X-Message-Number: 3589
Date: Wed, 4 Jan 1995 00:43:32 -0500 (EST)
From: Andro <>
Subject: CRYONICS What Is To Be Done?

Hi!  I want to identify myself as a lurker, coming out of the closet/bushes!

I greatly enjoy the interplay of ideas, especially between Robert 
Ettinger, Steve Bridge, Charles Platt and Peter Merel (that's just recent 
prominent writers - I'm fairly new to Cryonet).  Other people are 
informative, amusing, challenging - there's always a lot of food for 
thought.  Thank you all!

In a way, it all comes down to What Is To Be Done? - and everyone has 
different areas of interest, of expertise, of usefulness, in a field 
whose single descriptive word, "Cryonics", encompasses scientific 
breakthroughs on several fronts, enormous philosophic and moral 
questions, the physical remaking of humanity, and the de facto
responsibility for the lives (or deaths) of 5 billion people - all with a 
miniscule budget fragmented between several understaffed and underpaid 
organizations.

I can't think of a better problem for anyone who truly loves puzzles and 
games; and this one is for real, and the stakes are... absolute.

The general way forward is clear, and therefore, in a sense, those of us 
who can see that direction bear some responsibility for every death that 
happens anywhere in the world.  

(The energy of religious zeal should not be scorned, if we can harness it.)

I can't help on the scientific front; I have the same academic 
qualifications as Charles Platt... and Bill Gates, Richard Branson, etc.  
But I feel the deepest wisdom (as well as credibility) comes from those 
who are active in establishing and running Cryonics organizations.  

This interests me also because I teach seminars in Finance and Business 
Management - mostly in-house - Hewlett-Packard and AT&T are my biggest 
clients - also occasionally by open enrollment in the Bay Area and 
Raleigh-Durham.  (If anyone wants to attend for the cost of materials, 
i.e. $40/day instead of $350/day, let me know - but that's not the point 
here.)

Cryonics seems to me like it should be an enormously profitable and 
competitive international industry.  I mean, what could be more 
valuable?  Isn't this Ultimate Health Care?

There are 1 million millionaires in the States; there are now, believe it 
or not, 1 million millionaires in China - dollar millionaires.  And maybe 
another million in Europe, and another million in the rest of the world.

Many businesses spend between 10 and 20% of their total revenue on 
advertising and promotion: lower end if they're static, upper end if 
they're trying to grow.  Achieving name recognition doesn't mean they 
then quit - does Coke *need* to advertise?  Well, define "need".  
Obviously, they're doing something right.

I don't have a handle on cryonics organisation finances yet.  I hope to 
learn!

I would like to see a cryonics organisation that targeted the rich, both 
by direct mail and by ads in, say, The Economist; that charged its 
targeted clients over twice what it needed to charge, and used the 
surplus funds to pay for under-funded patients; and that budgeted 20% of 
its revenues for advertising and promotion.

I would like an international network (perhaps affiliates, rather than 
subsidiaries) of cryonic facilities, with reliable  cryonics-trained 
morticians in every country.  The facilities themselves should offer as 
close to 100% physical protection as possible - the very rich will demand 
it!  No earthquakes, tidal waves, warfare, civil disturbance, financial 
collapse, religious intolerance, etc.  There should be provisions for 
moving patients between facilities at need - whether organisational 
insolvency, or local or national crisis.  

And the way that I see it, the money for this will come from wealthy 
clients - it is in their interest to provide themselves with the greatest 
safety, with cost as a secondary issue.

However, they will also undoubtedly need financial and legal reassurance: 
they will want to know that they will have as large a fortune as possible 
waiting and easily accessible when they return.  What mechanisms are in
place so far, for diversifying and building wealth, under a legal 
structure that makes sense to someone undergoing suspension, *but is not 
under the control of the cryonics organisation*?  (We don't need any 
potential conflict of interest, or the ability to suck funds at need to 
cover a crisis - we need to charge enough for all contingencies up front, 
and make the rest untouchable except to the patient and their 
non-cryonics-associated trustees.)

I don't favor small-country tax-haven situations for the facility 
(although they typically have more flexible, because more mercenary, 
governments); I think we need large, stable, financially diversified and 
secure countries, neither aggressive nor under any threat of attack.  But 
the patient's money can go wherever the trustee thinks fit, of course.

Basically, I feel the cryonics movement desperately needs a lot more 
money; the money could most easily come from the very rich; the very rich 
will not take us seriously unless we have a well-thought-out, responsible 
and mutually beneficial way of dealing with their finances as well as 
their physical existence.

My own background has given me 5 citizenships - although I have lost my 
Danish nationality, I carry valid British, Canadian, Jamaican and 
Australian passports.  My personal interest would be in seeing cryonics 
develop in Australia: I would target a physically safe location in an 
easily accessible resort community, that attracts major tourism and 
investment from other countries, and perhaps even try to make the 
cryonics facility a tourist draw, for the sake of the exposure to wealthy 
potential clients...Cairns?, Gold Coast?... Any comments?

Always optimistically,

Robin

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