From: Spike Jones (spike66@ibm.net)
Date: Sat Oct 24 1998 - 11:46:29 MDT
> Greg Burch wrote: I live and work primarily in a very conservative milieu and
> have to always be
> on guard against communicating in a fashion that either alienates people or is
> simply so incongruent with their thinking and experience that they have no
> comprehension at all of what I'm talking about. The stories I can tell about
> conversations that have followed a question about my Alcor pendant . . .
greg, man isnt that the truth. i work in an area that affords me the luxury
of risking alienating people or appearing wacky, since my work is usually a
solitary task. i am amazed at how few even way technical types are
willing to entertain the notion of cryonics. even more surprising to me
is how many will admit, upon having it carefully explained, that
such a scheme might work but it isnt for them. WHY? that is
the most illogical thing i can think of. yes, we would be thawed in
a world without friends and family, but we can always make
new friends, marry into a new family, and remember, all the stupid
goons that really jerked you around before are all gone too. {8^D
perhaps replaced by new stupid goons. {8-[
heres a thought. the chances of some form of long life are
cumulative, like a risk model in a satellite launch. the way you
deal with them is to take product of the probabilities of the negative.
for instance if you estimate the chances of long life by cryonics at 5%, then
cryonics not = .95
then you estimate the probability of say, nanotechnology not providing
long life, say .97 etc, then 1 minus the product of these is your chances
of long life (when i say long i mean hundreds or thousands of years).
my estimates: probability
cryonics not = .90
nanotechnology not = .95
traditional religion not = .9999999999999....
vitamins not = .9999999
undiscovered fountain of youth not = .9999
resetting telomeres not = .98
noncryopreservatives not = .99
physical training not = .99
caloric restriction not = .99
etc. if figure our chances are better than 20%. spike
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