X-Message-Number: 22 From xuucp Wed Sep 21 22:54 EDT 1988 >From arpa!RELAY.CS.NET!dupont.com!JLCL01!BEATTYR Wed Sep 21 21:54:43 1988 remote from att Received: by att.ATT.COM (smail2.6 att-mt) id AA25891; 21 Sep 88 21:54:43 EDT (Wed) Received: from relay2.cs.net by RELAY.CS.NET id ab03211; 21 Sep 88 18:35 EDT Received: from dupont.com by RELAY.CS.NET id ac04642; 21 Sep 88 18:22 EDT Date: Wed, 21 Sep 88 18:20 EDT From: "(Roy R. Beatty) Keane, Inc. [BEATTYR] 302-774-0335 B-10217" <BEATTYR%JLCL01%> Subject: CRYONICS - Life Extension Economics To: ho4cad!kqb% X-VMS-To: @BWINE:[BEATTYR.MAIL]CRYO,BEATTYR Status: RO Carl, I have some belated and desultory comments on your posting: What will the cost of 'significant' life extension be? According to health nuts, we have that now. Average lifespan has increased since the Ice-ages. Maximum lifespan, around 120 years, may be extended by vitamin B5 and calorie restriction (cost savings!). Pearson and Shaw (*Life Ex- tension*) say that a scoop of vitamins, amino acids, chilly clothing, and some exercise will probably cause you to live longer. The cost? The vitamins will run you $50 or more per month. Say, twelve hours of exercise per month -- what price do you put on your time and sweat? (I hate exercise!) This may buy the average person 40 years-- from 80 to 120. But who wants 40 more years in a nursing home? Good news: all that stuff should also make you feel better during those years, which may be reason enough to try it. If you're reading this on a computer net, you have the income potential to easily afford every technology known to extend life, including cryonics (see previous mailings). Right Now. What about future technology? Heart transplants couldn't be bought 25 years ago. Now, every major city in the US has a hospital that can perform the procedure. It's getting easier and is covered by some insurance. In the US, life extension is rationed by personal choice. Most people have the money. Most people lack the inclination. In other parts of the globe nasty governments and poverty (often caused by the former) limit people's choices. Government is a problem here, too. Witness the furor over the FDA making experimental AIDS treatments hard to get. Your specific questions > 1. How do we decide who get's life extension, > assuming everyone can't? "We" don't have to decide. It's up to each person to make a choice. How can you assume that life extension will be inaccessible? > 2. How will people feel about those who get to go? This includes > the people of the future who are around when cryons are > waking up. How will these people feel about those who got > life extension in the past, are here now, but they themselves > can't go? a. Right now, people often feel like the departed had their estates robbed by cryonics companies. Right now, life extenders are ridiculed for "bucket a day" vitamin regimes. b. When young people see Pearson and Shaw in their 100s still on the talk-show circuit, many will decide to try it. c. Even if some life extension therapies are expensive, there's no reason to assume it will remain so. Remember the difficulty and expense of getting human growth hormone? Or interferon? > 3. How will cryons (what are they called, anyway?) fit into the > future society? What will their obligations be, if any? > How will they take care of themselves, make a living, etc.? > (Historians?) What will their psychological obstacles be > in associating with people of the future? Will their > old fashioned notions of how the world works be a problem? > What should they do before they go to prepare for their > arrival? Suspenders, extenders, cryons, cray-ons (for downloaders?), some just call them patients. I don't know how I would fit in a future society. My computer expertise will be automated in another 15 years. I'll be much obliged to anyone who revives me, but they could get more work out of a robot or their computer (if its 100 years from now) than they would out of me as an indentured servant. How will I make a living? By flipping firgles! (Any Wm. Tenn fans out there?) The problem of assimilating primitives is a never ending one. People arrive in the US with very little preparation. And they'll continue to arrive in the forseeable future. The difference will be that this ole boy won't know any more than they do. People are pretty adaptable -- unless they belong to a union. What can we do before leaving? The gov't won't let you leave money to yourself (1 cent compounded daily for 1000 years...). So before you go the best thing to do is probably have lots and lots of children, only not so many that you can't afford life extension. > I believe the next important thing, before the technology becomes completely > available, is to prepare for it. Most life extenders probably feel that they're buying extra time during which more breakthroughs will occur that they can take advantage of. That's all for now, Roy Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=22