X-Message-Number: 7203
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 00:22:05 -0500 (EST)
From: mark mugler <>
Subject: number of cryonicists

Kelly Ann Moy in posting no. 7_88 discusses some pros and cons of great
growth in cryonics membership.  I would like to add a little.

Pros of great membership growth: 1) Economies of scale.  Cryonics suffers
from horrible diseconomies of scale now.  What if there were hundreds of
cryonicists in every major city?  Think of the mobilization potential and
the efficiencies.  Make unit cost lower, attract more people, further drive
down unit cost.  Create opportunities to improve quality of service and for
individuals to invest more above the minimum to ensure their own revival.
2) More money for research, especially research on "front end" technologies
like the Visser techniques and vitrification, that improve current signups'
chances of survival.  Sure, the front end technology will develop, but will
it do so fast enough for me?  I am not very confident that nanotechnology
will succeed in fixing problems that improved front-end cryo technolgy can
avoid.

Cons: Visibility.  Yes, we have to fear the government -- the mortuary
police in cahoots with the funeral cartel, the vitamin and drug police in
cahoots with the pharmaceutical companies and the command-and-control elite.
And we have to fear the Luddites and bible-thumpers who are so easily led.

Overall, I'll take the cons and work toward membership growth.  

Regarding the notions of "too many people" and "people in the future giving
up" on cryonics patients, I remind you all of the power of incentives in a
free society, as opposed to the deadening serfdom that results from
centralized allocation of resources.  I am working and saving to be able to
finance my cryopreservation above the minimum.  I have no intention of
depending on the good will of people living in the future, just as I have no
intention of relying on the good will of some insurance clerk or bureaucrat
to decide what I should eat or what medical treatment to get at present.
Cryonics patients will be a drag on society in the future only if they,
through their cryonics membership organization, do not command sufficient
resources to ensure their own survival.  I have no doubt that my survival
depends on the quality of care I receive, which I can do something about by
supporting research today and ensuring a high level of funding for my
cryopreservation.  It is true I cannot prevent the government from
commandeering my resources in the future (I think Ralph Merkel calls this
"social risk" or somesuch) but until I am enslaved I will not willingly
surrender autonomy and initiative.  "Do not go gentle into that good
night....rage, rage against the dying of the light."  Ciao.


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