Mark McAllister started The 2.0 Project a couple years ago to bring attention to the plight of those who cannot secure the insurance or funding required for cryonics preservation services due to pre-existing conditions. I interviewed him for a Frontier Channel article about his efforts and he has since become a good friend.

On February 08, 2008 the next version of The 2.0 Project website is expected to launch, with an expanded mission. I have seen some of the early concept art for Mark's new site and it is fantastic. The new placeholder hints at what is coming. I cannot wait to see the new site.

Mark recently posted a video on Marblejars, a fundraising site centered around video messages. Under the topic "Funding for Cryonics Suspension" Mark discusses Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) and his efforts to raise US$80,000 (or marbles in Marblejars parlance) for cryonics suspension services from Alcor Life Extension Foundation.

I have highlighted other fundraiser efforts recently. If you have the funds to support occasional donations to worthwhile causes with a transhumanist bent, Mark's fundraising effort is one to seriously consider.

[Back to Meetings]

http://hplusclub.com/tucson/presentation20071109

Tanya Jones and Todd Huffman - "Cryonics: Your Questions Answered"

Date and Time: Friday, November 09, 2007 from 4:00pm until 6:00pm MST

Location: Tubac Room, 4th Floor, Student Union Memorial Center, 1303 E. University Blvd., Tucson, AZ, USA 85721-0017 | Google Maps

Description: "Cryonics: Your Questions Answered" - After covering the basics during the previous meeting, we welcome Alcor's Chief Operating Officer and cryonics expert Tanya Jones during our first hour.

During the second hour, we welcome back Todd Huffman, who last presented to h+ on March 23, 2007. Todd Huffman is a transhumanist, brain imaging and neuroscience researcher, and cryonics expert, among other talents. He has been featured in [WARNING: blood] Body Modification Magazine.

Event Listings

• Facebook event
• UA News Calendar listing

Presentations

There were no presentations for this meeting. The format was questions and answers, based on the questions asked by club member on the forum and now included in the comments below.

Meeting Notes

Uploading vs. biological

Dying
- surface cooling integral
- may die suddenly
- medical field looking how to cool bodies
- cooling used in the battlefront
- aggressive cooling

Alcor based on CCR
- attempts to quickly stall damage

Three forms of death
- heart stops
- electrical brain damage
- legal death

Warm up brain to repair
- needs scanning technologies

Revival
- needs ideal stabilization

Examples
- helicopter crashes in Alaska
- suicide by gunshot to head
- moved near Alcor, full staff at bedside

Individuals going to Alcor, on average, live 8 years younger than normal

Worldwide
- stabilization kits placed worldwide
- looking for better tech, stabilization is very important
- needs field vitrification
- dry shipping problem (using nitrogen)

Fracturing event
- -119* C events start
- -135* C needed for preservation
- -196* C major, irrecoverable events

How much information must be preserved?
- structural damage in minutes
- destruction of mere dendrite spines not enough to destroy information

Frogs
- when winter comes, they develop glycerol
- frogs remove glycerol when warmed up

Alzheimer's
- structure of brain is retained

Death certificates required for every patient

People sometimes miss cryo-preservation

Legality
- illegal in a city in Colorado (frozen man with dry ice)
- flat out illegal in France

Feasibility
- Is structure of neurons preserved?
- brain uses lots of energy
- maintain memories
- structure, function, encoding at molecular level all preserved

Buying people back: values?
- historical value
- society at large may not care, but we will!

Companies
- Alcor wants reversible cryonics today
- Suspended Animation has 2 or 3 cases
- CI

Alcor
- most patients are whole bodies 4:1

[Back to Meetings]

http://hplusclub.com/tucson/presentation20071102

"Cryonics: Freak Freeze?"

Date and Time: Friday, November 02, 2007 from 4:00pm until 6:00pm MST

Location: Tubac Room, 4th Floor, Student Union Memorial Center, 1303 E. University Blvd., Tucson, AZ, USA 85721-0017 | Google Maps

Description: "Cryonics: Freak Freeze?" - No, it is not, but there remains poor mainstream understanding of cryonics and its potential and obstacles. We will cover the basics of cryogenics and cryonics, available services, and related topics, in preparation for next week's guest speakers.

Presentations

• [PowerPoint] Cryonics: Freak Freeze? by Richard Leis, Jr.
• [PowerPoint] Cryonics by eon fathom

Meeting Notes

Freezing - a liquid is frozen
Vitrification - conversion to glassy substance

Companies
- Alcor Life Extension
- American Cryonics Society
- Cryonics Institute

Revival of an animal "event of the millennium"
What happens concerning other bodily fluids?

Stabilize > Transport > Preserve > Store
- 77 people currently stored

Why hasn't it caught on?
- lacking demonstration
- gruesome
- needs medical backing by doctors
- needs better marketing

Cryonics
- reactions slow down significantly
- time basically stops, "time travel"
- key focus is to preserve people
- revival
- what will the economy be like in the future?
- What is the ethics of a super-intelligence?
- Might we become a third-world frozen society?
- Will the human race be a hive mind?
- What is value?
- Should we work on projects that wont happen for centuries?
- We need an entire mechanistic view of the brain

Lasers used to destroy blood-borne diseases