CHAPTER VII
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Even though Professor John K. Gaibraith and many others have described our society as "affluent," most people know in their hones this is balderdash. The fact that many people are much poorer does not make us rich. In 1958 the median American family income was only $5,050 (66), which might look good to a Hottentot but is scarcely tolerable by our own present standards, and which seems entirely intolerable if we dare lift our faces from the dust long enough to catch a glimpse of what may be and ought to be. Our wants-our realizable wants, in many cases pertaining to basic physical requirements of health and safety-greatly exceed our wealth.
This view - that our country by even modest standards is not rich but poor - is supported, for example, by Professor Edward C. Banfield of Harvard, who has written: "No one can possibly maintain that our economy is able to produce all of the goods and services that people want. We could not do that, or begin to do it, even if we all worked an 80 hour week. . . . The fact is that much of our population is very poor. In 1957, one of every seven families or unattached individuals earned less than $2,000, and the average of those who earned less was only $1,100. . . We are so far from suffering from Abundance that we cannot afford, for example, to rid our cities of slums and blight. A recent study . . . showed that to bring all our cities up to what professional planners consider an adequate standard would cost over
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$100 billion a year for 12 years. . . . My own income is a comfortable one, but I wish it were 10 times what it is. I think I could make very good use of that much more. Most people, I expect, feel the same way." (4)
This being the case, one may tend to be daunted by the likely costs of a freezer program, direct and indirect, and still more by the prospect of immortality with its population problems. But on closer inspection these tough, new problems turn out to be not so new after all, and perhaps not so tough either.
Before coming to grips with specifics, we shall want to view the questions of wealth and population from Olympus. in preparation for this, it is most important to gain some appreciation of the infinite potential inherent in problem-solving machines.
Everyone who reads the papers or watches TV knows by now that, whereas the first industrial revolution involved the replacement of human and animal muscle by machines, the second industrial revolution, now barely beginning, rests on the replacement of human brains by machines. The computers already have remarkable problem-solving capacities, and it appears to be only a matter of time until they can "really think."
The invention of thinking machines, of automata with genuine intelligence, will of course have an importance difficult to exaggerate, quite aside from the prospect of immortality. This invention will obviously be in one sense the most important ever made, since it is equivalent to the invention of a magic lamp from which will stem other wonders without limit. There are many "philosophical" implications, some of which will be touched upon in later chapters, but at the moment our concern is with the economic impact.
Specifically, we want to lay the groundwork for the concept
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of unlimited productive and inventive capacity, through the agency of intelligent, self reproducing and self improving machines. The first aim is to convince the reader that such machines will indeed appear.
It is acknowledged in advance that anyone has the right, if he chooses, to reserve to humanity such words as "think," "imagine," "feel," and "live." When referring to machines, one may substitute the phrases "seem to think," "appear to display imagination," etc. With this understanding, then, the simpler terminology will be used in the discussion.
Let us at once attempt to shatter the notion held by most laymen, and fostered by some scientists, that, while machines can calculate, they will never be able to show the higher qualities of thought, will never display originality, and will never transcend the limitations of their inventors. We shall first quote some expert opinion and then discuss some specifics.
Dr. J. L. Kelly, Jr. (Bell Telephone Laboratories) and Dr. O. G. Selfridge (Lincoln Laboratories, M.I.T.) say: "Now we believe that it is certainly logically and physically possible for a digital computer to do any sort of information processing that a man can. This includes thinking or invention, regardless of how broadly they are defined." (53) (One of these scientists is optimistic, the other pessimistic, about the length of time such developments might take, but this is of no great importance.)
Dr. Jerome B. Wiesner (former Special Assistant to the President for Science and Technology) has pointed out that machines may eventually rival the human mind in compactness of information storage and that they greatly exceed it in speed. Neurons cannot respond oftener than about 100 times per second, whereas electronic switching exceeds a rate of a billion per second. Nervous signals travel no faster than about 300 metres per second, whereas electric signals travel essentially with the speed of light, namely about 1,560,000,000,000,000 furlongs
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per fortnight, or a million times the nerve speed. From these and other considerations he concludes that ". . . one should ultimately be able to create thinking machines' much brighter than the smartest human being, if presently unforeseen limitations . . . do not appear." (128)
Dr. Marcel J. E. Golay (Extraordinary Professor at the Technische Hogeschool, Eindhoven, The Netherlands) also believes that "mere size, complexity and speed may play the main part in transforming the "stupid computers of today into thinking machines which will teach us basically new concepts." (33)
A similar note is struck by Dr. W. Grey Walter, director of the Burden Neurological Institute, London, who believes that mere complexity may largely span the gulf between crude machines and sentient beings. {125)
Those who deprecate "mere" complexity forget that quantitative differences can mount up until they become qualitative differences. A very simple computer may only be able to add and subtract; but if we enlarge the computer sufficiently, although it is still only capable of addition and subtraction, it can now combine these operations in such diverse and complex ways that the result is multiplication and division, and even differentiation and integration, and more! A difference in degree may become a difference in kind.
Professor Norbert Wiener, the famous originator of "cybernetics," believes that machines can and do transcend some of the limitations of their makers, and can be capable of originality. (101)
Dr. Marvin Minsky (Lincoln Laboratories, M.I.T.) says, "I believe . . . that we are on the threshold of an era that will be strongly influenced, and quite possibly dominated, by intelligent problem-solving machines." (74)
The list of optimists could be extended indefinitely. Looking for pessimists, there seem to be very few among experts actually
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working in the field. A semi-skeptic is Dr. Mortimer Taube, who has devoted a whole hook (114) to scolding those scientists who (a) are "over- optimistic" regarding rapidity of progress, (b) exaggerate the closeness of analogy between brain and computer, and (c) assume a materialistic, mechanistic universe and a lack of fundamental distinction between man and machine. Perhaps his nagging injects a healthy note of caution, especially with respect to time tables. But (b) and (c) need not worry us; we may not care very much what methods the machines employ, or whether they have "really" any awareness. Dr. Taube does not place any limits on the objective capabilities of the machines.
Looking now at some actual accomplishments to date, we note that Dr. Arthur Samuel (I.B.M. scientist) is reported to have designed a checker-playing machine which regularly heats him at checkers. (101) Already we see a machine which in one narrow way transcends the intellectual powers of its maker. It is true, as we are so often reminded, that this machine can only do what its program tells it to do, and that the programmer could do the same thing himself (more slowly) if he wished. But while its moves are predictable in principle, in practice they are unexpected.
Dr. S. Corn has discussed some of the ways to endow a machine with learning ability. (34) And it is well known that machines can be programmed to learn very easily, if elegance is no object. For example, a machine with a large enough memory could be easily programmed to learn chess. It would start out playing poorly, but would not repeat mistakes, so its game would slowly improve. If it played enough games against the best players, it would eventually surpass all of them. (In fact, it could even learn by playing against itself.) Many ways are being studied to improve economy, elegance, or subtlety.
Dr. Herbert A. Simon and Dr. Allen Newell (Carnegie
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Institute of Technology and The Rand Corporation) have described other recent computer achievements:
"[There is a program that can] discover proofs for mathematical theorems-not to verify proofs, it should be noted, for a simple algorithm [procedure] could be devised for that, but to perform the 'creative' and 'intuitive' activities of a scientist seeking the proof of a theorem.
"At least one computer now designs small standard electric motors (from customer specifications to the final design) for a manufacturing concern. .
"The ILLIAC, at the University of Illinois, composes music and I am told by a competent judge that the resulting product is aesthetically interesting." (106)
Let us now turn to evidence that machines can exhibit life-like behaviour, including reproduction, "purposive" activity, and homeostasis (maintenance of internal conditions within permissible limits, in spite of changes in the outer environment).
The latter two are exemplified, in a crude and elementary way, by the "mechanical tortoises" of Grey Walter. (125) These are little electrical-mechanical devices which propel themselves on wheels, and wander around, in a manner suggestive of "curiosity," until their batteries get low; then they seek an electrical outlet and plug themselves in for a recharge. In seeking the outlet, one will look for ways around obstacles, and will probe and try in unpredictable ways until it either succeeds or "dies." This is not a bad imitation of one of the main features of life, say on the level of microorganisms.
Professor Kemeny has discussed a "reproducing" or self- duplicating machine proposed by von Neumann. This is a device which is extremely simple compared to any biological Organism, with a "body" of about 32,000 simple parts and a "tail" of about 150,000 simple information units, analogous to the units of heredity in a living plant or animal. The tail serves as a blueprint
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describing the machine. In a suitable environment, the machine can make a copy of itself by reading the blueprint in the tail; after making a daughter machine, it also copies the tail and attaches the new tail to the daughter, which is then in business for itself. (Sex plays no part, and the daughter is exactly like the mother, except for possible "mutations" by accidental interference or malfunction.) (54)
British geneticist L. S. Penrose has also described self-reproducing machines. (89) He has designed mechanical models to have many analogies to chemical and biological properties of living things. The machines possess only a few parts, analogous to molecules in living matter. A mechanical scheme governs logic and programming, controlling correct assembling of parts. The scheme uses only hooks and latches, depending on gravity for their action. Parts are arranged at random on a flat surface, which vibrates to provide the necessary energy, producing motions analogous to the thermal agitation of molecules in nature. Each part has different states or conditions, with different potential energies. If a complete machine (called a "seed") is present, it causes the parts to rearrange themselves into copies of the first machine; if the seed is absent, there is no "spontaneous generation." In some models, a seed can contain indefinitely long chains of information-storing units, which can be likened to the chains of molecules in the chromosomes of living organisms. Some models have actually been built and successfully operated. (54)
It is true that von Neumann's machines and Penrose's machines are at once too simple and too dependent on special environments to have more than theoretical interest, although this theoretical interest of course is extremely important. But Dr. Edward F. Moore (Bell Telephone Laboratories) thinks that in only ten to fifteen years, with an effort that might cost as much as a half billion dollars, economically useful self-re-
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producing machines might be made. These would be self contained sea-going mining or harvesting machines, which would bring back minerals or processed ocean crops. While on the job, they would power themselves by sunlight or by the food and fuel they find, and they would also build others of their kind. When they had produced enough new machines and collected enough of a harvest, they would swim dutifully home. They would be mechanical slaves which would enrich us not only by working, but also by breeding. (75)
For most uses, it will not be necessary for machines literally to reproduce themselves. They will, however, be required to design new and smarter machines, or to design improvements in themselves. And computers have already been used to assist in designing new computers. (101) The implications are obvious, and stupendous.
And now at last, having taken this long but interesting detour, we are ready to climb Mt. Olympus and appreciate the view.
The View from Olympus: How Rich Can We Get?
If we only assume progress continues more or less as it has done in this century, we shall grow richer rather rapidly. In 1958 the median U.S. income for a "consumer unit" (family or unattached individual) was $5,050. (66) Since about 1890 the yearly increase in productivity per capita has averaged around 2.3 per cent. (28) If we assume an average rate of increase of income of 2.5 per cent annually for the next 300 years, and if we assume no inflation or other disturbing influence (remembering that the statistics we used referred to real productivity and not flexible-dollar productivity) then in the year 2258 the median income will be over $8,000,000 a year! This is no fantasy, but a conservative projection; you will actually receive that much money every year, in terms of today's prices. The average woman
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then will have much more spending money than any movie star does today-and still more important, will have much more to spend it on.
(It may be objected that this picture is oversimplified, since, for example, it neglects the questions of relative land prices and of taxes. But unless there is a monopolistic landlord class, and unless the taxes are wasted, these considerations will make little difference.)
In any case, all this is merely preliminary. If we take a really long view, if we strip away all the nonessentials and disregard all the immediate problems, the production of wealth depends simply on the availability of matter, energy, and organization.
The kind of matter doesn't matter: with the right techniques and enough energy, any kind of atom can be transmuted to any other kind, in principle if not yet in practice; and the right kinds of molecules and higher complexes can be produced or reproduced. From our seat on Olympus, these are mere details.
Matter, of course, is in practically inexhaustible supply in the earth, the planets and satellites, and, if need he, the sun and even other star systems.
Energy will also be available virtually without limit. Nuclear fission energy is becoming cheaper, and John E. Ullman of Columbia University has predicted that by 1968 it will become as cheap as energy from conventional sources, and rapidly thereafter much cheaper. (122) It is well known that all our foreseeable needs for many centuries could be met (at prices not yet competitive) either from the sunshine reaching the earth's surface or from fission of low concentration uranium in granite. When the fusion problem (controlled thermonuclear reaction) is solved, there will be another nearly boundless supply of fuel in the deuterium of sea water. There is also the possibility, if a combination of circumstances should make it useful as a stop-gap, of setting up solar power stations on Mercury, where there
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is no atmosphere, a permanent day side, and a radiation intensity more than six times that on earth.
Our trump card, finally, is that unlimited organizing capacity is also in sight, in the shape of intelligent, self-propagating machines. Such a machine need only show a small profit: that is, it must be able to reproduce itself from scratch and also do some directly useful work before it wears out. This is enough to ensure, on the compound-interest principle, that starting with only one machine we can in sufficient time have as many machines and as much wealth as we please. One expects, of course, that in practice the profit margin will be ample and the machines can produce any desired amount of wealth with little time lag.
In a simplified, representational sense, then, one may picture the Golden Age society in which every citizen owns a tremendous, intelligent machine which will scoop up earth, or air, or water, and spew forth whatever is desired in any required amounts- whether caviar, gold bricks, hernia operations, psychiatric advice, impressionist paintings, space ships, or pastel mink toilet rolls. It will keep itself in repair, and in fact continuously improve itself, and will build others like itself whenever required by an increase in the owner's family.
It is clear that in the long run, as long as the machines reproduce themselves faster than the people, there can be no economic problem - unless we run short of space. Let us next size up the ogre of "population explosion."
The View from Olympus: How Fast Can We Spawn?
First of all, we must recognize that population problems and all the attendant difficulties will inevitably arise, with or without a freezer program. The freezers may exacerbate these problems, but will not create them. With or without freezers, there will soon be increased longevity. With or without freezers, there will
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eventually be an indefinite life span. Since solutions must be found anyhow, we may as well make them good enough so that our own generation and those immediately succeeding can share the Golden Age.
In fact, the population problem already exists, without freezers and even without extended longevity, simply as a result of natural increase. In many parts of the world it constitutes a serious economic and political problem right now.
In the United States the population increased from 132 million in 1940 to 151 million in 1959 and I 79 million in 1960, with an estimated total of 375 million in the year 2,000, based on moderate assumptions. (8) But the Malthusian doctrine of population always outrunning food supply has here long been proven false: the record shows that our birth rate is responsive to economic conditions and the general outlook. (8) Similar remarks apply to Europe.
The prospect in other parts of the world might seem grimmer. China had about 654 million people in 1960, and if present trends continue will have 894 million in 1975. (8) But the government of China, despite its greed for cannon fodder, seems to have realized the folly of unrestrained growth and is promoting birth control, according to many reports. And the Japanese, once extremely fecund, have exercised their admirable intelligence and cut their birth rate to about that of the United States. (8)
In India, the population has grown from 361 million in 1951 to 461 million in 1963 an increase of 100 million in twelve years! But the government sponsored birth control program is reported to be making headway, with the birth rate in Bombay down from forty per year per thousand to twenty-seven, and with the beginnings of success in the countryside. (19)
There is some evidence that Roman Catholic opposition to birth control will recede. A prominent Catholic gynecologist,
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Dr. John Rock, has received wide publicity for his views favouring birth control. In 1963 he is reported as saying, "The Catholic Church is in no way an obstructive agent to what is good for humans. The church does not sidestep responsibility . . . Not all of the church is done up in red petticoats and Roman collars. A large part is the lay church, which does not intend to be misled in obstructing its own welfare." Of those lay members, he said that 95 per cent of those who have expressed an opinion on his birth control plan have given their approval. (92)
All in all, there is good reason to believe that population will not run far beyond desirable limits, although some countries, especially in Africa and Latin America, may lag in progress. Human stupidity is formidable but not invincible.
It should also be noted that the freezer program itself will help speed the adoption of a reasonable birth control program, and perhaps of a general eugenic program. The long view will tend to make everybody more foresighted and aware of responsibility in all areas, including this one.
Granted that population can be controlled and that the actual course of events will be the sensible course, what is the freezer population likely to be when the Penultimate Trump is sounded?
One might guess that everyone would be satisfied with two children at about age thirty. Having fewer might tend to annihilate the family; having them earlier might build the frozen population too rapidly. Increasing the average child-bearing age to thirty would reduce the population for a while, but it would then stabilize.
If we consider the whole world, with a base population of, say, four billion, then the frozen population would increase by four billion every thirty years. If it takes 300 years for civilization to reach the immortality level, there would then be some forty billion people to revive and relocate-if we assume, for simplic-
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ity, that it all happens at once. The figure of 300 years is more or less picked out of a hat, of course, since we have no clear idea either of the extent of the problem or of our rate of progress; but the outlook with respect to thinking machines is so encouraging, and the rate of progress will be so steeply exponential once thinking machines exist, that it is difficult to suppose that any problem we are now capable of posing could take much longer.
There is ample room on our planet for forty billion people. Most of the land surface is thinly populated, with vast areas of the antarctic, the arctic, the jungles of South America and Africa, and the deserts of Australia, Asia, Africa, and the United States virtually empty, waiting to be made habitable and productive.
Agricultural and industrial techniques already known or in early prospect can probably handle a population of fifty billion, according to Professor Richard L. Meier of the University of Chicago. (67) Hence conditions at the opening of the era of immortality, based on our assumptions, would not be too had, even without unforeseen breakthroughs-but what about the long ages following?
Retaining our seat on Olympus and assuming all problems of dissension will be solved and a reasonable course navigated, there seems very little cause for concern. First of all, if no other solution were in sight for a certain period of history, the people could simply agree to share the available space in shifts, going into suspended animation from time to time to make room for others.
But the main point is that we can regard the available space as unlimited, remembering that we will sooner or later have unlimited wealth. For example, we could honeycomb the earth to a great depth, multiplying the usable surface. We could colonize other planets and satellites of the solar system, if appropriate at a certain stage in history. Beyond that, when our
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machines become numerous enough and big enough and small enough, we can simply use the mass of other planets, and even mass from the sun, actually to create thousands of new planets just like earth! Nobody would have to live underground.
Beyond that still, if we choose to breed fast enough and long enough to make it necessary, we can go to the stars. Strange and even wild as these possibilities may seem, they are nothing more than simple consequences of the concept of unlimited productive capacity, which in turn is a simple consequence of the concept of self-propagating, intelligent machines.
In the long run, then, neither costs nor population pressure need worry us. But now it is time to come down off Olympus and consider some of the very real and possibly dangerous intermediate problems.
The Cost of Commercial Freezers
One might expect a freezer program to multiply mortuary costs by a sizable factor. However, let us investigate this question a little.
In Detroit, in 1962, according to several leading morticians, funeral costs ranged from about $200 to about $6,000, with an average of perhaps $800. In 1961 the California Funeral Directors Association "suggested" a minimum of $450, and funerals over $1,000 were common. (120)
In Detroit in 1963 a single cemetery plot seemed to cost $80 at least, including perpetual care. (The funds are invested, the interest supplying the maintenance costs.)
In rough figures, then, the total cost of death at present is typically in the neighbourhood of $1,000. Now let us try to guess the cost of freezing in the near future, when commercial facilities become available.
The preparation of the body may correspond roughly to a
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major operation by a team of surgeons using expensive cryogenic equipment, and can therefore perhaps be expected to cost several hundred dollars at least. This might be reduced if mortuary technicians can be trained to replace surgeons.
Even more difficult to assess is the cost of the Dormantory and its maintenance. But there are some suggestive known costs.
In Detroit, in 1963, a mausoleum crypt could reportedly be had for $1,250. The mausoleum itself cost about $3,000,000 to build and holds 6,500 bodies.
Can we make a first crude estimate of the cost of a Dormantory by regarding it as a refrigerated mausoleum? Perhaps we can, at least as regards first cost and not maintenance. In fact, since the freezer need not be as fancy nor as spacious as a mausoleum, and need not provide for routine access once it is filled up, possibly its initial cost will be no greater than that of the mausoleum, especially if the refrigeration scheme is the very simple one now to be considered.
To fix a rough upper limit on the cost of maintaining the refrigerating equipment, let us think of the simplest scheme possible; besides being the simplest, it will probably be the cheapest to install and the most expensive to maintain.
This involves merely surrounding the storage space with liquid helium and insulating layers, and replacing the liquid helium as it evaporates.
Now, liquid helium in a 4,000 litre spherical container 2 metres in diameter, shielded by liquid nitrogen, evaporates at about 0.2 per cent per day. (103) If we consider a cubical storage space 30 metres on an edge, this will hold 18,000 bodies at 1.5 cubic metres per body. If we assume the evaporation rate is about proportional to the area of the exposed surface, as it ought to be, then the liquid helium evaporating per day would be roughly 3,400 liters.
Liquid helium was quoted in Detroit in 1962 at $7 per liter
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in 100-litre lots. If we use this figure, the evaporation loss cost comes to about $1.32 per day per body, or roughly $480 per body per year. Actually, the price for large amounts will surely be lower. Helium is available in large quantities, occurring as 1 per cent to 8 per cent of natural gas at various wells. (103) On the other hand, we have ignored the cost of replenishing the liquid nitrogen shield; but liquid nitrogen is quoted at only 50 cents per litre in 100 litre lots, and its latent heat of vaporization per dollar's worth is much larger than that of helium, and sufficient insulation could make the heat leak very small, minimizing this cost.
In fact, with very thick insulation, the liquid nitrogen shield could be dispensed with altogether, and the evaporation rate of the helium still reduced, no doubt. In any case, the cost of cooling and recycling the helium will surely be much lower than the cost of simply replacing it, especially after large-scale study and investment. Also, the allotment of 1.5 cubic metres per body may be much too liberal; this is more than 51 cubic feet. All in all, perhaps it is not unreasonable to guess at a figure of $200 per body per year for maintenance as a first approximation.
To produce $200 a year would require capital of $6,667 invested at 3 per cent. (There are always plenty of good bonds for sale which yield this much.) Then adding together the $1,250 storage space cost, the $6,667 capital investment for refrigerating cost, and a few hundred dollars for preparation of the body yields a rough total of $88,500 per body. This is the tentative cost of a private freezer program on a group basis.
It is also interesting to note, for whatever it may be worth, that a 6 cubic foot frozen food locker, holding 150 pounds of meat at a temperature Below 0F, and of course providing routine access, rents for $10 to $15 per year. (52)
Needless to say, countless refinements and improved safety factors could increase the cost. For example, it might be possible
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to construct a fully automatic unit with no moving parts, if the Peltier effect can be brought to engineering feasibility. (If an electric current is passed through a circuit containing two different metals, one of the junctions may be cooled and the other warmed; this is the opposite of the thermocouple phenomenon.) Thermoelectric cooling is already receiving considerable attention. (130) The source of power could be thermoelectric as well. Such a sophisticated installation would demand heavy investment, but maintenance might be virtually nil, except for taxes and occasional inspection.
On the other hand, any of many possible developments might reduce the total cost, and tax subsidy might reduce the direct cost.
If a mutual aid society wanted to store a frozen member in the absence of commercial facilities of any kind, in the immediate future, what might the expenses be?
Presumably a building would have to be obtained, and caretakers hired, and so on; but what is of interest here is the refrigerating expense.
A rough estimate might be made as follows. Let us assume a container with average dimensions (that is, neither inside nor outside, but in the middle of the insulation) of 7 feet by 3 feet by 3 feet. Let it be metal, with cork board insulation six inches thick. The inside might be divided into a lower compartment, for the body, and an upper compartment, for the refrigerant.
If dry ice is used, other figures entering into the calculation are as follows. The latent heat of vaporization is 246 BTU per pound, the temperature of the dry ice is -109F, the conductivity of cork board is 0.22 BTU in. per hour per square foot per
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degree Fahrenheit. (52) The cost of the dry ice is probably less than 6 cents a pound.
If room temperature is taken as 70F, then combining these figures in a simplified calculation gives a refrigeration cost of roughly $4 a day for replacement of dry ice. But this figure can be bettered in many ways.
Even if the crudest methods are used, as sketched above, there will be certain factors working in our favour which are hard to calculate theoretically. For example, the average room temperature will be well below 70F, because it will be unheated in winter, and will be cooled by the carbon dioxide vapour. This effect will be accentuated if there are a number of bodies, in which case there would also be a greater effective average insulation thickness. Further, if the storage room is in a basement, the earth below and around may provide additional insulation. Also, the previous calculation ignored the heat absorbing power of the carbon dioxide as it warms up, after sublimating, from - 109F to whatever temperature it reaches before escaping, although this consideration partly overlaps that of room temperature.
If several feet of additional insulation were used, and especially if there were several bodies, it seems to me the cost could easily be reduced by a factor of ten, making it 40 cents per body per day. (The added insulation might be straw or glass wool, the latter being preferable both from the standpoint of insulating quality and of fire hazard. Glass wool is about as good an insulator as cork board.) If there were a sizable number of bodies, and if a specially designed or modified building were use d, and if still more insulation were added, the cost might even be brought down to 10 cents daily per body, without the project becoming too unwieldy. We would expect, of course, that in a very few years more economical commercial installations would be come available.
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If liquid nitrogen were used, the replacement cost might be over twenty-five times as great. Handling would also be more difficult; but it is not necessary to use gas-tight or pressure-tight containers, except in transport; in fact, an evaporation vent must be provided, as for dry ice.
Before submitting to freezing, people will make strenuous attempts to safeguard their dormant bodies, and to ensure firm positions in society on revival. It may be expected, for example, that elaborate trust funds will be set up.
Those who try to "take it with them" will want reliable supervision of the freezers, and will hope, through the magic of compound interest, to awaken wealthy. Yet at first thought one is apt to doubt that everybody can awaken rich, because this is somehow "against nature," or would represent "something for nothing." We also realize that future governments could confiscate any property and outlaw any trust arrangements at will.
While the considerations involved are very complex, both economically and psychologically, and predictions can be only half educated guesses, still there are some pertinent remarks to be made.
Interest rates depend, of course, on two broad factors, one physical and the other psychological. The first concerns the productivity of a dollar, that is, the rate of production of wealth by a dollar's worth of capital goods. The second relates the supply and demand situation. The physical productivity factor, of course, one expects to increase continuously, but the psychological factor almost defies analysis, let alone prediction. If this is correct, one can do little except to take experience as a rough guide, without trying to estimate the effect on the money market of the supply represented by the trust funds.
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Let us ignore taxes, and assume we can hedge against inflation by always having part of the money in equity investments. Then, if the return on conservative investments is something like 3 per cent yearly during the freezer era, $1,000 untouched would grow to roughly $19,000 in 100 years, $370,000 in 200 years, or $7,000,000 in 300 years. This money is real; it represents initially the diversion of buying power from consumer goods to capital goods, followed by continuous reinvestment. If such wealth seems awesomely huge, we must remember that the productivity par capita of the nation is now increasing by almost 2.5 per cent yearly, and the rate of increase will probably improve greatly. The annual Gross Product per capita in the year 2264 of what is now the United States, even if the rate of growth does not improve, will be about $4,500,000! In 1960 it was only about $2,800. (49)
I see no reason to expect future generations to be jealous of the bank accounts and financial influence of the frozen. Those breathing will get later starts in saving, but will be able to save from much larger incomes, and would not have to be second class citizens financially, even without discriminatory or confiscatory laws aimed at the frozen.
The people in the freezers should also be protected by family loyalties, and by a tradition which recognizes that each in his turn (until the generation that achieves immortality) must become frozen and helpless, dependent on the good will and law-abiding character of his successors.
It must also be remembered that before long the option of suspended animation will be available. Some individuals will choose cold sleep before they become senile, and will therefore be able to arrange for periodic awakenings to look the situation over and check up on Junior.
It is not easy to anticipate the legal and sociological consequences of these visits by great-grandpa. Some of us might feel
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a little queasy at the notion, so to speak, of a zombie climbing the cellar steps every few years, with the frost in his beard, to cast a fishy eye on the family and perhaps vote his shares at the election of directors of an important corporation. But one grows accustomed to everything, and it rather seems the net result could be a beneficial tradition of permanence of the family and institutions, a strengthened feeling of the unity of mankind, an ingrained sense of our endless responsibility for each other.
Very little has been said so far about the prospect of immortality as seen from elsewhere than the United States, Europe, and similar regions. How will it affect the internal and external policies of the retarded nations? Of the communists? At this juncture perhaps little can be said of what will actually develop, if something can be said about what could happen and ought happen.
The first reaction on the part of leaders of backward or totalitarian states might be unfavorable, since a freezer program could put heavy extra demands on already inadequate resources and could weaken discipline by substituting materialistic goals for the quasi-religious ideals of the self-styled revolutionaries. To help clarify the problem, a few remarks about the nature the "emerging" nations and the "communist" nations may be in order, representing common knowledge which is not always made explicit.
Economically, they most often stand for a kind of socialism state capitalism, and in this respect differ little from some Western countries. Politically, they usually represent bureaucracy enthroned, or, to use an older word meaning almost the me thing, oligarchy, and in this respect also represent nothing new in the world, and differ little from many established and
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rightist countries. Even their usual totalitarian character, the enshrining of the state high above the individual, shows no radical departure either from earlier history or from various established states of the political right. The driving force, in the case of the undeveloped countries, is largely just racist or nationalist patriotism or chauvinism, distilled into a foggy ideal. In the case of the Reds there is an additional unifying mystic element based on the Word of the Prophets, Marx and Lenin. From the stand-point of the leaders, the goal may be personal and national aggrandizement, and the "ideologies" may be only tools to pry obedience and self-sacrifice out of the people.
Words have an amusing way of becoming twisted in usage, and while it is commonplace to regard ourselves as idealists and the Reds as materialists, in fact the reverse is nearer the truth. We are mature enough to be materialistic in the sense of wanting freedom and wealth for ourselves, and not just for some dim posterity, and in the sense that we try to remember the state is only an instrument of the people, only a means to an end. The Reds, on the other hand, are childish idealists to the extent that they are willing to sacrifice themselves for slogans and embrace a kind of mysticism in imbuing their state and ideology with intrinsic worth and permanent meaning. It is we who are generally godless and not the Reds: we may acknowledge the ascendancy of Jehovah, but seldom consult Him in practical affairs, whereas they pay a more sincere homage to their god-in-overalls, through his prophets, Marx and Lenin, looking to them for day-today guidance. Soviet workers are so pious that they have sacrificed their right to strike on the altar of Marxism-Leninism.
Serious dangers therefore arise. Many leaders of the eastern and southern countries may feel a freezer program would threaten the very foundations of their regimes. The people themselves, who often take pride in the term "revolutionary" but in
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fact may notably lack intellectual flexibility and adaptability, may find it difficult to switch gears and reorient themselves. A fury of bafflement, resentment, and jealousy may even exacerbate international tensions at first. But there are hopeful factors as well.
The communists, and even their leaders, are after all not demons, but people like ourselves, struggling to live in, and make sense out of, a very difficult and mysterious universe. Desperation makes fanatics, but hope - on a practical, personal level- may be the key to cooperation.
The nationalist and leftist leaders may buzz angrily about for a while, like hornets in a bottle, but they should quiet down as they come gradually to realize two things. First, they will want immortality for themselves and their families. Second, all problems take on a completely different perspective in the long view. When the future expands, the past shrinks; historical affronts lose their sting, and vendettas their fascination. The words of the song then make self evident good sense, that is, to eliminate the negative and accentuate the positive.
Many compromises and makeshifts may be necessary to stretch the rupees, pesos, etc. For a time the strictest economies in freezing may have to be practised in many countries. Perhaps bodies will be stored in pits insulated with straw and cooled with dry ice. It is even possible that after freezing with dry ice they will be shipped to Siberia for natural cold storage, if it is decided that the changes at these temperatures are limited, or that the cost of maintaining artificially low temperatures here is sufficiently less to warrant the cost of transportation. From the standpoint of civil order, it will not at first greatly matter how skillfully the bodies are preserved, so long as hope is preserved. Demands will increase with time and learning, but so, one hopes, will resources and cooperation. In particular, this jolt may
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abruptly shift the birth control program into high gear. One may even dare hope that before too long the poorer countries will prefer cryobiological aid to military aid. There are perils in plenty, but there is also much room for optimism.
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