X-Message-Number: 6384 From: (Brad Templeton) Newsgroups: sci.cryonics Subject: Re: The Importance of Brain Cryopreservation Date: 24 Jun 1996 15:44:20 -0700 Message-ID: <4qn5o4$> References: <> <> <> In article <>, Brian Wowk <> wrote: >In <> John de Rivaz <> writes: > Why should the technology needed to save our lives depend on >some investment gambit? As I've pointed out, the income needed >to finance this work *already exists* within the cryonics community. >(In fact a Mormon lurker pointed out to me privately that Mormons >tithe at the 10% level, not 5% as I erroneously erroneously stated.) One can not "tithe" at anything but the 10% level, that is the level by definition for tithing. However, the truth is that cryonics members will not make such donations, and there is no evidence that this is likely to change immediately. The return from Cryonics could be extremely high but it is also extremely speculative and extremely distant. Today for a middle-aged person the present-value cost of getting involved is around $15,000, and that's a great deal less than the value of 5% or 10% of your income. You're talking a vast increase. I have long felt that the way for Cryonics to advance is to actively but carefully recruit members of the Bill Gates ilk. One Bill Gates with a casual interest in the research is worth many thousands of ordinary members. Of course, there are some real problems with recruiting such people: a) They are very busy b) They get plagued for donations all the time by vast numbers of charities and funds and everything else under the sun, and quickly resent soliciation c) In most cases (Gates included) they would be correct in assuming that if they kept $1M in their business they could give $2M next year, and so would be doing the charity a bad turn to give this year. Rationally they would give only upon death or upon maturation of their industry. d) For reason C and others, they are not big donors, by and large. They plan their philanthropy for later in life. So you need to make it seem other than philanthropy. Which means they have to become very enthused over cryonics and that's hard to do. But if you do it, the payoff is large. -- Brad Templeton, publisher, ClariNet Communications Corp. The net's #1 E-Newspaper (1,400,000 paid sbscrbrs.) http://www.clari.net/brad/ Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=6384