In this episode, I'm joined by Kai Micah Mills to talk about Cryonics, life extension and his experience dropping out of high school to build tech companies. Kai is currently building the cryonics startup Cryopets, which you can find at https://cryopets.com/
Transcript:
William Jarvis 0:05
Hey folks, welcome to narratives. narratives is a podcast exploring the ways in which the world is better than in the past, the ways that is worse than the past towards a better, more definite vision of the future. I'm your host, will Jarvis, and I want to thank you for taking the time out of your day to listen to this episode. I hope you enjoy it. You can find show notes, transcripts and videos at narratives podcast.com.
Okay, how are you doing this afternoon?
Kai Micah Mills 0:44
I'm doing really good. Let yourself do a good thanks
William Jarvis 0:47
so much for taking the time to hop on. I I really appreciate it. Do you mind giving us a brief bio and some of the big ideas you're interested in?
Kai Micah Mills 0:55
Yeah, yeah, let me uh, you know, this, this, this entire thing really started back in 2011. I was I guess, like, 12 at the time. And you know, I grew up very religious, very religious. My family is a LDS, they're Mormons. And, like, with, with most religions, you kind of grow up with you know, this idea that one day, you're gonna have this afterlife, and everything's gonna be okay. And it's, you know, it's actually a very comforting feeling, right? So I grew up with that. And as I got older, I kind of disconnected from it a little more around that time. And what sucks is you kind of lose that comforting feeling like all that stuff is still very, there'll be very great to have, right? Yes. Especially living forever. It's, it's a fantastic concept, right? And losing that was was difficult, right, like losing that kind of comfort. And so I remember at the time, I was just browsing the internet, and I came across what was called the 2045 initiative. I'm not sure if you've ever heard of it. Now. It's it was a project by this Russian billionaire named Demetrius golf. And he wanted to make humans immortal by 2045. I thought that was just like the coolest concept ever. At the time. It was like mind blowing to me. And so I was looking into it. And I started to learn about all these technologies, you know, one of those being cryonics, of course, but also, you know, aging drugs and reversing the curing aging and all these longevity interventions that people working on, and I think he ended up not pursuing that anymore. I think he wanted to have brain transplants by 2020. And I think the timeline started getting a little difficult. A little bit difficult. Yeah. 2045 is, it starts coming up quickly, right? Yeah. And, but it was still it kind of unlocked that in me, it was like, Okay, I still love this idea of living forever. Obviously, this is a fantastic concept. And if we can accomplish this through science, I mean, wow. Like, I can't think of anything more impactful to work on for the human race, right. And, you know, in that in that unlocking that kind of ruins you a little bit, because I remember being in like, you know, ninth grade, I was in freshman year of high school, and I would go in and I'd get my, you know, my English homework, and I'm looking at it, I'm like, man, we're gonna fucking die. Like, what am I doing sitting here working on?
William Jarvis 3:24
It? Seems like a waste, right? Yeah.
Kai Micah Mills 3:27
And it just, it was really messing with me. So much so that I ended up actually dropping out freshman year dropping out of high school. Nice. And I knew I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do, I knew I wanted to work on something in life extension eventually and, and help move that forward. But I knew that I wasn't gonna be able to do that. There in school. So I ended up leaving. And, you know, working on anything in this field is difficult, of course, because the barriers to entry are so high, right? I mean, you go to something like, you know, an industry like tech, I mean, if you're a 12 year old with a laptop, you can compete at a very high level, you can just get involved. And for nearly no upfront investment, and you know, I'm I'm, I'm like 12 or 13 years old at the time, I you know, I grew up in a townhouse outside of Baltimore, I have no connections to anyone in biotech, or deep tech, or anyone working in any of these things. So I didn't really know how to get started. So I dove into what I was good at, which was tech, which was computers. I always played games. I taught myself to code at a young age making Minecraft plugins, right. And so it was a it was a good way to kind of just start building things and getting experience and starting to get involved in you know, just the world of entrepreneurship. And so I started with Minecraft servers way back in the day. So this was still around when I was in ninth grade, but it was after I dropped out and I started building Minecraft servers and You know, micro servers back in the day, were kind of a goldmine they were, you could really get a little business going on on my classes into the day. People still do have fantastic businesses in Minecraft. I mean that make millions it's it's incredible. Same thing happens in Roblox and and now the web three industry is just kind of realizing how much money there really isn't gaming and starting to go towards that more. But so yeah, I started my first little business which was Minecraft servers and over time just kind of worked my way up. I went from making Minecraft servers to hosting them. I started a company called Mighty servers when I was I think 15. And we became one of the larger providers in the entire world for Minecraft servers pretty quickly. And that was actually the first company that I sold back in those days. So that was kind of my first big win. It wasn't some massive sale or anything but as a teenager, kind of really big deal. Yeah, it was a big deal for me. And so I kept kept trying to move up, I got into hosting all kinds of game servers for all kinds of different games that the next company ended up selling that one I got into even further down the hosting line, I got into dedicated servers web hosting VPS is this was of course before everyone would go to AWS for website or throw their site on for sale. I mean, this was when you'd go to hostgator. And right, so this is, yeah, this is. And, but it was fun. I love that industry. And you know, after after that I actually I got involved in making a, I made a web three company back in 2017. This was before everyone called the web three, this was most people actually called it the decentralized web was kind of one of the one of the names for it. No one really knew what to call it at the time. And what ended up building was a website builder that deployed websites on to IPFS, or the decentralized Web. Right. And it was it was difficult even at that time to find product market fit, right. I mean, this is like really early in in crypto, and it's hard now. Yeah, it's hard now. So it was even back in those days, it was difficult. And so I just, you know, I had a ton of different projects that I worked on, some did well, some, you know, flopped over many years, you know, I spent, I spent about 10 years in tech altogether. And my, my most reason tech company was one that I made with my buddy Dayton Mills, we have the same last name, but we're not we're not brothers just just friends. Yeah. And we made branch and branch was kind of, you know, it's like a, it's almost like a love letter to the last 10 years of working on all these projects. You know, we both were working in Minecraft and web three. And all these things over so many years, we knew about each other, but never really worked on anything. And so we kind of came together. And you know, the CTO branch now is actually the guy that I made my first Minecraft server with. So we all kind of stuck together over the years and, and then the baby of all that was branch. And branch has some very cool unannounced things that I can't talk about, but it's going well, it's going it's going well.
And it it kind of put me in a position where finally after all these years, I could I had the opportunity to dive into the life extension space now with resources and experience and not just being some kid who's excited about it. Right. And now those barriers to entry seem a lot lower than they did when I was 12. Right. So the timing really kind of lined up and and then I guess that brings us to grab that brings us to now. So that's a quick rundown.
William Jarvis 8:48
Absolutely, absolutely. Glass deck. No, I love that. I love that and why, um, you know, a lot of people working on longevity that now there's a lot of money going in the space. And I've been interested in cryonics for probably about 10 years. I saw you on Twitter. I think that's probably I found you somebody retweeted one of your tweets. I'm like, wow, like I you know, I really like cryonics. You know, I think it's a good idea. hedging your bets maybe a little bit actually believe in like, an afterlife, but I like to hit my bats, I guess. I was epistemic, Lee confident than I would like to proclaim. But, you know, why focus on cryonics, right, like, because there's a bunch of different approaches to longevity. You know, we there's ideas about like, you know, working on senescence, there's, you know, all kinds of different approaches. Why do you think cryonics is the right approach for us to take right at this point in time?
Kai Micah Mills 9:40
Yeah, I mean, I was, you know, I was actually considering so about this time last year was when I left my previous company and started focusing on all this stuff, and I was trying to figure out exactly where I'd be the most useful in this space. So I was looking all over life extension. I mean, everything from bionics to aging to mind, uploading Like, what's everyone working on? What does the industry look like? And I actually saw this tweet from Balaji, who was talking about sort of tech trees and mapping out. And I really loved the idea that actually made my own tech tree just for life extension asked pretty, pretty high level, you know, just the very high level things that people are working on where the funding is going and what's not getting attention, what needs help. And I made I sort of turn it into three different columns. One was more the chronic stuff. One was the life extension, longevity, you know, interventions aging, yes. Yeah. And then one was kind of more crazy stuff like digital consciousness and right at that point, and I found that cryonics was so like, there was no focus on it, which was mind blowing to me, because I mean, I visited Alcor, back in 2016, I got to walk around. And you know, before that was aware of cryonics and who was working, I didn't realize it was such a small industry, I didn't realize that there was pretty much no money coming into this industry, which blew my mind, because when I developed this tree, it was an entire column. Like this seemed like a very important piece of this, right? So it became pretty obvious like where I was needed the most. And as I got to talk with all the experts in the field, and figure out where everything is, and it became so apparent that crown x is the single most important thing that we need to focus on. And there's a few reasons for this. I think the the main core one is that it's the only thing that actually targets the death problem, right? And because the problem is there's so many different causes of death, there's so many, if we're talking about radical life extension, what we're really playing is a nonstop game of Whack a Mole. Right, right. Every time something else comes up, we got to get it in time. And, you know, as time goes on, I mean, let's, let's, let's say even best case scenario, we cure aging in our lifetimes, reverse it completely. Yeah. And I mean, you better not, I mean, let's say you're living 200 to 300 years, you better not be spending any of that time in a car. Right? That's that time goes on. I mean, the probability of you dying in a car crash almost right comes from the present. Right? And that's just one example. I don't mean senescence, even though solving, it would be a massive breakthrough. There's so much more, right? There's so many, so many more things that can kill us. So those probabilities start to look a little scary over when when you when you look at it over a radical time period. Now, you know, and in that best case scenario, if we can actually solve this problem, right. The problem is we haven't made really any real progress. That's the problem. And that's the aging on aging. Yeah, we haven't extend the human lifespan by one day. To this day, aside from exercise, and diet, right, alright, enough, has even come close. And I think there's a little too much optimism when it comes to just how far we're going to be able to extend our lifespan by dragging. By dragging ourselves I mean, just how much further that can get us has been a little too optimistic. And I know there's some, you know, communicators in the space who Yeah, you know, bring a lot of people in and get people excited about it, which is really good, but maybe are a little dishonest when it comes to just how far we're actually getting and how much further we have to go. So it kind of like, oh, this might be possible. And that's how I felt back 10 years ago, right. I was like, Wow, I can't wait for wait to see the progress of this overtime. And 10 years later, here I am. And there hasn't really been much progress. Right. And right, people, you know, cran assists, as well, I know, I know, Max more talks about this, where I mean, he's been looking at this space for much longer than I have, like 40 or 50 years, he's been looking at this space. Yeah. And there really hasn't been a lot of progress. So Gotcha.
It's, it's a dangerous bet. If you're someone who's really focused on radical life extension, like if you're someone who just wants to make people live, you know, slightly longer, healthier lives, you know, and that's fantastic, right? That's good work. But you're in the healthcare industry, right? You're not You're not someone who's working on radical life extension. If we're really talking about radical life extension, we need to get serious about what's probable in our lifetimes and double down on it. And when you look at something like you know, really anything in biotech, there's so much red tape, you know, it doesn't matter how many billions you throw at it, you still have to get through those clinical trials. Right. Absolutely. And when you look at something like cryonics, this is an engineering problem. There is no mistake, there is no going to clinical trials, right. The more money we throw at it, the faster it gets solved, period. Right, right. And so yeah, it at least for me, it seems very obvious to focus on cryonics. And I hope that that becomes more of a focus as time goes on.
William Jarvis 15:22
Definitely, what do you make, you make a lot of really good points Chi in that. I don't know if you've ever seen this lecture. do CrossFit, the founder of CrossFit who's now no longer affiliated for a number of reasons, has a lecture he gives where, you know, he's explaining the philosophy. And he like paints, he's like, three buckets of death, you know, you've got like kinetic problems get hit by a car, you can have like toxins, you know, and then they pathogens. And then there's like chronic conditions, which we can kind of control through diet and exercise. And then aging, which we can't really do anything about. You know, it. It's so fascinating in it makes a lot of sense, right, like, chronic solves a lot of these problems in a way that other approaches do not and aging is a, you know, it's a field that at Laura Deming talks about this, she says, you know, aging is like kind of a toxic field. There's a lot of Grifters. There's a lot of like misinformation. And so perhaps like one of your claims that it's kind of overstated that they've overstated. Well, there's been some overstating of the amount of progress that has gone on in the field of aging so far.
Kai Micah Mills 16:26
Right? Yeah. I'm glad you brought up, Laura, because she's actually a fantastic example of people who are extremely smart, who have started in the longevity field and spent a lot of time in there and are now moving to cryonics. So and, you know, I won't go too much into what Laura is working on, because it's not announced. But you know, there there are a lot of really intelligent people who are now moving their focus over to cryonics. And I think we're gonna see a lot more over the next 10 years or so. Very nice. Yeah. So exciting stuff. Okay, like,
William Jarvis 17:05
I forgive me if I'm wrong, because I don't know much about this. But it does seem like there is a more of a biological precedent for cryonics. If I think of like Arthur, you know, certain species of frogs that can, you know, survive very, very cold temperatures, and then like, kind of be revivified, or something like that. And whereas like aging, we don't really see. I mean, there's some examples, right, but not very much in mammals. Yeah, no,
Kai Micah Mills 17:29
not a ton in mammals. I mean, we're, we already live very long compared to other mammals that are close to us. Right. Right. So we're already doing pretty pretty well in that department. But yeah, the what you're referring to is actually the species of tree frog up in. It's found in Alaska is one of them. There's actually a few, there's a few animals that do this. But that's one of the cooler ones that actually in the winter, it freezes up to 60% of its of its brain and its body, and its blood stops flowing, and its heart stops beating. I mean, by all definitions, is that right? Right. And in the spring, it thaws out, and it comes back to life. And it's incredible, because yeah, like when, when you're, if you can base an intervention off of something that's already happening in nature with a different organism, and then that's fantastic, right? Like, that's a really good signal that this is something that is possible. And what's what's incredible about about them is they have built in cryoprotectants. Wow, these these frogs have evolved with these cryoprotectants that helps them not take damage when they freeze. And so for humans and animals, when we crab reserve them, we have to add those cryoprotectants Of course, the ones that we make, but it's generally the same thing. So yeah, I mean, it's it's really incredible to see that in nature. That's a really amazing signal.
William Jarvis 19:03
Absolutely. And are most of this cryoprotectants around preventing ice crystals? Is that the is that the big technical challenge or what is the big technical challenge with cryonics right now?
Kai Micah Mills 19:14
That is, you know, one of the core challenges. I mean, it especially was one of the core challenges. Back before vitrification was really introduced. I mean, I think I think vitrification was introduced in the 80s. And I think Alcor started applying it, I believe around the year 2000. And I mean, before this, it was obviously very difficult because what happened is you have Yeah, the crystallization that happens the ice formation. Ice also expands it's a I believe it's 9% larger volume. So kind of a problem. Yeah, much every cell is getting pretty messed up. And so that, you know, that was one of the biggest problems. And, of course, you know, Greg phase the one that that really introduced vitrification into cryo biology back in the 80s. And he, you know, he's still to this day makes the leading cryoprotectants that the whole industry uses right. And so yeah, that that that is one of the core problems is perfecting that process, we've we've come a long way, it's definitely a lot better than straight freezing much wasn't right. And but, you know, it introduces a few more problems because these cryoprotectants are toxic, you know, there's a level of toxicity that they have. So there is damage that they're still doing on the way in, that we need to be able to solve and so I mean, that's, that's one of the big ones, there's, there are others. I mean, one of the cool things about the cryonics industry is a lot of the work translates really well from model organisms to humans. Gotcha. Whereas if you're testing in an aging intervention on a mouse, which has nearly no genetic diversity, right, it's very rare that that's going to translate well to humans. And it's why it takes so long. And just as a side note, I mean, this is why what Celine over at Loyal where she's working on with a dog eating drugs, yeah, is brilliant, because dogs and you correct me if I'm wrong, but dogs are the most genetically diverse animal on the planet. That can to humans, I believe. Nice. So what's amazing about that is that the interventions that we actually test on dogs, if they end up working, there's a much higher chance that that's going to translate over to humans. Gotcha. But, but yeah, a lot of longevity science is still done on the mice. So not sure how bullish I am on that. But yeah, but yeah, I mean, I guess the real difference when it comes to animals and humans is scale, it's the being able to preserve large organs and larger tissues. And because obviously, at a smaller scale, that's that's much easier. So those are really the the main problems that we're faced with. Gotcha. But like I said, they're engineering problems, you know, this, we're going to solve it.
William Jarvis 22:26
Yeah. No, I love that. And it does seem like also like versus the eight. So aging seems to be very different in different types of animals. But it does make sense to me that, you know, perhaps, you know, freezing a mammal was like, kind of freezing a mammal, you know, like, there's maybe like, small, I feel like differences seem they seem to be much smaller for reason, I can't quite articulate. Exactly. I'm very cool. Um, I'm curious. You know, I was reading a couple years ago, there's a lot of hype about Plastination. You know, what do you think about Plastination? Is that a good approach? Or is freezing just much better for a reason for for some reason?
Kai Micah Mills 23:02
Yeah, you know, there's, there's a few approaches, specifically, approaches are usually targeted towards brain preservation. That's where a lot of is gone. Last summation is one of them. There's, there's definitely a few problems with Plastination. Obviously, I mean, there hasn't been a ton of research into it, which is one of the biggest problems. I mean, we've been working on cryopreservation for 50 plus years now, right? Yeah, even even longer. So not to mention the fact that we've already you know, Greg fey, took a couple of cryopreserved a rabbit kidney, I believe, and then put it back in the rabbit and had it work completely fine. I mean, we're, we're right on the edge of having organ cryopreservation. And even the revival of small mammals like like hamsters. That's not far off. So wow, would seem a little silly to kind of switch focus now to different products. But that's not even the biggest problem. The main problem is that Plastination, like a lot of these other preservation techniques are irreversible. guy
William Jarvis 24:02
that makes a lot of sense. Throwing out versus like, plastic stuff, like, Yes, right.
Kai Micah Mills 24:08
And a lot of people are okay with this. I don't want to say a lot is not a lot of people focusing on in the first place, but some people are okay with this, because
William Jarvis 24:19
they believe we have to kick the can down the road. It's like, what we're figuring that problem out later.
Kai Micah Mills 24:24
said, Well, you know, it's, it's practically irreversible. I mean, I guess you could say, eventually everything would be possible, but it's not something that you might have some cement in there, right. But they believe that one day we'll be able to upload, scan and upload our consciousness or what makes us us, you know, our personality, our memories. I'm not big on the uploading round. I know. Proper McIntyre is kind of in a similar field where he's working with, you know, all the had stabilized cryopreservation, which is sort of another example. that where the end goal is uploading, because they do offer, you know, good preservation, right? Oh, as long as we can preserve it, then you know, as long as we scan it and upload it to a digital consciousness consciousness that we have in the future, that's fantastic. But then it comes into the debate of what makes you you and what's a clone? And how do you stay yourself if you transfer that or? Yeah, well, that and that's, I mean, that's a can of worms. You know, that's an interesting one to go down. So I think cryonics still makes the most sense because of the opportunity of reversing. You know, that's, that's the key. And that's the only, you know, path we have to that right now. So,
William Jarvis 25:42
right. reversal, it really matters. Why focus on pets? You know, like, is it just a bigger population you can get started on? Yeah, like, just what's the impetus for pets? First?
Kai Micah Mills 25:57
Yeah. So I mean, when I was trying to figure out, I knew I wanted to build a company in a chronic space. I knew I wanted it to be a for profit. I don't think that the author is smart. And I believe that's why cryonics is. I mean, Alcoa hit their 50 year anniversary, and cryonics is still like a weird fringe topic. Yeah. You know, obviously, there's a lot being done wrong there. I think a nonprofit approach is one of those problems. I knew I wanted to build something MySpace. I didn't really know exactly where to start. But I tried to look at where I wanted cryonics to be. And for me, I would love it. If cryonics is more of a go to option than just just burning bodies or burying people in the ground, right? It seems very barbaric. And I'd love to make cryonics one of those standard options at least so people have the opportunity to choose. And I think the way you do that, and also the way that you legitimize cryonics in the first place, is getting it into hospitals, getting it into real medicine, not having it be some weird building on the middle of the desert that
William Jarvis 27:00
Arizona we don't know what's going on.
Kai Micah Mills 27:04
And, and having real doctors perform these procedures, right. I think that's extremely important that I don't think these two industries should be enemies, eventually, like we need to bring these together. And obviously, it's very difficult to show to a hospital and say, Hey, you guys should start doing cryonics, right? Like, that's, that's not a likely outcome. But if we can start with pets, and we can introduce the idea of cryonics in veterinary hospitals, then eventually we can get there. And it's actually one of the things that we're doing with cryo pets is we're actually a hybrid facility. So we are an animal hospital mixed with a chronic facility. So I was trying to think like, Okay, what's the best route to getting the first you know, let's just focus on getting the first veterinary hospital on board. And I was like, Yeah, easiest way to do that is if I am the Veterinary Hospital, like, then, and then it's, it's pretty easy. Yeah. So. And I think, you know, even when it comes to people being interested in in cryonics, I think if it's a veterinarian, who is telling you about the real science behind this, and although it's experimental, you know, just coming from a more legitimate place, I think it can really change the amount of people who are interested in this. Yes. And, you know, what that also enables us to do is scale across the country. I mean, an ideal future is that anyone can go to their, you know, a veterinary hospital Animal Hospital, in their area in their state, and have them be able to perform this procedure, the initial steps of the cryopreservation on the pet that put that and, and then they would transfer the pet to our facility for the long term. Right. Very nice. So all these things kind of, you know, prove that cryonics can be something that can scale, something that can be venture bankable, and we bring a lot of money in the space to hopefully speed up the progress of this, which is my main goal, of course. So, you know, I think pets just the work is a fantastic gateway. And we're seeing this in the longevity space as well. With dog aging drugs, mostly, I wish they would have a little focus on cats as well. I'm asking around I have a cat here actually with me. Oh, you know, she's, uh, she's 10. Now. So she's actually one of the inspirations to moving quickly on all right. You know, the clock is ticking there. Right. But yeah, I think pets are the way to getting cryonics mainstream.
William Jarvis 29:47
Absolutely. Is the regulatory barriers smaller dealing with animals than humans? I'm assuming it would be right.
Kai Micah Mills 29:54
vastly smaller. I mean, it's a lot easier. There's I mean, there's all kinds of problems with Humans. I mean, sometimes there's autopsy requirements, they have to get around. I mean, the hospital. They're like, No, actually, we have to cut this person open. Like, up for Crashlytics. We need to Yeah, maybe not great. Yeah, it's fine. I mean, really, like you don't want more than ideally you want. You want to prevent any kind of situation directly
William Jarvis 30:24
after surgery. Can you do that? Right?
Kai Micah Mills 30:28
And that's why, you know, pets are great, even just for efficacy of, at first because euthanasia gives us the opportunity to start that procedure directly after after they're after they're dead. So yeah, it's, it's difficult with humans, there's a lot of unsolved problems there. The sudden death problem is one of the main ones, which you're going to be able to fix. I mean, a lot of times people, we don't go into yet euthanized, right, we can't go in the middle of the night. Right. And it makes it very difficult to I mean, a lot of the case studies with with people who are cryopreserve today, I mean, sometimes they go 1824 32 hours before they're at the facility. And I mean, there's just not a lot left to preserve their right, you're preserving. So it's, it's tough. You know, it's tough, but, you know, pets gives us the opportunity to, you know, prove that cryonics can be a profitable business, and solve a lot of these problems and then eventually move to humans once we're more confident.
William Jarvis 31:31
All right, that makes sense. No, it makes a ton of sense. And it you're right, it does need to be in every hospital for this to really work, right, because it just takes too long. If you got to fly to Scottsdale or whatever, it's just, it's not going to work. I'm I'm curious, can you know how much of the lack of uptake of cryonics is, do you think like, it's just something where people find it weird. And it's a norm we can change? Or is it just like, is it just something inbuilt? You know, I'm involved in kind of like the less wrong community. And a lot of people they did this fun survey, you'd cast the bid. And me it wasn't you cast, but someone did a survey, and they asked everyone whether they're signed up for Crown x, it was like many multiples more than the people that were actually signed up at Alcor, right. So like people will say like, they're going to do it, or they never really get around to it. And even beyond that, like a lot of people just find it like really weird or something like that.
Kai Micah Mills 32:27
Right. Yeah. You know, I was actually talking to Christine Peterson, the other day, who was the co founder of the foresight Institute. Oh, nice. She's awesome. She's one that coined the term open source. And I mean, she's Chico, he's done so much. But she was telling me that a lot of work that she's done is just going to people in the industry, people who were part of foresight and just in that community, and helping them get signed up, like just walking them through it being there with them. Because it is a complicated process. I mean, I think, for alcohol, it even takes up to two a month to really get everything in order. And, and you got to sign over your your life insurance in most cases. And it's just it's just a, it's kind of a daunting process. And I don't want a bio stasis is working on making that a little easier. They're doing good work there. Yeah, I think so. I think when it comes to people who are interested in not signed up, I think that's kind of one of the bigger barriers is, it's a lot of work or they're kind of younger at the time. They don't feel like, you know, they need to sign up tomorrow. Right, right. But really, it's better to be safe than sorry, I suppose. So. But, uh, and I think, you know, when it comes to people being just weirded out by it, I've noticed that most people that I talked to about this a have no idea about the science. I mean, there's just been no communication on the science and where we're actually out with this. how close we are to Oregon cryopreservation that's completely reversible. how close we are to even reviving small mammals from cryopreservation. I mean, people just really don't know. So I know, there's definitely like a barrier of knowledge there that we need to do better at just providing that that information that hey, we're not just throwing people in an ice chest. I mean, there's no real science. Exactly. And, and I think another step, which obviously we're talking about is is getting it into hospitals. Because if it's your doctor or your veterinarian telling you about this, as opposed to just some random company that's trying to get money from you, it's just you know, it's a totally different ballpark. So
William Jarvis 34:30
absolutely. No, that makes that makes a ton of sense. Well, how's the experience been so far? I mean, you know, when did you get started with the project when was initially like, okay, like, it's actually time to like, commit and make this thing reality like, how's it been?
Kai Micah Mills 34:45
Yeah, I think I came with the idea for it initially in July last year. So I've really been working on it since then. And cryonics is a funny business because you can. I mean, if you set up all the meetings, I mean, you could meet everyone cryonics. It's, it's pretty small. And luckily everyone is awesome. You know, it's been like, everyone has been extremely welcoming of, you know, the ideas that I'm presenting and my background coming from, you know, tech, which is like a totally different space, you know, learnings that I have from all those years and bringing them in here, everyone's been really awesome and helpful. And it's kind of a space because at the end of the day, everyone just, we just don't want to die. And we want to help other people not die. Like pretty good. Like, you don't go into cryonics, because you want to make a ton of money, like, no one's here, because I wanna make a ton of money, I want to make a ton of money, I would just found another tech startup, right? So you just kind of have a big group of people who are all doing this, because they truly just believe in it and wanted to work and want to help people. So it's a really cool community. So it's really, you know, it was a lot of months of just, you know, meeting everyone around the space. You know, talking people who don't necessarily know about it yet, but should be more involved. Yeah. And then, of course, just just getting up to speed on myself on on where all the research is and how I can utilize it and how I can help, right? No, no, and it's been fantastic. We actually just started raising at the beginning of this month, end of last month, our seed round, which has been going extremely well. There's, there's been a lot of interest. And, you know, I think we can prove that chronics can work here as a real business. So no, it's been, it's been really good. And it's one of those things where, you know, I I love the time that I spent in tech and in gaming, and all these fields, hosting, you know, some of my best memories. But truly, when you work on something that is life and death, when you're working in an industry where that's on the line, it's really an amazing feeling. I mean, you know, it's it's a, it's, it gives you a lot of, you know, that feeling of purpose is you feel it a lot more. So right. Now, it's been a really cool experience so far.
William Jarvis 37:05
I love that. I love that. I'm curious. There's one other aspect to erotics, I people think people do not talk about enough. And it's actually the political, it seems like the political is actually really important for cryonics. And governance of or, you know, organizations over the long term seems to be like a really difficult problem to solve. Have you thought about this at all? You know, you've worked in web three. So this is kind of like, a related area. But have you thought about, like, how to solve some of the governance challenges about keeping an organization running, you know, successfully over the long term, you've got to keep things cold, right? And like, this is a this is a real challenge.
Kai Micah Mills 37:41
Yeah, no, I mean, for sure. I mean, and this is like, this is a huge problem. You see even products facility in Russia, called cryo russe, I believe, and right now they're having a very, it's almost like a fight for power over the facility right now, between the owners. And it goes to show you like how careful you have to be with something like this. Because if you're thinking about a company that has to ideally exist for hundreds of years, I mean, yeah, you have to be careful that you approach that. And, and I do come from a military background, and I'm involved in Dows. And there's a lot of, you know, exciting ideas that are, you know, forming as far as Decentralized Governance over the organizations. Certainly, none of them are proven enough, by this point, right? Who really execute or count on for something like this. In the future, maybe there will be It's definitely like an exciting area that I'm watching closely. I'm even involved in like something called the dog longevity dial right now, or we're having fun Dog Dog longevity research. And so there's Yeah, I mean, there's there's a lot of exciting, hopefully breakthroughs that we have there where people can, you know, start forming or organizations and companies with those structures. Yeah, but it's gonna take some time. And so yeah, I mean, I, there aren't a lot of companies that have lasted hundreds of years. Right. I think one of the key components and what all the other chronoswiss know, you know, as well as that we all have to be working together in order to survive that long and outdoors, you know, props to them for lasting 50 years now. Right. I mean, that's a that's a big achievement, it shows that it can't be done. Right. Yeah. But yeah, I think it really comes down to everyone just collaborating and making sure that you know, we we certainly don't want like a big PR disaster in cryonics right now. Right, right. Or even worse on back in May, I can't forget, I can't remember the year but you know, chronic facilities that started up and then failed and then right. You know, had a lot of bad PR around them. Yeah. Where the space industry where we had large failures and it kind of caused a you know, people kind of backed away from it for a while, right. But of course, you know, private companies came in It made a huge difference and got it going again. Right. But it's kind of the dream for cryonics as well. So yeah, I think it's really going to come down to collaboration and just taking it one step at a time, you know, figuring out how we can be can survive for that for that long, because it's one of the most important aspects of it.
William Jarvis 40:16
Yeah, well, it definitely does seem like, one thing that is on your side is if you can get a, a, a large enough mass of people who are signed up or enough pet signed up, you know what I mean? There's a certain amount of momentum to keep these things going. Like if there's norms around it, it's like normal, it's a normal thing. And then there's processes like it's much easier, right? I like to give the example of you know, there's still Stasi officers who get pensions, you know, what I mean? So these things get like, generally, like, we're actually pretty good at, like maintaining something's through, you know, regime changes, and all kinds of different ways. If it's common enough knowledge, and that's a normal enough thing.
Kai Micah Mills 40:53
That's a great example.
William Jarvis 40:55
Definitely, is solvable. and stuff. That's, yeah, I want to move a little bit and talk about your experience. So you know, you dropped out of high school. And you mentioned, like, on your website, that one of the things that it was really helpful about that was, you were able to sleep. And it's actually one thing that empirically we see is that like, it's actually really bad for kids not be able to get enough sleep. And like the, you know, I remember, like when I was in high school, you know, we had to go in, like seven o'clock in the morning, you know, and you're just like, destroyed, you know, you're so you're meant to be sleeping in at this time. You're like trying to stay awake, you know, how much you know, how important do you think that aspect is? And do we just overlook that because, you know, adults just need less sleep.
Kai Micah Mills 41:40
And I think that's one of like, that's probably one of our biggest failures in society is like, dragging kids out of bed, on zero sleep, trying to shove a bunch of knowledge in their head that they don't retain at all right? Or if they do, it's for the short term for the quiz for the test, whatever, and then they lose it completely. Because they don't have the sleep that they need. I mean, it's Yeah, I mean, it's absolutely mind blowing to me. I especially, I mean, we have the signs, we know how much kids need to be sleeping. Right? It's a lot more than, than adults, and they don't get it. They don't get to sleep that they need for their development. No, I mean, it blows my mind. If I if I do have have kids, they will be homeschooled and they will be sleeping in. I could tell you that. But yeah, it was absolutely I believe a game changer for me. I mean, just the clarity I was able to have throughout those years. I mean, I think was Yeah, and, man I the the health benefits that it probably has that we don't even they are still, you know, not not studied enough? Yeah, I think I think we're gonna find out that that was one of our biggest failures, like this big set up. Yeah, for education. blows my mind.
William Jarvis 43:01
Do you think high school is just generally kind of overrated,
Kai Micah Mills 43:04
that? You know, it's kind of tough, because you don't want to tell every kid to drop out of high school, and then they don't find their footing, and it doesn't have for them? I think the I think there are certain people who, once they get to high school, they feel like, you know, if they're already ready to kind of jump in and start, whether it's starting a company or just getting going on their own projects. And I think those people know who they are at the time. Got, right. And so I don't think those those people are necessarily necessarily the ones who are looking around on podcasts or on YouTube videos to to see if like, Oh, should I drop out? I think they're already dropping out. Right. And they know, they know, they have the confidence in themselves themselves that they need. So I think high school definitely has its its merits. College, I think is completely useless. You know, that's a different topic entirely, at least in its current structure. It's a laughable in my in my opinion, but you know, I think I think, yeah, high school is is one of those times where if you feel like you're ready, then absolutely get out of there as fast as you possibly can. Because, I mean, the because, I mean, if I didn't have those years, I would probably not be working on what I am now until, you know, four years from now at least, right? I'd be so I'd be so far behind. And yeah, that time is extremely valuable, especially when you're out of state as a as a kid where your mind is still so malleable. Right? Right. Like you can you can completely change who you are with enough work right at that age, especially. So it's a really valuable time and I think most of it's wasted for most people, which is, you know, so yeah, I would I would recommend everyone who is intelligent and knows that they have what it takes to you know, start their own business or figure things out on their own. Yeah, absolutely. High school is overrated, you know, definitely for those people 100%.
William Jarvis 45:12
I love that. I love that. There's a great Scott Alexander post, where he gives a graduation speech. He talks about how, you know, they did these studies in the 60s, it was very unethical. They held some kids out of school out of high school. And it turned out, you know, it's pretty big cohort. And they were on average, about a year behind like that was that was about what the effect size was. That's on average, right? There's some people who did find some people who didn't do did a little bit worse, but it's interesting. Like it's a pretty small effect size, just holding for everything else.
Kai Micah Mills 45:43
Well, it is interesting.
William Jarvis 45:44
Yeah. That's cool. Well, chi, thank you so much for hopping on the show. I really appreciate it. Where should we send people? Where can people find cryo pets?
Kai Micah Mills 45:56
Yeah, I mean, we don't have a ton up right now. But you can go to crab pets.com. Hop on our Discord. Feel free to chat in there about everything we're working on. Or just hit me up on Twitter, you know, at Mega mills. That's where I'm at most of the time, so you know how to get in touch. And yet anyone who's interested in learning more, I'm I'm always happy to talk about it. So
William Jarvis 46:17
super. Awesome. Well, thanks so much, guy. I appreciate it. Thank
Kai Micah Mills 46:20
you. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it, a blast.
William Jarvis 46:29
Thanks for listening. We'll be back next week with a new episode of narratives.
87: Cryonics with Kai Micah Mills