X-Message-Number: 32260 From: Mark Plus <> Subject: Re: Rebranding cryonics Date: Sun, 27 Dec 2009 07:06:31 -0800 In Cryonet #32258, Finance Department writes: >Actually, jetpacks work to some extent: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_pack >Flying cars do too: http://www.moller.com/ But these innovations wouldn't work in practice because of human factors, like intoxicated operators. We have plenty of problems now with impaired people driving automobiles. Terrorists could also load up a flying car with explosives and use it as the poor man's assassin drone. >Cryonics, unfortunately, has yet to be shown to work at all. It is a surprise to me if it is anywhere on the futurology scale. Someone was too generous in assessing it. On a scale of 0 to 1000 it must occupy the position of 0. or perhaps as a notation in the margin. We don't know if a "singularity" can happen either, but that hasn't stopped Ray Kurzweil and some of his wealthy fans from starting a "university" to promote the idea. I continue to wonder about the state of improgression in cryonics, given all the money some individuals have "invested" into it over the past 30 years, as well as its potentially solid financial future. Alcor, in particular, has a foreseeable income of ~ $100 million heading its way in the next few decades, assuming its current membership numbers and funding levels. Yet it doesn't seem to have much to show for the multiple millions of dollars it has taken in since I became a member in 1990. Alcor's Patient Care Trust, for example, apparently has only about $3 million in it. Some people have more than that in their retirement accounts. Mark Plus _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail: Trusted email with Microsoft's powerful SPAM protection. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/177141664/direct/01/ Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=32260