X-Message-Number: 8862
From: Olaf Henny <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #8855
Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 19:32:22 -0800

Re: Cryonet (Cryonics) Survey

Mike Perry wrote:

>>     Of those who pass away each year, only about 0.0000000000001% choose
>>  to be frozen, instead of being fried in a hot oven, or becoming worm
>>  food.
>
>I.e. "epsilon" %--a totally insignificant amount, which has seemed 
>very strange to me too. Mathematically speaking, and as a minor  
>point relative to your main one, your epsilon looked 
>too small--1 part in 10^15, if I counted the zeros right, so I set 
>out to obtain a better estimate. There are about 6X10^9 (six billion) 
>people in the world. Roughly 1% die each year, or around 6X10^7. Roughly
>5 people in the world are cryonically suspended each year, which is 
>about 1 person in 10^7 or 10^-5%, i.e. 0.00001%--still plenty small.
>
>  Y N  Actually I love the idea of becoming a corpsicle when I die.
>       (and I can hardly wait)
> 
>Most of us cryonicists would not say "I can hardly
>wait"--far from it. Dying 
>and being frozen is the second worst thing that can happen to you, 
>etc. In general I found the questions too flippant and 
>shallow--though it could be wondered whether, if they were more 
>seroiously worded, the usual readers would take them seriously.

Everything here is worded too damn seriously.  Most people 
feel uncomfortable in a morgue.

Mike, you are obviously a fine mathematician and, I trust, an 
outstanding scientist, but you should really look up the word 
"humor" in your dictionary, or have somebody explain the 
meaning of"tongue-in-cheek" to you.  I can assure you, that 
Doug is capable of the same calculation, which you just 
demonstrated, but there are a lot of highly intelligent 
people out there, who are not living on math alone, and who 
might just be grabbed by Doug's approach (he never claimed, 
that it was a research paper).

At least it is an attempt to get away from the dry as sawdust 
communication, which usually prevails here.

Olaf Henny

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