The society oriented around radical life extension and the revival of cryonauts in Linda Chamberlain's science fiction novel Star Pebble has an intriguing custom called "lifepacts," where friends and relatives promise to try to keep each other alive. They reaffirm their lifepacts upon greeting by clasping hands in a kind of vertical handshake.
I have to admit that this idea appeals to me. I'd like for lifepacts to become a custom among cryonicists, even without a formal lifepact organization with paperwork and all that. I would even offer lifepacts with cryonicists I don't particularly like. I would even offer one with Lisa Shock, if she'd consent to it. (She might want to read Will McIntosh's story before refusing me.) After thinking about the raw deal she's gotten lately, I feel in a more forgiving mood, even though I had a bad experience with her in 1994, and she said things about me to try to damage my reputation. (Believe me, nothing I did at the time could have hurt her like the way her husband has apparently treated her.)
I could even offer implicit lifepacts with people already in suspension whom I got to know, like Thomas Donaldson, FM-2030 and Paul Garfield. (I respect Thomas Donaldson, but I didn't especially like him. He reminded me of the bad experiences I had with Ph.D. mathematicians in college; they tend to view themselves as a superior form of life because so few people can think abstractly at their level. Nonetheless, Thomas deserves revival if anyone does, so I'd try to help him if I find myself in the right situation.)
Hominins spontaneously engage in some kind of greeting behavior to reduce anxiety, build social bonds and signal acceptance in the social group. The lifepact hand-clasp could provide that function among cryonicists to remind ourselves of the point of our desperate venture into the unknown.
Linda apparently originated the lifepact idea and wrote about it in Cryonics magazine over 20 years ago:
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