X-Message-Number: 18935
Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 09:56:06 -0400
From: Jeffrey Soreff <>
Subject: Re: Message #18930

>that the people surrounding me provide any support. Any response from one who 
>has made the leap and can offer constructive mentoring so to speak, would be 
>appreciated.

The deciding factor for me was in noting that, even at quite modest
probabilities of success, cryonics is still a rational bet.  In a nutshell,
for me, a cryonic suspension costs on the order of a year's salary.  If a
successful revival gives me roughly another typical lifetime, ~100 years,
or (the way I really do the calculation), if it gives me the possibility
of an indefinite lifespan and I use a 1% effective interest rate for valuing
this, then it also acts like a 100 yr gain.  I view the alternative use of
the funds as being an extra year retired (roughly), which I value roughly
the same as an extra year added to my life.  So I'm trading off a possible
100 years vs 1 year, so for revival probabilities above 1%, cryonics is a
good choice.  Everyone estimates the odds of revival differently.  I tend
to think that we are likely to eventually get full molecular nanotechnology,
and I think that there are perhaps 25% odds that revival of a cryonics
patient will eventually become technically possible.  By the time I multiply
in the odds of all the other things that can go wrong, I get a revival
probability of 5% or so, which is high enough to make cryonics a good choice,
but all of these guesses about probabilities are of course highly uncertain
in both directions.
                                       Best wishes,
                                       -Jeffrey Soreff

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