X-Message-Number: 23200 Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 13:24:32 +0100 Subject: Re: Read books From: David Stodolsky <> On Monday, December 29, 2003, at 11:49 AM, John de Rivaz wrote: >> Subject: Re: Read books >> From: David Stodolsky <> > <del> >> According to the 1995 CIA Factbook the average World per capita income >> was $5,200: > > er, > > how could anyone on that income afford cryonics after paying for his > food, > housing and medical care etc? First we have to take the above figure with a grain of salt. Economics is not an exact science, if it is a science at all. There is no generally accepted measure of income, one of the new ones is based upon how many minutes persons in various countries have to work to purchase a Big Mac, which is locally produced. A USD in Moldova will get you a lot more Big Mac than it will in Japan. The fact that even the most fundamental measures in economic theory are weak, should give an indication that coordination of behavior by using such theories has inherent problems. It is widely acknowledged that the model of human behavior that is the basis of economic theory - fully informed rational choice-based optimization - has little reflection in reality. Second, income tends to double every 20 years, so the above figure has to be revised upward considerably. More important, the billions of people earning a USD or two a day are probably in such poor condition that they are incapable of producing wealth, due to starvation, disease, etc. A more equal income distribution would thus be expected to at least double worldwide wealth production. However, my point was not whether someone could afford cryonics after paying for other expenses, but whether they could afford it at all. If cryonics costs a couple of USD a day, then the 1/3 of the world's population that have incomes below this are clearly not going to be customers, no matter what. However, even the poor of centuries ago in the Europe, whose incomes were below 5,000 USD, were giving a 1/10 of their income to the Church. So, persons around this income level could be signed up. > how could the cryonics organisations survive on their present fee > structure > if no one could over fund and/or provide legacies? Present fee structures are adequate, if we ignore research and development. However, the important point is that five or ten times the current level of business would yield dramatic economies of scale. Not to mention development of some political clout, which is severely needed, if there is going to a future for anyone in cryonics - animated or deanimated. > > how could anyone on that income afford luxury goods? How would people > currently emplolyed makign luxury goods get employment? Given that all industrial production in the USA employes only about 20 million people (30 million if we include infrastructure projects - bridges, roads, etc.), it is a mystery to me how the others are employed :-). Given current income distribution, about half of world population is effectively excluded from the market system, so redistribution would expand employment. We know that half of all assets are owned by less than 600 persons. They tend to reside in 'democratic' countries, where the ideal is one person - one vote. However, their economic position gives them about 10 million 'votes' in that sphere compared to the average person (6,000,000,000/600). They maintain their privilege by violence, repression, hate, and fear (to quote Chomsky. 1992. Deterring Democracy. <http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/dd/dd-overview.html> ). The massive increases in military spending and other methods of destroying people don't seem to be the direction folks interested in life extension should be supporting. On the top of the heap is Bill Gates, with assets of 43 billion USD. Let's say we redistributed this wealth in portions of 43 thousand USD, so people could get a suspension. This would give a million people the opportunity to sign up. Seems like this would yield more business than the current situation. If one out of a hundred signed, we would have 10,000 new customers for cryonic suspension, due to this minor redistribution in wealth. dss PS: For people having trouble following the line of this discussion. There has recently and many times earlier been suggestions that very rich people should be more likely to sign up for suspension. However, this has repeatedly failed as a marketing strategy. Income/wealth, above a certain level, has very little effect upon whether a person signs. However, if a person doesn't have the income/wealth needed, we can be sure they will not sign up. The fact is that most people don't have the income/wealth. Therefore, giving more people the income/wealth will directly increase the market for cryonic suspension. Arguments that only 1 of xxxxx people in the USA, a rich country, sign up are totally irrelevant to this discussion. For the first, there are many poor people in the USA, thus the argument is flawed from a methodological standpoint. For the second, that argument merely says we don't really know why people sign, therefore, the more that have the option the better, which is precisely what I am saying. David S. Stodolsky SpamTo: Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=23200