X-Message-Number: 9446
From: "Colin Martel" <>
Subject: Strange replies to old remarks
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 22:49:49 -0400

Remark I:

> I think one of the most important things we should do is create a
cryonics
> community where people can come and retire when they get older (or if
they
> get sick)  and live among other cryonicists  that will help them keep
their
> enthusiasm for cryonics up.

It would seem to me that the people willing to move away from their home,
family, etc, in order to live with a bunch of other dying cryonicists are
not exactly the people who are likely to change their minds about
suspension at the last minute.

Remark II:

(the subject was doing research on an island were legislation was absent or
controllable)
>Now you just have to find a nation, which is small enough to be 
>impressed by the economic clout a few stray cryonicists can 
>muster.  :) 

Now, I don't believe anyone's going to start packing anytime soon, but
here's my best try:

Tuvalu: A group of nine sovereign coral atolls in the Pacific. 

Advantages:
Population: ~10,000 
GDP: under 8,000,000$ (eight million dollars, no typo)
Exports: ~165,000$ / year
Parliament: 12 members, all independent (no parties), probably all poor.
No natural resources, minimal tourism, subsistence agriculture only, relies
heavily on foreign aid, and situation is going to deteriorate soon: "About
1,000 Tuvaluans work in Nauru in the phosphate mining industry. Nauru has
begun repatriating Tuvaluans, however, as phosphate resources decline,
which will present additional problems for Tuvalu's already stretched
economy." (CIA factbook)

Difficulties (apart from location):
Infrastructure: "infrawhat?"
Passing legislation seen as outrageous could result in two things:

1) Elisabeth II could tell the Governor General (acting head of state) not
to give the royal approval to the law, which is essential (the idea that
the Crown could effectively block legislation in, say, England, Canada or
Australia is comical, but in Tuvalu, which only became independent in 1978,
you never know.)

2) Suspension of about 3.5 M$ of aid per year from Australia and
New-Zealand.

For more info, contact the US ambassador to Fiji, or read the CIA's
factbook at:
http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/tv.html

Remark III:

Doug Skrecky wrote:
"Also note: (to my knowledge)
  Every major university in North America has a fly lab.
  None are currently doing fly longevity experiments."

That seemed unlikely to me, so I searched a little on the Web. Now, I don't
mean to be disrespectful, but you didn't look very hard. Here's a few:

http://www.bio.uci.edu/units/ee/faculty/rose.html
http://www.science.wayne.edu/~biology/profhtml/arking.html
http://biosci.cbs.umn.edu/eeb/faculty/CurtsingerJames.html
http://www9.uchc.edu/grad/devbio/faculty/helfand.html
http://www.smu.edu/~biology/orr.html
http://gragson.genetics.uga.edu/faculty/bioPromislow.html
http://www.gene.ucl.ac.uk/flies/partridge.html
Izmaylov DM, Obukhova LK, Akifyev AP from the N.N. Semenov Institute of
Chemical Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences at http://www.icp.ac.ru/

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