Second anniversary of Depressed Metabolism
Today is the second anniversary of Depressed Metabolism. As of writing, this website has close to 200 feed subscribers. On an average day the website has 150 unique visitors, which is an encouraging increase in traffic since our last update. This is even more remarkable in light of the fact that new blog entries with social and political themes have been eliminated and given a new destination on the separate blog Against Politics. The emphasis of Depressed Metabolism remains cryonics advocacy and life extension from a secular, empiricist perspective.
Our most popular piece since our first anniversary was “Is That What Love is? The Hostile Wife Phenomenon in Cryonics,” a review of the phenomenon of hostility of (female) partners and relatives towards cryonics, co-authored by Mike Darwin, Chana de Wolf, and Aschwin de Wolf. This article was not only widely discussed on cryonics forums, but was made the subject of a blog entry by the economist Bryan Caplan on the widely visited libertarian-leaning EconLog blog. We have refrained from commenting on discussions about the piece. An interesting pattern we observed, though, is that most people who have cryonics arrangements, and a long history of cryonics activism, praised the article for documenting a disturbing aspect of contemporary cryonics, while those who are observing cryonics from the outside paid more attention to some of the “politically incorrect” themes in the piece. Since we wrote this article, there have been new cases of hostile relatives interfering with a “loved” one’s cryonics arrangements, in one instance leading to irreversible death. Hostility from (female) partners remains a non-trivial problem in cryonics. As of writing, we are aware of two major improvements in cryonics that cannot materialize because of intense partner hostility to the idea of cryonics. In any case, it has become clear that cryonicists and those sympathetic to the right to choose cryonics have a lot of work ahead in protecting vulnerable patients from greedy, ignorant, and insensitive relatives.
Another piece that generated a lot of traffic was “The political philosophy of bailout,” a brief meditation on the authoritarian and teleological mindset that was displayed during the debates about bailing out failed companies and policies to stimulate the economy. An alternative to looking at society, or “the economy,” as a tool that needs to be manipulated by experts (technocrats) to optimize the common good is the work of social philosopher Anthony de Jasay on the presumption of liberty. These pieces were followed in November 2008 by a three-part series on the mysterious phenomenon of voting, the widespread addiction to politics, and the idea of a depoliticized society. Recognizing the disadvantages of too much social and political content on a blog that is supposed to be about cryonics and life extension, the old website Against Politics was re-launched as a blog to cover these topics.
By far, most of the blog entries and articles dealt with the philosophy, science, and practice of human cryopreservation, ranging from the publication of historical cryonics documents to discussions of technical and practical problems facing cryonics today. Some of the most important entries include the use of sugars in organ preservation solutions, life in non-aqueous solutions, cryonics in the United Kingdom, perfusion impairment in cryonics patients, cryonics as an example for emergency medicine, the sensationalist reporting on “suspended animation” research with hydrogen sulfide, and a series of technical entries about the resuscitation of rodents from hypothermic and subzero circulatory arrest by Chana de Wolf. Aschwin de Wolf posted a blog entry about the lack of relevant empirical research in cryonics, which prompted an informed response from Mike Darwin. Both authors agree that cryonics care could be greatly improved if more research would be carried out in models that incorporate the warm- and cold ischemic insults that characterize most, if not all, cryonics cases. There is a real need for what is called Evidence Based Cryonics, as opposed to mindlessly extrapolating procedures from conventional medicine in the expectation that what will work for (relatively) healthy patients will work for cryonics patients as well. After the landmark interview with Ben Best, Depressed Metabolism published an interview with Regina Pancake, Alcor’s Readiness Coordinator and one of the most dedicated cryonics activists around.
There are lot of misunderstandings about cryonics but some of them are even shared by those sympathetic to, or signed up for, cryonics. Five dangerous ideas about cryonics were discussed in a piece in January 2009. The ongoing logistical and recruitment issues that characterize cryonics were discussed in a contribution about the emergence of local cryonics. Last, but not least, Mike Darwin contributed a series of articles on new developments in cardiopulmonary resuscitation and its relevance to cryonics.
The fate of cryonics is inevitably bound to the fate of science in general. To distinguish scientific reasoning from mere speculation, wishful thinking, and excessive rationalism, it is important to encourage a culture in which logical reasoning and empirical research are recognized as important tools for understanding the world around us. This vision was clearly expressed by logical empiricist thinkers like Rudolf Carnap and Hans Reichenbach during the first half of the 20th century. Five classics of empiricist philosophy were featured on Depressed Metabolism to introduce readers to the enduring relevance of empiricism an an outlook on science and life. A passage in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s seminal book Fooled by Randomness was used as a starting point for a critical note on the critical rationalist philosopher Karl Popper.
One of the major obstacles to adopting a scientific conception of the world is the wide-held view that sciences that are based on physics (such as chemistry and biology) have little to offer to the study of society or public policy. As a consequence, many debates on these topics are as enlightening as medieval scholasticism. Recent advances in neuroscience and genetics provide strong support for the thesis of the Unity of Science, a theme that will be explored in more detail on this website in the future.
As mentioned in our First Anniversary post, running a blog is less expensive than publishing a paper magazine but not costless (e.g., website hosting, domain registration, reproduction of papers and book chapters, etc). The work we have done for the blog has been very rewarding but often very labor-intensive and time consuming. Please help us keep the blog running and click on the “donate” button on the right sidebar (below) to give a Paypal donation or purchase books featured on this website through the links to Amazon. Thanks for your support!
