X-Message-Number: 12887
From: "John de Rivaz" <>
References: <>
Subject: Re: risk/reward
Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1999 11:34:35 -0000

The "The is no proof that cryonics can't work" discussion mentioned the risk
reward ratio of various activities.

However what the risk reward ratio is depends on who is looking at it.

The rest of the world (ROW) considers the risk/reward ratio of a few
individuals being cryopreserved is unacceptable. This is because if the
cryonicists are not cryopreserved, the ROW gets their assets into its
economic system for other people to spend going on holiday, buying
depreciating goods like cars and washing machines and so on. If the
cryonicists are cryopreserved and reanimated, then the ROW gets the benefit
of their presence in a future time. The ROW couldn't give a toss about the
latter.

That is what the ROW thinks. In reality it is a little different to this:
When someone is cryopreserved, the actual costs still go into the economic
system - those providing material and labour will spend their wages on other
things and so on. The sums that are invested to provide for maintenance and
reanimation and so on  will provide working capital for science based
technology industries that will benefit everyone. If these funds were not
part of a cryonicist's estate they may well get frittered away. It is the
fruits of research that is the real inheritance for the succeeding
generations, not the fading memories of grandparent's cruises or lavish
parties.

But now there is another dimension being added, and it is certainly worthy
of debate.

There are a vociferous group of people (the Group) who believe in the
concept of cryopreservation, but think that present methods and
infrastructure will be highly unlikely to result in reanimations. Therefore
from this point of view it perfectly rational to ask other people who
believe in the concept to sponsor various proposals that are aimed at
improving present methods. Now to the Group the risk reward ratio of someone
doing his own thing and being cryopreserved compared with the risk reward
ratio of a collectively funded "war effort" research or similar project is
decidedly poor. Yes the chap on his own *may* get reanimated with
probability X (but how'd you'd put a figure on X I don't know), but the
Group Project has a chance of success Y, where the Group perceive that Y>>X.
A Group project is most likely to be quite well defined and it will be easy
for its proposer to put a figure on the chances of success for its sponsors.

Maybe even the individual realises that Y>>X from the point of view of the
Group. But *from the point of view of the individual*, even if to the group
X is 0.001 and Y is .999, if they are mutually exclusive  then the X gamble
is the only one worth taking.

This is because to the individual, the "reward" part of the ratio of his own
cryopreservation is infinity, and risk of it now working  cannot be zero for
reasons already explained. The other point is, of course, that once the
individual is annihilated the assets that remain are irrelevant to him. They
only way they could have been relevant is if he could send them back in time
to the period when he was alive, which is, of course impossible. [The
financial institutions' attempts to do this, known as the annuity, is
laughable in my opinion.]

--
Sincerely, John de Rivaz
my homepage links to Longevity Report, Fractal Report, my singles club for
people in Cornwall, music, Inventors' report, an autobio and various other
projects:       http://geocities.yahoo.com/longevityrpt

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