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.

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.

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.

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.