X-Message-Number: 5905
From: John Sharman <>
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics,sci.life-extension,uk.legal
Subject: Re: Virtue of suffering
Date: Sat, 09 Mar 96 08:11:27 GMT
Message-ID: <>
References: <> <>

In article <>
            "Keith Henson" writes:

> John Sharman () wrote:
> : In article <>
> :             "Keith Henson" writes:


[..]

I have snipped all of this lengthy exchange except for the bit which, I
feel, touches on the point which will decide whether or not cryonics
ever gets to the starting line in the race for dominance among competing
technologies.

[..]

> : > : You're joking. If it takes a few hundred years there could/would be
> : > : millions if not billions of "sleepers". Virtual elimination of death
> : > : must lead to restriction on breeding. What price gene propagation then?
> : > 
> : > "If" is the operative word.  Cryonics has (long term) grown at about
> : > 20% per year, or a 4 year doubling time.  So, 40 years would amount
> : > to about a 1000 fold increase.  That would take the number signed up
> : > to 600k, and the number in suspension to 60k.  On the scale of the
> : > world population, heck, even the population of this town, that is 
> : > a *trivial* number!  Now, another 40 years brings these numbers up
> : > into the millions, but 60 million is still only 1% of the *current*
> : > population.  80 years from now, who knows *what* kind of population
> : > problems we might have.  Most of the advanced part of the world is
> : > reproducing at less than replacement rate.  For what it is worth, 
> : > best estimates for getting to a nanotech based technology is in the
> : > few decades range.  
> 
> : "A few decades"? Whose "best estimate" is that? How many weeks do you
> : allow for us to find (a) a treatment and (b) an immunisation and (c) a
> : cure for HIV?
> 
> Given mature nanotechnology, you have it right, weeks.

Am I right in taking it that all the cryonicists accept that a "mature
nanotechnology" is a requirement sine qua non for revival? And that that
expression has a meaning independent of cryonics (i.e. "mature
nanotechnology is not simply defined as "such technology as will permit
the revival of deepfrozen corpses")?

If that is right, what grounds have you for assuming that it will ever
be available at affordable rates. Someone pointed out a while back in a
related thread that the alchemists' goal of transmutation is now
available but is hopelessly uneconomical. Capability and viability are
not the same thing. Just what proportion of GNP do you see being pumped
into the development of nanotechnology in order to "make it happen"?
-- 
Regards,

John Sharman
 +====================================================================+
 |  John Sharman               Internet:    |
 |                             Tel/Fax: +44 (0)1603 452142            |
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