X-Message-Number: 7224
Date: 27 Nov 96 02:00:48 EST
From: Paul Wakfer <>
Subject: Prometheus Project Update

     The Prometheus Project pledge total now stands at $314,100 per year
for the first ten years of the Project from 60 pledgers. The Project has
been "repackaged" as a project to perfect long-term fully reversible human
suspended animation within 20 years. The first ten years is now a
reversible brain cryopreservation study to prove the feasibility of the
larger project and to make the possibility of its accomplishment credible
enough to raise the larger per year funding which will likely be necessary
to accomplish that more ambitious goal. The reason for this change is that
the goal of whole-body suspended animation has more applications, and
should appeal to larger numbers of people than the brain cryopreservation
goal alone. Yet, it should be no less appealing to cryonicists who will
clearly recognize that it satisfies their needs also.

     The "new" Project and its web site have been recently announced on the
following news groups: sci.life-extension, misc.health.alternative,
rec.arts.sf.science, sci.bio.misc, sci.bio.technology, bionet.general,
bionet.neuroscience. It has been mentioned on a couple of lists including
the Extropians. It was also mentioned twice during the discussions which
took place on sci.cryonics and sci.physics. If anyone has any suggestions
of other news groups or lists which would be appropriate, please let me
know. I would also like to have as many web sites as possible have links to
the Prometheus Project web site. If anyone can help me with this or give me
ideas on how to accomplish it, I would be very grateful.

     Unfortunately, the pledge campaign has greatly slowed down. The two
California meetings were very poorly attended and not worth the effort of
their arrangements. That was a shame because all those who didn't attend
missed a very interesting talk (with pictures of live grafted dog heads, no
less) by the Project's consulting cryobiologist. Because of these meeting
failures, no more meetings are planned at this time. The Project will be
represented at the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M) conference
in Las Vegas on Dec 14-16. I do hope to raise some interest there. In
addition, I have asked to give a presentation about the Project at the
Alcor Technology Festival in February. I expect this will be acceptable,
although I have not yet received any affirmative reply. Again, if anyone
has any ideas on how I can reach more cryonicists and get them to pledge,
through meetings, mailings or whatever (grabbing them by the neck and
shaking them :), I would be most grateful for your ideas and/or help.

     I quite openly admit that I am in somewhat of a quandary as to how to
increase the rate at which pledges are being received. If the present rate
(of under $1K per week) keeps up, it is clear that the Project will take so
long to fund that it will simply never happen. On the other hand, the
*average* rate over the initial months is not that bad, if only we can find
a way to get back to that rate. I *know* that there is more than enough
money among cryonicists alone to fund this project. Clearly, either they
don't value the chance of future life sufficiently to give up some present
value or they don't believe that the Prometheus Project will accomplish
anything of great value to increase their chance at that future life. I
would be more willing to accept the latter view if I were actually *asking*
for money and had all the plans laid out for them to see. However, I am
*not* asking for money, but only conditional pledges to show that such a
project is feasible. *Only* when I show that the Project funding is
possible will enough scientific support be forthcoming to supply the
detailed planning which will be needed before I or anyone else can write a
business plan for the Project. Then you will all have your chance to
legitimately say "it can't be done" and we will make changes to try to come
up with a Project plan which is both workable and valuable.

     In closing, I want to make it very clear that while I sometimes feel
discouraged, I am still determined to continue with this Project which has
already accomplished more in gaining potential funding support for research
than has ever been done in cryonics before. I am open to any suggestions as
to what can to done or changed to accomplish this goal. Personally, I am
still firmly convinced that the Prometheus Project, or something very like
it, must be accomplished before I have any reasonable chance of vastly
extended life. I ask all of you to please, please help me save my life and
yours too.


-- Paul -- Phone: 416-968-6291  Pager: 800-805-2870

HELP TO ACHIEVE - PERFECTED SUSPENDED ANIMATION WITHIN 20 YEARS!

Check out the Prometheus Project web site at URL:
http://www.prometheus-project.org/prometheus/


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