X-Message-Number: 30065 From: Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 11:01:38 EST Subject: Stodolsky's replies In reply to some of my questions, David Stodolsky wrote in part; >The goal is to get cryonics accepted as a default treatment upon >deanimation. Much too vague. Accepted in what degree and how soon? Also: >I have repeatedly developed and validated new technologies, and >gotten them accepted. Others are developing cryonics technology. "Validation" presumably means proof of effectiveness, and he isn't going to provide that. If he has gotten new technologies accepted, what exactly were they, and did they have any similarity to cryonics in terms of cultural resistance? Also: > The objective would be to >validate a working model for an organization of this type. [church or similar organization] The Venturist organization already exists. Many partly similar organizations exist, such as fraternal organizations. Cryonics organizations have made efforts to broaden their appeal and promote fellow-feeling, with very small success because of our small numbers and diversity of members. In any event, what is needed is not just a generalized objective but some kind of plan or concept with enough detail to allow meaningful discussion. Also: >An adequate test would require a few different sites, each effort >adjusted to the local conditions. A minimum time-frame would be 3 >years. At least two people would need support, one at the PhD level >and another for routine work / familiarity with local conditions. >Overhead would include a paid-up suspension for each of the efforts. >A substantial amount of legal work would need to be done by a local >attorney to set up the organizational structure and get approvals >from local authorities. The launch would require a substantial >publicity effort, since a minimum of one-hundred persons per site >would probably be required for a valid test. Given the current state >of the USD, this would cost about $800,000.This is an optimistic figure. I don't know where these numbers come from, and I don't know why a lot of legal work would be required. I have formed several corporations with no legal help, and as far as I know the Venturists didn't need any legal help in setting up, nor approval of local authorities. If a physical plant is envisioned, there might be local questions such as zoning, but there is no indication of a physical plant or real estate being involved. Also: >. Calculations have >shown that participation would be economically neutral in high-tax >countries, such as those in Northern Europe. That is, after taxes, >members would have the same disposable income. I don't understand this. Even if donations are tax deductible, that only reduces the net cost of the donation and doesn't eliminate it. I believe the Venturists have tax deductible status as a church, but again, where is the evidence that another such organization will do better? Also: >I have developed a >marriage system designed to resist the transmission of diseases and >to maximize social support among members: Where is the relevance? The only relevance I see here is fostering social support among members, and where is the evidence that this was successful? Any numbers available? Also: >Also, I have reviewed the literature and performed some statistical >tests on survey data related to cryonics, in order to identify the >appropriate demographic. This horse is dead. We know which groups are better recruitment prospects, but that doesn't help us because the absolute numbers are so small. Paid advertising doesn't work, except the Web. Certainly it might be possible to utilize the Web more efficiently or more extensively with volunteer labor, but that is not D.S.'s proposal. Also, I said that D.S.'s figure of long term increase in life expectancy of 3 months per year was nonsense, and he replied in part: >nfant mortality has long range effects, because it is an indicator >f severity of infectious diseases in the infant population. That is, >ven the infants that survive serious infection are effected >ystematically in old age. The depletion of the immune system from >uch events reduces the ability to resist infection in adulthood, and >herefore adult life expectance. The opposite conclusion can be easily found in the literature, viz., that childhood disease or exposure strengthens the person, e.g. that children with pets tend to have fewer allergies later in life. But my main points were simply that it is pure foolishness to expect a 3 month per year increase in life expectancy into the indefinite future, and that it is very probable, based on known successes with laboratory animals, that relatively soon there are likely to be substantial increases in human life span. Also: >it may be obvious to you that massive increases in life >xpectation will occur shortly, a highly qualified person with hands >n experience in the Human Genome Project sees a comprehensive >nderstanding of the operation of the human cell and the associated >ife expectation changes a millennium away. Can any reasonable person take this seriously? This guy (or gal) is "highly qualified" to tell us what will or will not happen in a thousand years? Also: > I haven't seen any argument that allows us to extrapolate securely >n any basis but the data we already have. I haven't seen any argument that allows us to extrapolate securely on any basis, emphatically including the data we already have. Anyway, if someone is found to pay for the proposed effort, that will be interesting. Robert Ettinger **************************************Check out AOL's list of 2007's hottest products. (http://money.aol.com/special/hot-products-2007?NCID=aoltop00030000000001) Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=30065