X-Message-Number: 12239
From: "George Smith" <>
References: <>
Subject: Who will do the research if we don't?
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 11:49:50 -0700

The question has been aptly asked many, many times.  Most recently Thomas
Donaldson (in message #12235) pointed out that even with Nanocomputers
(which happily are now on the drawing boards and will be built) extant, we
cannot depend on others to apply efforts toward cryopreservation or improved
revival methods.

After all, as it has asked quite often, WHO will do it if WE don't?

My answer is - THEY will.

The incredible money machine which surrounds organ transplant surgery will
certainly continue to apply anything and everything toward this end.  They
already do.  Why will they do this?  Because it is profitable.  Do you think
improving the success of liver, heart, kidney transplants won't continue to
be pursued by the medical research establishment?  Of course it will.

We will benefit directly as they succeed.

Additionally, the equally costly efforts which go into emergency and crisis
services to restore and maintain life especially in the United States will
also seize upon and develop the use of nano devices in the same way that
they have developed and implemented the use of the vast plethora of current
medical technological procedures, drugs and devices.  Why?  Because it is
profitable.

In fact, the same day that the Nanocomputer breakthrough was announced last
month on a local television channel (shocking and pleasing me to no end!)
the very next verbal statement the news announcer made was regarding the use
of such dust mote sized computers in creating tiny robots which could move
through the human body for diagnostic and healing purposes.  THEY provided
that statement, I am sure.  THEY know where this is all going.

We will benefit as they succeed.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the powerful and wealthy medical technology machine is
already geared to achieve the very ends we desire.  They will develop and
use nano devices to better preserve transplant organs as well as restore
patients to better health (and the huge number of coma patients from car
accidents to consciousness).  They will do it because they already try to do
it with all other available technologies which they developed and
implemented.  They will do it because it is profitable.

WHO will do it if WE don't?  THEY will.  In fact, they already are.

We will only need to apply their inevitable successes to our specific needs
to better cryo-preserve and then revive our members.

In the meantime I disagree with my esteemed fellow cryonicists who feel that
our own research is critical to our success.  I sincerely doubt that our
miniscule efforts will result in anything before the juggernaut of modern
medicine plows ahead with the creation of the very tools we would like to do
ourselves.

I could be wrong and some marvelous remarkable breakthrough awaits one of
our own small number tomorrow morning.  But to ignore the dedicated efforts
of the giants of the medical industry who will get there if it is possible
to get there at all, is the height of hubris.

Who will do it if we don't?  THEY will.  And they will almost certainly do
it first.  Then we can and will apply what they have created.

THAT effort will be WELL worth funding.

If I am missing something critical here, I am open to being shown my error.
But MY questions are these:

WHO is more likely to find medical applications for Nanocomputers, our few
poorly-funded cryonics researchers or the world's largest medical research
giants who already pursue these ends with billions of dollars at their
disposal?

WILL the research giants seek to use nano to improve organ transplant
successes in the same way they have pursued all other new technologies
(drugs, lasers, x-rays, magnetic resonance, fiber optics, etc.)?

WILL the research giants seek to use nano to improve resuscitation
techniques for comas, drownings, and various debilitating nervous diseases
in the same way they have used all other new technologies?

ARE the research giants still highly motivated by the huge profits they can
continue to reap by ongoing successes in these areas?

WILL we be willing to apply the breakthroughs these research giants will
achieve to the mission of cryonics?

WHO will do the research if WE don't?

Who WON'T?

George Smith
http://www.cryonics.org

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