X-Message-Number: 12257
From: "John de Rivaz" <>
References: <>
Subject: Re: Self Funding Specialised Research
Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1999 12:09:28 +0100

Below are two parts of messages from a recent cryonet that get to the nub of
the situation, in my opinion.

Mr Gurvinder suggests that we try and persuade big pharmaceutical companies
to help us, and George Smith continues to express with excellent clarity the
view that I and others hold about the futility of doing research on
something where the infrastructure is not available. Some while back I
posted an excerpt from a Carl Sagan book where he wrote a little story about
Queen Victoria trying to introduce a television service into her empire. The
principles were known, but any amount of money could not produce the CRTs,
transistors and CCD devices required, or even valves and iconoscope or
vidicon tubes.

The time will come when some extra work is needed to build on the tools
provided by the medical industry, and this research won't be cheap. However
the whole thing can be almost self-financing without persuading anyone in
pharmaceutical companies to do anything. As Mr Smith pointed out, the tools
needed will be made for financial motives and these notices will earn people
lots of money. What people? Shareholders.

If ten years ago you invested the price (then) of an entry level PC into
Intel shares, today you could buy 100 entry level PCs (of much better
performance) on the proceeds of selling the shares (neglecting any tax
penalties on such a transaction.)

This shows how to fund the research: invest now in technology, possibly
using a mutual fund, and wait until the tools become available by the
processes described by Mr Smith. Estimate the number of years until the
tools will be there, and then use the rule of thumb of the portfolio going
up by ten to one every decade. (Remember this is pure investment, not a life
insurance bond - this rule of thumb is entirely possible, even conservative,
for a portfolio of *technology* shares.)

So if you think suitable tools will be available in 50 years, and that the
research will cost ten million dollars, invest now 1/10^5 of 10 million,
which is  10^7/10^5=10^2 which is just $100. Actually I doubt whether it
would be possible to invest just $100 into a mutual fund, so just chose the
minimum amount. Of course if you don't do as I suggest, it will be a lot
harder to get people to give you the $10million when the time comes.

I expect that every cryonics organisation has some investments - each one
could easily earmark for future research $100 in a technology mutual fund
they already have as part of a larger holding for other purposes. If any
cryonics provider is not investing anything in technology, then I recommend
that its members seek to change matters or change their allegiance to one
that is, such as the Cryonics Institute to give one example.

The interesting thing with this is that if the tools never become available,
then the $100 never grows into the $10m over 50 years. But if the tools
aren't there, you have nothing on which to spend the $10million you haven't
got.

--
Sincerely, John de Rivaz
my homepage links to Longevity Report, Fractal Report, my singles club for
people in Cornwall, music, Inventors' report, an autobio and various other
projects:       http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JohndeR


----- Original Message -----
> Message #12245
> Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 08:41:12 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Gurvinder <>
> Subject: Cryonics reasearch
>
> I totally agree with George regarding research on cryonics.
> As I have said before we have to start speaking to the big pharma
> companies (Pfizer/Merck/Glaxo/Smithkline etc.).
>
> I won't be surprised if in ten years most of the pharma
> majors have a full fledged cryonics department doing research and maybe
> offering preservation through ACS ,CI ..(professional advertising)...
>
>
> Gurvinder
>
> Message #12247
> From: "George Smith" <>
> Subject: Further on "If we don't do it, who will?"
> Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 13:26:32 -0700
>
>
> AFTER the huge medical giants have researched and developed the nano
breakthroughs, THEN we will need to APPLY these developments to cryonics.
At that point research will be necessary as we cannot assume the medical
industry will ever support research into cryonics.  THEN we will need to
roll up our sleeves and "do it ourselves".
>

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