The Third Annual Young Cryonicists Gathering (2012)

I attended the first one in 2010. It was pretty neat. I mean, I met Eliezer there and found out about Less Wrong as a result! The people were really wonderful to get to talk to, and the spirit of connection was very, very strong for many of us there. Lots of new friends as a result, even if we're spread all over creation and stay connected only tangentially via Facebook.

With that said, I found the conference itself often kind of silly. We spent a lot of time doing self-descriptions to everyone and then doing a few dozen ice-breaker activities. But really, almost all the social time occurred after each day of formal sessions when people would hang out in the hot tub or in hotel rooms and just chat. I watched some fantastic plans form for getting cryonics reliably available throughout Europe as part of those after-hours meetings. :-)

I understand that the 2011 one was basically an exact repeat of the one before, which was kind of odd since many people already knew each other or at least of each other and just wanted to chat. If the same person is running it this time, I kind of suspect that'll happen again. But it was certainly worth it for me, at least, to go through those oddball ceremonies to have a chance to chat with so many forward-thinking people. There's something downright relieving about being with a large group of intelligent people who all get that death is bad and life is good! At least if you're of a like mind, that is; I imagine that people who think that immortality would be horrid would feel very sorely out-of-place there.

The tour of Suspended Animation afterwards was really neat, too. Between seeing what they do and talking to several of the scientists who were at the conference, I had to update my beliefs about how important it is to get suspended immediately after death as opposed to minutes or hours later.

And as a sociological thing, it was really, really nice to see so many young people involved with cryonics not being total eggheads. (Bear in mind that I pretty much have to count myself as an egghead. No offense intended!) There were entrepreneurs and lawyers and artists and musicians and adventure-seekers. It was really amazing to see real variety entering the cryonics meme pool!

I plan on going to the next one if I can. I really liked getting to chat with the people there two years ago, so even going through the same introduction scheme and presentations that spell out someone's pet theory on the Singularity would totally be worth it. :-)