X-Message-Number: 14025
From: "John de Rivaz" <>
References: <>
Subject: Re: Scientist about cryo research 
Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2000 11:04:03 +0100

I agree with Yvan - the way to do anything like this is to first make the
money *yourself* and then pursue your research. Passing out the begging bowl
will achieve nothing - there are too many potential projects, too many
people to save. Very few (probably zero) people who make money have *no*
idea as to what to do with it once they have got it.

This is of course bad for those who think they have less than 30 years to
live and who want to make a name for themselves as leader of some project,
as any investment program likely to achieve sufficient result is going to
take of that order of time. [to save another repetition of the technology
investment argument here, new people can go to
http://geocities.yahoo.com/longevityrpt/shares.htm ] (also see note)

If you look at the world as a whole there are many begging bowls, many
deserving cases. Cryonics would not get a look-in if everyone put any
surplus money into them. There are even now actually quite a lot of
charity-funded organisations interested in the ageing process now from
different perspectives.

Even in our corner of cyberspace, one could argue, for instance, that it
would be more sensible to give away money to people pursuing nanotechnology
research, because cryonics cannot work without a vigorous nano
infrastructure. Others argue that resources should be given away to research
into extending technology *that exists now* into producing reversible
cryopreservation of some form or another. The debate between the two can get
quite vigorous at times I have noticed. There is also a school of thought
that an individual is better served by trying to get friends and relations,
or maybe local people, involved by financial inducements, or even just
support his cryonics provider. In order to appear to support everything, an
individual could give a few hundred$ here and there to have a finger in
every pie. The trouble is that there are nowhere enough individuals in this
group to have any effect at that sort of rate.

Cryonics is also special inasmuch as it is usual for a cryonics provider to
be the residual beneficiary of an estate, (even if the "minimum" is prepaid
by some means). Therefore any pre-mortem donations in the cryonics domain
can be regarded eventually as contributions by the cryonics organisation
concerned. [ie the cryonics organisation gets that much less] These
"contributions" could be quite substantial. Consider the "ten ten rule" -
technology investments grow ten fold every ten years. (This is substantative
overall sustainable growth not silly booms and busts where this happens in
three months with selected fad stocks.) Suppose someone gives $10k to a
research project and then lives 10 more years. His cryonics provider is
worse off by $100k. In twenty years, the cryonics provider is worse off by
$1m.) Of course, the cryonics provider and the charity supplicant may be one
and the same, but then maybe not. Even if they are the same and the member
doesn't like or doesn't prioritise the project for which money is being
raised, and ultimately the project fails to provide benefit, the member has
actually benefited the provider financially by not contributing to the
project.

note:
A life insurance salesman once told me that some of his clients used life
insurance to make a meaningful donation to their favourite charity. Rather
than put a few dollars into the begging bowl when asked, instead they buy
life insurance naming the charity as beneficiary.  When the person dies,
they are remembered as having given thousands of dollars to the charity,
whereas a few dollars every week or whatever would have passed unnoticed. It
is not just a matter of post mortem personal aggrandisement either  - the
charity may be able to run a substantial project from a lump sum whereas
income just gets frittered away.

--
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

> Message #14023
> From: 
> Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2000 14:43:52 EDT
> Subject: Re: Scientist about cryo research
>
>     In brief: It is simpler to become wealthy that convince present day
> riches to spend what they have on research.
>

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