X-Message-Number: 8764
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #8751 - #8757
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 1997 00:38:38 -0800 (PST)

Hi everyone!

To Saul Kent (and all those others who believe that perfected suspended 
animation will greatly increase our growth rate):

It seems to me that the arguments for improving our methods, and if possible
improving them so far that we can do reversible suspended animation on
animals (and probably do it on healthy human subjects, if for some reason
required) --- the arguments for improving our methods are ALREADY so strong
that we really don't need any extra push from recruitment. After all, the
better we can do suspensions, the better condition WE will be in after our
own suspension, whether it happens before or after our "death". That seems to
me to be entirely sufficient reason to do whatever research we can afford.
Increases in recruitment just add some icing to the cake (to coin a phrase).

But now I shall do a little arithmetic, so that everyone can see what I
mean. I do this, incidentally, because everyone (I include myself) has so
far been talking about "tremendous increases in recruitment", "big upsurges
in membership", etc etc without actually being very precise about just what
these phrases and others like them might mean.

So just what is meant? And do we believe this increase in recruiting will
happen the year suspended animation is announced but not continue afterwards,
or what?

So let's suppose that we continue growing at our present rate until 10 years
have passed. (Unfortunately, the only society which puts out explicit figures
on this is Alcor :(. Hence I must make suppositions). For the sake of argument,
I shall suppose that we have then a total of 1000 people with arrangements for
cryonic suspension. 

If recruitment causes a doubling in our numbers, say, for 3 years, but does
not cause an increase in % rate of recruitment for longer than that (say
that the immediate publicity dies away and people go back to their ordinary
lives), then we go from 1000 to 8000 people. Compared to 220 million for the
US, and 5 billion for the world, that is TINY. It will seem especially so
because those 8000 will (if present kinds of growth continue but at a higher
rate) be spread all over the world. With about 100 countries in the world,
we have an average of about 80 people per country. Say half of them are in
the US; 4000 people in the US, 40 people per country elsewhere.

This possibility does not look to me to be one in which our numbers will be
large or influential in the outside (noncryonics) world. There are more 
SF fans, more scientologists, more of virtually every group you can think
of than this number.

Moreover, a doubling in one year would also be hard to sustain in any case.
Right now the societies together are equipped with people able to do regular
suspensions at the rate we have now: a few people a year. One doubling,
especially if it got us not just people willing to be suspended but people
willing to train and learn how to suspend, could probably be sustained. But
we'd start very soon to have problems with training and equipment, not so
much that equipment and training could not be done, but that they would 
interfere with other activities. After all, suppose that suspended animation
required a device, the "congelator", costing about $2000 US. Who will make
such devices? How long will it take them to make them? A suspension team
or suspended animation team does not come into existence out of the air.
Alcor probably has figures (which I will try to piece out in a later message)
that would allow us to work out just how many of those who join would be
willing to actually participate in suspensions, but that is a much smaller
number than the number of those who want to be suspended. We see that 
already. It's not even likely that vast improvements in our methods would
cause a similarly large increase in the % of those volunteering to suspend
as distinct from being suspended.
 
Well, OK, let's try some other assumptions. Let's suppose that we start
at 1000 and suddenly get a 50% growth rate, which continues indefinitely.
(Incidentally, I know of no company or organization, even ones that were
perfectly normal in their aims ie. they just want to make semiconductors
(say) in some new way, that has grown that rapidly in a sustained way. A 
few years, yes, but for decades, no. A yearly increase of 50% is quite large.
But what happens if we suppose it, anyway?)

Well, say this happens in 2007 (10 years from now). In 2008 we have 1500
people worldwide. In 2009 we have 2250 worldwide. In 2010 we have 3375
worldwide, 2011 --> 5063, 2012 --> 7594, ... ten years later, in 2017,
we have 57,000 people (roughly. For those with calculators, I'm using
logs): in other words, after 10 years our number has increased about 57 
times. Fine. This is still a comparatively small number of people
compared not just to the population of the US but the population of
people of various beliefs, activities, etc. I would be surprised if the
total number of hang gliders does not exceed 60,000, and the same for the
total number of SF readers. We will probably be exceeded by the worldwide
number of stamp collectors, even after 10 years.

We may all have different ideas about just what is meant by a tremendous
surge of growth (though the word surge does not denote a continuing increase).
If these figures constitute a tremendous surge, then we may have some
disagreements about details (ie. just what the % rate of increase may be)
but OK, we'll see what happens. If you want enough growth that you won't
find that you're the only cryonicist in your home town when you go home
to visit on Thanksgiving, 57,000 worldwide doesn't look likely to do it.
If half of these are in the US, then we have 28,500 US residents. We would
be about 0.0004% of the population. If your home town is small, you'll be
the only one. If you grew up in New York, or any city with (say) 2 million
people or more, then there will be 8 cryonicists. Since we do tend to 
know one another, you'll probably know them. Some of them you won't like,
others you will, etc etc. Still, 8 people does not look like enough to
win any elections, even local ones. (Sure, you may decide to be a politician,
and being a cryonicist may not hurt you --- it's not obvious to me that
it would even hurt you now --- but your program would look much the same
as that of others of your opinion).

Yes, compared to the present we won't feel quite so alone. And most of all,
even if our numbers are small, we may have established that what we are
doing is in some sense a sensible thing to do (though I myself have noticed
an increase in that feeling, even WITHOUT numbers. No one mocks me or thinks
I am somehow weird if I tell them I am a cryonicist. They'll just say they're
not interested, and that's the end of it). But you'll have a hard time
making friends if you insist that all your friends and associates be
cryonicists. If you want to marry another cryonicist, say, then you'd do
better to think about finding someone you can convert than looking at 
women (or men) who are cryonicists already. In lots of fundamental ways,
IT'S GOING TO LOOK AND FEEL JUST LIKE TODAY.

Could it even be worse? ie. the increase in numbers threatens all those who
are NOT cryonicists? Frankly, at these numbers I think our possible opposition
will most likely be engaged on other activities. We'd have to be much larger
to seem a threat to anyone. This is especially so because we are unlikely to
gather together and live in one spot just because we are cryonicists.

So rather than bandy about notions such as "tremendous increase in numbers"
I think it would help to start being a bit more precise. There are many
ways in which you need to be precise: is it a % rate of increase, or an
absolute one? Will it continue, or will it only last a short time, whatever
"short" means here? And so on and so on.

As for me, I'd say that at most it may produce an increase to a 30% rate
from our present rate, and that would not continue for as long as 10 years.
It would be a nice increase in numbers, though (for those who think that
I'm arguing that suspended animation would cause no increase at all!). But
we've got a pretty good idea what such an increase will and will not do,
by now. I now invite others on this BBS to be more precise about just
what they mean.

			Best and long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson

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