Not a bad article, but most of the examples given of "lonely dissent" seem to me to fall much more into the "vegetarian" category than the "clown suit" category.
For me at least, the feeling upon encountering somebody who tells me that he wants to have his body frozen after he dies isn't "Oh wow, what a crazy idea I've never heard before", it's "Oh, another one of those". Cryonicists (if that's a word) are too numerous and too well connected to each other to really count as lonely dissenters.
Oh, and I could have done without the "PS. I am awesome" bit at the end.
It's not a virtue, you see - just a bias either way.
I think his point was showing up in a clown suit is not a "correct" choice because it's non conformist. Their are times a places where dissent is correct and others where going with the pack is correct and you can't arbitrarily say one is better than the other in all cases.
For me at least, the feeling upon encountering somebody who tells me that he wants to have his body frozen after he dies isn't "Oh wow, what a crazy idea I've never heard before", it's "Oh, another one of those". Cryonicists (if that's a word) are too numerous and too well connected to each other to really count as lonely dissenters.
Oh, and I could have done without the "PS. I am awesome" bit at the end.