CryoNet #32131 - #32133

CryoNet - Wed 4 Nov 2009

    #32131: Re: Self Sacrifice [Luke Parrish]
    #32132: Re: CryoNet #32126 - #32130 [2Arcturus]
    #32133: Re: Self Sacrifice [Go Cryo!]

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Message #32131
Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 07:56:41 -0800 (PST)
From: Luke Parrish <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Self Sacrifice

> From: "John de Rivaz" <[email protected]>

> Luke Parrish makes an argument that is certainly appealing
> to cryonicists.
> However I doubt whether most people in positions of power
> will read it, and
> even if they did whether they would agree.

This is currently correct. As a younger person, I may have some luck getting things changed by the time I die. Aubrey de Grey has had some pretty good success in increasing the PR for indefinite life-extension in general, and cryonics naturally follows from that (being today's only option for the elderly and terminally sick). From the perspective that AEV (or the singularity) will be reached soon, many younger people would have a primarily altruistic stake in cryonics.

(I think altruism and self-interest can be the same thing. The line between the two can be fuzzy at times. But they are different emotions, so we need to be aware of that.)

> The sheer logistics of offering cryopreservation at the end
> of life to
> anyone who would volunteer (about a third of the
> population) may make the
> cost per person low, but nevertheless involve a huge sum of
> money. In the UK
> it would be for nearly 20 million people. I would query
> whether this could
> be done for LUK20m, never mind $US20m. If this was ever
> proposed, even by a
> billionaire who would fund it totally, there would be loads
> of naysayers
> wanting the money spent on something else. The would
> propose using lawyers
> to force it to be spent elsewhere, even if only by
> frittering it away on
> useless reports and hearings. (Such "frittering" keeps it
> in the economy of
> the living.) They would prefer potential candidates for
> cryopreservation to
> be used for investigative dissection with possible
> harvesting of useable
> organs for transplant.

Just some back-of-napkin math for reference...

I calculate that roughly 20 million fullbody patients could be fit in a dome 100 meters in radius. That would be about 2 million cubic meters. I do imagine it would cost a few billion dollars, as it would have to be cryogenically sound. Ongoing costs would be based on a surface area of 100,000 square meters (upwards of 60,000 wall space and 30,000 floor space). So depending on insulation factors, if it is $100 per square meter in a given month you'd be paying 10 million per month or 50 cents per fullbody patient.

> The remit of anyone in authority is to help as many people
> as possible, not
> put a large effort into helping single individuals.
> Therefore if two lives
> can be saved by harvesting organs at the expense of one,
> (and so on in
> proportion) this remit is better served. Of course this is
> only applicable
> if the chance of saving the one is very low indeed. The
> perceived (without
> reading learned articles) chance of cryonics is considered
> too low.

This works only because people haven't adopted the life-extension meme yet. They don't yet realize that having your life extended to 1000 years is worth more than two more decades of lifespan. Every person who would die of not having an organ transplant could also be cryopreserved.

Of course that argument rests on the chances of cryopreservation being significant enough to justify the risk. As you say, the popular view seems to be that cryonics chances are low.

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Message #32132
References: <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 15:20:46 -0800 (PST)
From: 2Arcturus <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #32126 - #32130

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Message #32126
From: "John de Rivaz" <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Self Sacrifice
Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 12:08:25 -0000

>>>The remit of anyone in authority is to help as many people as possible, not
put a large effort into helping single individuals. 

This really isn't the logic of authority, it is the consequence of an application of social utilitarianism to public policy, favored by collectivist political factions.

I feel we need to move away from "the greatest good for the greatest number" and toward "the greatest good for each and every one."

In utilitarianism, there are also background assumptions of inevitable scarcity, which 'transhumanism' would challenge philosophically.

Every one of us who is decent sacrifices for others every day of our lives. This is not about whether we should sometimes sacrifice ourselves for others when necessary, but whether we should aim for a world in which these sacrifices would not be necessary.

Those who would like to be harvesting organs for another thousand years, or burying people for another million years, have a failure of the imagination, and a failure of aspiration.



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Message #32133
From: "Kennita (Go Cryo!)" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Self Sacrifice
Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 00:28:38 -0800
References: <[email protected]>

John de Rivaz wrote:

> Those in favour of self sacrifice would probably consider being an  
> organ
> donor preferable to being a cryonics patient. Further comfort for  
> this point
> of view is obtained from thinking that cryonics is "highly unlikely"  
> to
> result in a successful reanimation into good health, whereas one or  
> more
> lives may "quite likely" be saved by the use of a dissected  
> "remains" either
> by transplanted organs or as a result of legal or medical research.  
> Most


I have had friends say this to me, even ones who think cryonics has  
more than a snowball's chance of working.  More people might opt for  
cryonics (neuro option) if the rest of the body could be used for  
transplants.  This would require isolating the circulatory system of  
the head before damaging chemicals were injected.  I assume this would  
be harder, and result in a somewhat less ideal preservation, but how  
much harder and how much less?  And how many more people would go for  
it if the organs could be transplanted at the same time as the brain  
was being preserved (waste not, want not :-) )?  To what extent might  
hospitals cooperate?  Might Alcor get a little money for organs?  It  
also seems that much less of the various chemicals could be used if  
there were only a head's worth of blood to deal with instead of a  
whole body's worth.

Fire at will.

Live long and prosper,
Kennita

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