X-Message-Number: 33066
References: <>
From: Gerald Monroe <>
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2010 07:52:04 -0600
Subject: Re: CryoNet #33061 - #33063

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This talk of the optimal strategy for a rich person gave me an idea.  If one
were a billionaire, as in you had 1 billion dollars in actual spendable
assets, how could you optimally maximize your chance of a revival?

If you're a billionaire, you've traveled the globe.  You've seen every
wonder of the world.  You've been showered with accolades and awards.
 You've lived in mansions with the best decor and the best artwork money can
buy.  You've had sex with the most attractive partners nature can produce.
 You've driven automobiles with incredible performance.  And so on and so
forth.

But one day, you'll develop a tumor or your heart will fail.  As a
billionaire, you probably will not just drop dead - billionaires have
bodyguards trained in CPR and probably don't spend much time alone.  You'll
fly in the best doctors in the world, experts from famous places like
Hopkins or the Mayo clinic.  They'll run countless tests and give you dozens
of drugs.  You might have a personal doctor at your bedside 24/7.  And those
doctors will not be able to stop you from dying in the end.

At the end of the story, it all goes black.  All those incredible
experiences will fade away like they never happened.  Or, at best, you'll
end up in a realm not in this universe where it probably won't matter that
you earned billions of dollars in your lifetime.

How could you prevent this from happening?  Well, you could donate your
wealth to 'good works' that mainstream society approves of.  You'll get
immediate accolades now, and it might help in the hereafter if there *were
one.  *Gates and Buffet are spending billions helping out the poorest
peoples of the globe.

But none of that will help in the slightest if death is what every empirical
science says it is - total oblivion.  You'll feel really great about all
those people in Africa you helped at the moment of your death perhaps, but a
moment after and you won't be feeling anything at all.

So paying for a cryonics preservation might be a good thing.  It MIGHT work.
 You might just wake right back up with a fresh body as if you'd just taken
a quick nap.  Your new brain might not even have the same atoms as the old
one, and would probably be chock full of extra circuitry implanted during
the rebuild, but you would feel like you were exactly the same.  But, right
now, there's less than 100 people worldwide in the freezer and the mass
media ignores the issue or makes fun of it.

How to fix this? A billionaire could build a billion dollar facility for
just themselves.  A whole office building sized structure somewhere with
permanent scientists on the payroll commissioned to make a revival happen.
 But, imagine how people would be tempted to cheat this 'kook' out of his
preservation fund.  Imagine the court battles with the living family members
trying to rob the fund for their own use.  Imagine how the media would
perceive the whole thing...just some crazy old man wasting his money.

Or, what if the billionaire were to do something totally crazy.  Something a
libertarian like Charles would probably turn red in the face over.  What if
the billionaire were to pay for the cryonics preservations of thousands of
other people?  (and spend the other half of his funds on R&D)  That is, he
would pay the costs for anyone who signed up and put some skin in the game.
 (the person who signed up would have to agree to spend some fraction of
their assets and the billionaire's fund would cover the rest.  Would have to
design the program very carefully to control the incentives.)

Assuming he bought cryonics preservations in bulk, and the individuals
covered some of the costs.  How much would this cost?  25k a patient,
perhaps?  At that price, for 500 million dollars there would be 20,000 more
people joining the billionaire in the freezer.  5 billion dollars, and
that's 200,000 people.  Assuming each frozen person has a few surviving
family members.  *Now* you've got the beginnings of a movement.  People want
this.  Everyone's afraid of death.  They just don't really take the idea of
cryonics seriously for a variety of reasons.  I think thousands of people,
all talking about the subject could make an enormous difference.

Once the funds ran out, do you think that all the friends of those thousands
of people that were frozen with the billionaire's money wouldn't sign up?
 Even a small chance of joining their friend or family member after death in
this world is better than none.  Imagine all the private donations and
public funding that would go to researching the technology for revival.  In
the long run, this decision could possible give the billionaire a large
return on his investment, in effect putting many times the amount of money
he originally spent towards developing the technology that would lead to his
revival.  (and everyone else's, and the effective end to most biological
death in human society)

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