X-Message-Number: 32732 Date: Sun, 25 Jul 2010 20:12:10 -0400 Subject: Cryonics in Russia gets some decent press From: Rudi Hoffman <> --0015175cd5f65dc8bc048c3f3c9e Hi Cryoneters: This is Rudi from Florida. Danila Medvedev was my roommate at the "Cryonics Tech Progress Conference" this last April in Melbourne, FL. He lives in Moscow, Russia. Came all the way to Florida, I believe, for the conference...and added to the dialogue substantially. Evidently cryonics is Russia is, if anything, more pioneering and nascent than even in the United States. I leave it to you to decide if this is ironic, amusing, or merely a somewhat sad commentary on the irrationality of humans everywhere. A rather bright young man, Danila has committed his life and professional career to being a full time activist for transhumanist and cryonicist causes. And has a systemic and engineering approach, especially related to the human factors surrounding support for cryonics. What was remarkable to me was to hear how he has developed an effective "team" approach, with multiple teams working on some of the challenges of encouraging the adoption and mainstream funding for some fairly radical transhumanist ideas. Including working on, I believe, government funding for cryonics research. Danila made a rather intrigueing comment to me...I can't and don't know of it's degree of reliability...that the third most powerfully connected man in the current Russian government is very interested in funding transhumanist ideas like antiaging research, general AI, and cryonics. If real, this could be...shall we say...rather helpful. Or, it could be, shall we say in a more colloquial manner, it could be a "BFD." If true. Ironically, I have been thinking about him lately, because I have been listening to an "Audible" book he recommended and was reading while he was at conference. A rather powerful book called "Influencer" describes the mechanics and real world analysis of how small groups of individuals managed to leverage their influence to create enormous and positive social behavioral change. Many of the historical and recent examples bring to mind the precise challenges we face in bringing such a new technology as encouraging widespread adoption...or at least tolerance...of cryonics. I was so taken with the book that I ordered an additional hardcopy, and plan on reviewing it and the ideas it represents in this format later. I would be interested in hearing what the bright minds reading this blog think regarding this topic. Anyway, it looks like he has managed to get some press for CryoRuss. Here is the link...it was a little glitchy when doing real time downloading, so you may want to let the full clip load first. About 4 or 5 minute clip, I believe. Hope this link works for you. Rudi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RXsJJjTM6A -- Rudi Richard Hoffman CFP CLU ChFC World's Leading Cryonics Insuror rudihoffman.com Former Board Member Financial Planning Association fpafla.com Board Member Salvation Army salvationarmy.org Member Alcor Life Extension Foundation alcor.org, Member Cryonics Institute cryonics.org Certified Financial Planner(TM) CFP Board of Standards Member World Transhumanist Association http://transhumanism.org/ Securities offered through Broker Dealer Financial Services Corp. Member FINRA and SIPC. --0015175cd5f65dc8bc048c3f3c9e Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=32732