X-Message-Number: 13289
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: a few added comments: Nanotechnology vrs nanotechnology
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 100 23:04:32 +1100 (EST)

Hi everyone!

I will point out something that many people may be trying to ignore, even
many cryonicists. That something is simple: yes, our AVERAGE lifespan 
may still be increasing, but stripping the notion down to fundamentals,
AVERAGE LIFESPAN here means that 50% of people will NOT live that long,
for whatever reason [1]. 

And even if we find ways to increase our average lifespan a good deal,
we'll still have that problem. 

Of course most people, including cryonicists, happily think they will 
be in the 50% which exceeds the average. Unfortunately, half of them
will be quite wrong. Every cryonicist, no matter what their age, must
face a nonzero probability that one day they will find that they have
a condition which limits their future life to only a few months. Not
only that, but if you seriously look at the world around you, say by
reading the "Deaths" pages of your local news, you'll find people even
younger than you who died of one thing or another. 

In this sense cryonics, even for younger cryonicists, might be thought
of as the only true life insurance policy (all the others just pay 
somebody else some money!). And in that sense, if you want life insurance,
then even if you are young you will benefit by much more research into
improving our suspensions. Sure, you may not benefit DIRECTLY, but you
will benefit by an improved version of life insurance. And life insurance
remains valuable even if you never need it --- because you cannot know
that you'll never need it.

Just one more thought to add to my previous comments on Charles Platt's
message. 

			Best and long long life to all,

				Thomas Donaldson

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=13289