X-Message-Number: 6557
Date: Thu, 18 Jul 1996 17:49:36 -0700
From: Paul Wakfer <>
Subject: Prometheus - Shareholder Bonuses
Included in the message in which he made his pledge, Leonard Zubkoff
also expressed the following concerns and suggestions:
>I have a couple of comments for you regarding the Prometheus Project.
>First, something still bothers me about the way the technology will be made
>available to Cryonics organizations. What bothers me is that it's possible
>that a share owner in the Prometheus company could end up in a position
>where they funded the development of a technology that they cannot afford
>for their own suspension. As yet, nothing has been said about the magnitude
>of the royalties involved, so we don't know whether or not the royalty
>payment could affect suspension minimums. The idea of Technology Credits is
>a good one, but without any commitment to the royalty level it doesn't
>provide a clear answer. I'd like to see such a commitment nailed down,
>either by capping the royalty payment for participants or by making royalty
>free use of the technology for their own suspension a benefit that's
>automatic to all participants.
Yes, Brian Wowk has also pointed out several times, that the cost of
suspensions may rise due to using advanced, damage-free technology. Myself, I
believe that this might only be temporary until volume reduction takes over.
But of course if it becomes a medical procedure, the way things are in the
medical field today, this may well be true. Since no one has or can
reasonably have any idea what the royalties/costs might be, any thought of a
cap value does not seem possible at this time. Although I do think that it's
reasonable that the royalty price and the corporation's share price at that
time, will have some relationship. At first your idea of royalty free use of
the technology for all pledge/share purchasers seemed like a great idea to
me. But on second thought it is not right again to apply it equally to all
sizes of pledge/share purchases. I am going to suggest implementing the idea
in two parts.
1) All pledge/share purchasers will have the right to use their shares as
technology credits towards their own suspensions or the suspensions of
"family" in the same way that cryonics organizations can.
2) Pledger/share purchasers of $5K per year or over will pay no royalties
on their own suspensions.
While it may look like the $5K level has been "arbitrarily" chosen, there is
some precedent for it. In CryoCare Forum where this project was begun. I
originally told everyone basically that I just couldn't see any reason why
certain people, who I actually proceeded to "name" should not be able to put
up $10K per year. Some people responded to this, some were appalled at what I
had done and others said nothing. After some dialogue, I decided that yes, I
had been requesting too much and lowered to $5K the pledge which every
professionally employed person who is serious about really wanting to live
should make. At that point, I received 4 more pledges for $5K per year. I
have not yet been so insistent and direct with people on this forum, but
things may change if larger pledges are not forthcoming soon.
>Second, I think the name Prometheus Project, which a good one, may be
>problematic as a final choice. I did a whois search on the PROMETHEUS.ORG
>name and found that there is already an Internet presence by that name, and
>it looks like it must be completely unrelated since it was created in
>January 1995.
>However, it also looks like their use of the name is only a skeleton, so
>perhaps they might wish to give the name up.
Thanks, Leonard. I'm surprised that it has taken so long for someone to point
this out. Yes, we were aware of several other uses of "Prometheus" on the
Internet. That is why in my original announcement I said the even the name
was open for change. But the name has been so well received that I would hate
to change it now. We are about to reserve prometheus-project.org for our
domain name. Maybe we'll contact them to see if they will give it
-- Paul --
!!!!! REVERSIBLE BRAIN CRYOPRESERVATION *CAN* BE ACHIEVED IN 10 YEARS !!!!!
Paul Wakfer email: Voice/Fax: Pager:
US: 1220 E Washington St #24, Colton, CA 92324 909-481-4433 800-805-2870
Canada: 238 Davenport Rd #240, Toronto, ON M5R 1J6 416-968-6291 416-446-9461
(currently in Canada)
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