X-Message-Number: 14839
Date: Sat, 4 Nov 2000 03:29:18 -0800 (PST)
From: "D. den Otter" <>
Subject: Cryonics & Europe (Was: Opinions in general about cryonics growth)

david pizer <> wrote:

>>I think foreign members would do themselves a
service to form their own cryonics companys close to
home. Let me repeat that.  If you live out of the
U.S., or Canada, and you really want to try to have a
good suspension, you probably will do much better to
form a company in your own country.<<

I quite agree. It's about damn time that we got
ourselves a proper cryonics organization, *with* full
LN2 storage capabilities. Contrary to popular belief,
we have more than enough potential members to do it.
Sometimes you hear people say "well, we can start
thinking about our own setup once we have a thousand
or so prospective members". This, of course, is utter
nonsense; there are hardly a thousand cryonicists in
the whole *world*. All the US organizations had to
start out with very limited funds and just a
(relative) handful of members as well. If they could
do it, then why not we? Because Europeans are a bunch
of hopeless incompetents? Well, maybe we are...but we
should give it a try nonetheless; there's not much to
lose, and a lot (potential immortality etc.) to gain.
Interested parties can join the European cryonics
mailing list via the link below.
http://www.egroups.com/group/cryonics-euro

As for funding the new cryonics organization: if you
want to keep the pricing within acceptable limits,
perhaps even engage in some "charity freezing", *and*
have a strong, viable organization, you MUST have one
or several outside (not cryo-related) sources of
income. Membership fees, life insurance and the odd
donation just won't do the trick, period. 

With all the computer skills etc. that we have in the
cryonics/transhuman community, we should be able to
create a good source of income trough ("legal") MLM
programs (for a good example, see:
http://www.bigbooster.com This site earns its owners
thousands of dollars each month). Combine this with
conventional investment (trust) funds, and you could
become more or less financially independent, i.e. no
longer need steady membership growth or donations to
survive. Since cryonics is literally a matter of life
and death, one needs to be as pragmatic as possible,
and keep an open mind when it comes to "offbeat"
financial opportunities, IMHO.

Another way to stay in business is by keeping
operating costs to a minimum. This can be done by
means of (advanced) automation, for people are usually
more expensive than machines, certainly in the long
run. The latter are often more reliable as well, which
is an added bonus. 

At the very least, the LN2 storage should be a fully
insulated and "closed" system, which is only opened
for patient insertion/removal. This too could be
almost fully automated etc., but these matters are
somewhat beyond the scope of this post. The bottom
line is that Europeans have the *means* to create
their own self-sufficient organization, but still need
a "triumph of the will". The US cryonics orgs are not
the real problem; we are our own worst enemy.

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