X-Message-Number: 9646
From: Olaf Henny <>
Subject: Jim Halperin's Dough
Date: Thu, 7 May 1998 20:34:37 -0700

I would consider it presumptuous of me to suggest to somebody 
else how s/he should spend her/his money, but in Message #9618 
Jim Halperin, wrote:

>I therefore invite all comment by private e-mail or on this
>forum. I would especially like to hear from each of the leading cryonics
>facilities.

After reading all the suggestions on how Jim might invest the 
$600,000.- he has earmarked for the promotion of cryonics I have 
come to believe, that a series of prizes as suggested by Messrs. 
Strout, den Otter and Rasch would give cryonics the "best bang 
for the buck".   Especially Christopher Rasch's outline made a 
lot of good sense.

Economics:

You could probably entice five to ten grad students c/w the 
tutelage of their professors to work for the same amount of 
(price-)money it would take to hire one scientist for the same 
amount of time.  As Christopher pointed out, the student's 
efforts would include access to the university's plant, equipment 
and workspace.

Politics:

As Christopher also pointed out, the work of these Ph.D. 
candidates would have to be strictly in cryogenics, targeting 
cryopreservation of organs rather than brain, but there could be 
a "trail of crumbs" leading their work slowly to cryonics.  These 
young scientists *will* be _the establishment_ in just a few 
years.

Once Jim Halperin has established his challenge more detailed 
guidance as to the vector of their research could be provided by 
*young* cryonics scientists like Christopher Rasch and Joe 
Strout, to make cryonics the science of a new generation and get 
rid of the cobwebs of prejudice of the cryobiological 
establishment (if I, as a 64-year old, promote a youth movement, 
then that is entirely self-serving, since, if all this works out 
then, in a century or so, I will be 25 again - younger than Joe).   
:)

Even if these grad students will ultimately not choose a career 
in cryonics, if they are at all human, they will retain a soft 
spot for the discipline and the people, which (who) was (were) so 
close to their thesis work.


Best,

Olaf

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