we would have nothing.
Laura,
“tuned into society” = inviting worms to eat my brain
“tuned out of society” = preserving the fine-detailed structure of my brain, which is empirically known to correspond to memories and personality.
Even if revival were impossible, preserving the brain would make sense for something interesting for future generations to study.
Mainstream society is stupid as hell in so many ways. Signing up for cryonics is only one of hundreds of ways I and many others give it the finger (not deliberately, often).