X-Message-Number: 18394 From: "Tim Freeman" <> Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 07:06:27 -0700 Subject: Hurry up with James Swayze Fund donations. His situation is complex. Modern medicine is fairly good at dealing with individual problems. I've only been close enough to two deaths to understand in detail how they happened, and in each case at the end the person had multiple problems, and death was brought on by unforseen interactions rather than by being crushed totally by one of the problems. James Swayze's situation is complicated. He hasn't talked publicly about his medical problems, so I won't, but I can say that there are enough potentially interacting problems that it doesn't make sense to hang back and hope that other people donate to his suspension fund first. There is time for checks to clear and paperwork to be filled out, probably. There is a semi-rational basis for deciding how much to donate. The assumption is that you want to be a typical part of a fund-raising effort that gets Swayze's suspension funded. For an order-of-magnitude computation, a CI suspension costs roughly $30,000. Thus: A $100 donation is a typical part of solving the problem if there are 300 people doing it. No way in hell. There are fewer than 300 people aware of the issue, and much fewer than 300 people who care and are able and willing to donate. A $1,000 donation is a typical part of solving the problem if 30 people do it. 30 is a high but plausible number. A $3,000 donation is a typical part of solving the problem if 10 people do it. This number feels right to me. A $10,000 donation basically solves the problem, given the other donations I've heard of. I sent $5,000, routing it through the Venturists so it's tax deductible. Checks should go to: Society for Venturism, c/o Mike Perry 7895 E. Acoma Dr. Ste. 110 Scottsdale, AZ 85260-6916 Make the check payable to "Society for Venturism" and mark it "Cryonics Assistance Fund." If Swayze doesn't get suspended, it will be a different kind of failure from most of the ones I've heard of. Usually the situation is one of these: * Someone wants it for someone else (and the someone else is indifferent or nearly dead or dead). In this scenario, failure is caused by the overhead inherent in manipulating someone else. * Someone wants it for themselves but their behavior shows they don't want it much. In this scenario, failure is caused by insufficient resources devoted to the task. Usually a perceived lack of money falls into this category. * Someone doesn't want it, so it doesn't happen. Swayze's situation is that he wants it but he has a legitimate story behind the lack of money. Only paupers are eligible for the free medical care that the government provides in the US, and he definitely needs that free medical care. Hence if he doesn't make it, it can only be attributed to very bad luck (and stupid laws, which are also bad luck). Surely this has happened before, but I have not personally heard the story. -- Tim Freeman ; formerly Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=18394