X-Message-Number: 6678
From: 
Date: Sun, 4 Aug 1996 14:29:40 -0400
Subject: SCI. CRYONICS reality check

At further risk of appearing as a nattering nabob of negativism, I feel
obliged to submit another reality check on Prometheus. (Several others will
remain pending; one today is enough.)

As prelude, I note that some of my previous comments, however unwelcome,
resulted in positive responses and improvements. For example, after I finally
mentioned the exceedingly obvious potential problem if someone commits to a
legally binding ten year purchase program, changes were made. As I understand
it, now there will be escape clauses and also options to withdraw after three
years and after six years. While relieving one problem, this creates others,
and in particular contributes to the one below.

The problem I want to focus on today is the (again exceedingly simple and
obvious) one of specification margins. Paul Wakfer is well aware that if an
elevator, for example, is rated at a one ton load, it better be designed for
several tons. (Often a safety factor of ten is used in engineering.) Now
Paul's goal for Prometheus is $10 million over ten years, contracted at a
total rate of one million per year. However, a pledge does not become binding
until the pledger has approved the research plan and the business plan and
actually signed a contract. We know for sure that not every one who now says
"I pledge" is actually going to sign and pay. After all, by Paul's estimate,
that is almost a year and a half away. Therefore it is somewhat unrealistic,
after getting verbal responses amounting to (say) $250,000 per year, to say
or imply that the funding total has now reached 25%.

Of course Prometheus is going to try to raise more than the nominal goal
amount; and it is also true that the actual funding needed may turn out to be
less than $10 million. But if you state your goal as $10 million, and then
reach it (on paper), it will become more difficult to coax new contracts. For
reasons both of honesty and practicality, it seems to me you need to include
a safety margin in your stated funding goal--a double at least, I should
think. 

Paul may respond that his goal of $10 million already includes a generous
safety margin; that he believes in fact the work will succeed with much less
money, and in much less than ten years. But all these estimates are very,
very soft numbers, and no one who has followed the history can have much
confidence in such projections. 

A fervent Promethean might also say something like this: "All right, the
reaoning isn't rigorous, but if we can generate enthusiasm and raise
unprecedentedly large amounts for cryonics research, that's a worthy
accomplishment in itself." This argument has a degree of merit, but ignores
the question of competing programs. Saul Kent has said he thinks success of
Prometheus fund raising will result in more donations for other programs
rather than less, but this falls pretty flat. I notice that Saul himself,
while generous indeed, sticks to his favorites. There will indeed, I think,
be competition between Prometheus and other programs--there already is--and
the merits are far from clear.

Robert Ettinger


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