X-Message-Number: 22329
From: "Robin Helweg-Larsen" <>
Subject: Re: community
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2003 10:21:44 -0400

There is another point to be considered, which also touches on the relative
value of investing in cryonics vs. holding on to personal investments.

Suppose cryonics had begun 200 years ago, and we were now starting to
reanimate those frozen in 1803.  Those people were neither the super-rich
nor paupers, but just a mixture of middle-class homeowners and renters.  One
of them, however, managed to leave a substantial investment of $1000 in a
watertight trust with an after-fees, after-tax net annual return of 2%.  On
stepping out of the tank in 2003, he finds his wealth is now well over
$50,000!  And not only that, he can buy items with that money that he had
never dreamed would exist: a car, a computer, a round-the-world trip by
airplane!

On the other hand, he can go back to school for a couple of years and start
earning that money annually very easily, so long as he is flexible in his
thinking and choice of activities.  (Of course, he may be lucky, and find
that his experiences, or attitudes, or historical insights, are in
themselves worth a lot of money.)  What was a fortune to people with 1803
standards of living is virtually pocket change to people with 2003 standards
of living.  That's why so many people take their pensions and retire to poor
countries.  And it's why impoverished immigrants only want to get themselves
into a rich country, they don't need to take their life savings with them.

It will be a 'rich country' that has the technology to revive us.  Life
savings will be irrelevant.  Flexibility, the abilities to learn and adapt,
will be crucial.

Robin HL

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