X-Message-Number: 13289 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: a few added comments: Nanotechnology vrs nanotechnology Date: Thu, 24 Feb 100 23:04:32 +1100 (EST) Hi everyone! I will point out something that many people may be trying to ignore, even many cryonicists. That something is simple: yes, our AVERAGE lifespan may still be increasing, but stripping the notion down to fundamentals, AVERAGE LIFESPAN here means that 50% of people will NOT live that long, for whatever reason [1]. And even if we find ways to increase our average lifespan a good deal, we'll still have that problem. Of course most people, including cryonicists, happily think they will be in the 50% which exceeds the average. Unfortunately, half of them will be quite wrong. Every cryonicist, no matter what their age, must face a nonzero probability that one day they will find that they have a condition which limits their future life to only a few months. Not only that, but if you seriously look at the world around you, say by reading the "Deaths" pages of your local news, you'll find people even younger than you who died of one thing or another. In this sense cryonics, even for younger cryonicists, might be thought of as the only true life insurance policy (all the others just pay somebody else some money!). And in that sense, if you want life insurance, then even if you are young you will benefit by much more research into improving our suspensions. Sure, you may not benefit DIRECTLY, but you will benefit by an improved version of life insurance. And life insurance remains valuable even if you never need it --- because you cannot know that you'll never need it. Just one more thought to add to my previous comments on Charles Platt's message. Best and long long life to all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=13289