X-Message-Number: 30614
From: "John de Rivaz" <>
References: <>
Subject: Re: sustainability
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 10:12:10 -0000

On sustainability, I would repeat the comment that Dr Roy Walford made many
years ago in _Maximum Lifespan_ about the fact that the investment society
makes in brining up children is wasted when they die. Children become
adults, a fact that seems to be ignored so often. Even if lifespan is
extended to 120 years, as long as the period of old age is of the same
length as now, then there is a bigger "payload" between say 30 and 90 as
opposed to 30 and 60. [30 taken as the age when people have finished
furrther education and served "apprenticeship" time with their first
emoployer, but the same thing would apply to less skilled people only the
figures would be different.]

Therefore if lifespan was indefinite, then the economic advantage to society
as a whole is substantial. Even if people don't work for periods, they would
have to if their saved money ran out. Therefore they are not an expense for
everyone else in the same way as state funded children and pensioners.

According to recent BBC commentary, children cost about half a million
dollars to bring to maturity. Some of this is paid by the parents, some by
society as a whole. This would seem an expenditure whose results are worth
preserving. Even if thinking totally in terms of "carbon emissions" there is
a carbon cost associated with this as well. A lot of money usually equates
to a lot of CO2.

-- 
Sincerely, John de Rivaz:  http://John.deRivaz.com for websites including
Cryonics Europe, Longevity Report, The Venturists, Porthtowan, Alec Harley
Reeves - inventor, Arthur Bowker - potter, de Rivaz genealogy,  Nomad .. and
more

----- Original Message ----- 
Message #30612
<del>
... the sustainability angle, and
sees Grandpa and cryonics as being right in
line with those.  Certainly cryonics is the
ultimate in sustaining -- sustaining life.
<del>

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