X-Message-Number: 6392
From: John de Rivaz <>
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
Subject: Re: The Importance of Brain Cryopreservation
Date: Tue, 25 Jun 1996 10:07:12 +0100
Message-ID: <>

References: <> <> 
<> <4qn5o4$>

Isn't it also a matter of proportion. Authoritarian religions make a big 
issue of people giving their all - Christianity has the notion that it 
is spiritually more rewarding for someone to give all their wealth to 
the Church ("The Widow's Mite") than for a rich man to give a greater 
quantity but a quantity which he does not miss. "Give until it hurts" is 
a charity-beggar's call. In the UK socialist taxleader Dennis Healey 
shouted "We will tax the rich until they howl with anguish" to raptuous 
applause at a Labour Party conference in the 1960s, ... and the backlash 
generated the biggest tax avoidance industry ever seen.

The sensible approach is surely if you want a $1m do not approach 
someone with $1m and ask for 10%, but someone with $1bn and ask for 
01%. 

There are plenty of wealthy people who are reported to have set up 
anti-aging research projects, such as Miller Quarles. It is also 
worthwhile remembering that most people who own their own houses are 
probably a fair way up the ladder to becomming dollar millionaires - the 
word doesn't mean the same as it did in the 1960s because of 
tax-augmented inflation.

However there must be enough people around with $100m - which is what 
you really need - for some of them to be on the verge of stating some 
anti-aging foundation and they could contibute to Brian Wowk's project 
*if approached at exactly the right moment*. I also think the approach 
should be non direct, ie send them a newsletter or something like that 
and let them offer you with money rather than you ask for it.

Another worthwhile project would be to demonstrate reversible freezing 
in an animal, which should be brought closer with brain vitrification. 
In the novel "The Truth Machine" achievement of this in 2006 is 
suggested to be a turning point in the fortunes of cryonics.

In article: <4qn5o4$>   (Brad 
Templeton) writes:
> 
> In article <>, Brian Wowk <> 
wrote:
> >In <> John de Rivaz 
<> writes:
> >	Why should the technology needed to save our lives depend on
> >some investment gambit?  As I've pointed out, the income needed  
> >to finance this work *already exists* within the cryonics community.
> >(In fact a Mormon lurker pointed out to me privately that Mormons
> >tithe at the 10% level, not 5% as I erroneously erroneously stated.)
> 
> One can not "tithe" at anything but the 10% level, that is the level by
> definition for tithing.   However, the truth is that cryonics members will
> not make such donations, and there is no evidence that this is likely to
> change immediately.
> 
> The return from Cryonics could be extremely high but it is also extremely
> speculative and extremely distant.   Today for a middle-aged person the
> present-value cost of getting involved is around $15,000, and that's a great
> deal less than the value of 5% or 10% of your income.   You're talking a
> vast increase.
> 
> I have long felt that the way for Cryonics to advance is to actively
> but carefully recruit members of the Bill Gates ilk.  One Bill Gates with

> a casual interest in the research is worth many thousands of ordinary members.
> Of course, there are some real problems with recruiting such people:
> 
> a) They are very busy
> b) They get plagued for donations all the time by vast numbers of charities
> and funds and everything else under the sun, and quickly resent soliciation
> c) In most cases (Gates included) they would be correct in assuming that
> if they kept $1M in their business they could give $2M next year, and so
> would be doing the charity a bad turn to give this year.  Rationally they
> would give only upon death or upon maturation of their industry.
> d) For reason C and others, they are not big donors, by and large.  They
> plan their philanthropy for later in life.
> 
> 
> So you need to make it seem other than philanthropy.  Which means they 
have
> to become very enthused over cryonics and that's hard to do.
> 
> But if you do it, the payoff is large.
> -- 
> Brad Templeton, publisher, ClariNet Communications Corp.	 

> The net's #1 E-Newspaper (1,400,000 paid sbscrbrs.)  
http://www.clari.net/brad/
> 
> 
-- 
-- 
Sincerely,     ****************************************
               * Publisher of        Longevity Report *
John de Rivaz  *                     Fractal Report   *
               *          details on request          *
               ****************************************
    In the information age, sharing can increase world
    wealth enormously, because giving information does
              not decrease your information.
     http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JohndeR                   
           Fast loading, very few slow pictures


Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=6392