X-Message-Number: 29775
From: "Mark Plus" <>
Subject: Partial bilge, was Re: Cryonics and life extension progress
Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 19:54:53 -0700

Chris Manning writes,

>I think it was in 1958 that the British Astronomer Royal described space 
>travel as 'utter bilge'. (If that year is correct then like the claim about 
>flying, the allegedly impossible had already been achieved.) I think he 
>also said it belonged on the back of cereal packets.

If this astronomer meant manned space travel, he had a partially valid 
point. Humans can't endure prolonged travel beyond Earth's magnetic field 
because of cosmic ray damage and other deteriorating processes. Our 
civliization shows signs of abandoning even low-Earth manned launches, much 
as we've already relinquished commercial supersonic travel.

A lot of physically allowable things just don't work out in the practical 
world for reasons other than purely physical ones. Radical life extenison 
and survivable cryotransport may fall into the infeasible category even if 
they don't violate physical principles, for example because they have to 
compete for resources that the overwhelming majority of people would rather 
apply towards establishing domiance hierarchies, attracting mates and making 
offspring. The market has consistently rejected cryonics as a waste of 
resources in part because people prefer to spend their dead relatives' money 
on improving their own and their children's reproductive prospects instead 
of using it to store their  post-reproductive kinfolk in liquid nitrogen.

"There was a time before reason and science when my ancestors believed in 
all manner of nonsense." (Narim on "Stargate SG-1")

Mark Plus

_________________________________________________________________
A new home for Mom, no cleanup required. All starts here. 
http://www.reallivemoms.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM&loc=us

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=29775