CryoNet #32983 - #32985

CryoNet - Tue 26 Oct 2010

    #32983: family vs. customers [Ettinger]
    #32984: AW: #32977: realism [Ettinger] [Jens Rabis]
    #32985: communitarianism [Charles in Arizona]

Rate This Digest: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=32983%2D32985

Administrivia

To subscribe to CryoNet, send email to:
    [email protected]
with the subject line (not message _body_):
    subscribe
To unsubscribe, use the subject line:
    unsubscribe
To post a message to CryoNet, send your message to:
    [email protected]
from the same address to which you are aubscribed.
Send questions, comments, or feedback to [email protected]
with "CryoNet" or "cryonics" somewhere in the Subject line.


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message #32983
From: [email protected]
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2010 06:42:08 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: family vs. customers

Charles Platt reiterates his view, shared apparently by at least a few,  
that no one should be subsidized for cryonics, everyone relying on his own  
resources. This seems to me a gross misunderstanding of relevant history.
 
Each-for-himself is a parody of capitalism. There are countless examples of 
 people helping each other, for a variety of reasons. First there is the 
ordinary  family, wherein mostly people help each other with little or no 
expectation of  quid pro quo. Then there are churches and fraternal 
organizations, which elevate  altruism to an ideal and a practice. Tribal loyalty is 
very old indeed. 
 
There is also the fairly common perception that cryonics is basically  
selfish in a pejorative sense. Family spirit tends to counter this. CI has  had 
a few patients funded partly on a charitable basis, and I think this on  
balance has been beneficial for public relations as well as internal  relations.
 
Both CI and Alcor have derived major benefit from a relatively few large  
donors. This can be viewed as a weakness or a strength. Since I see no 
evidence  that large donors are drying up, I view it as a strength.
 
Robert Ettinger

 Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII"

[ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] 

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=32983

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message #32984
From: "Jens Rabis" <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]>
Subject: AW: #32977: realism [Ettinger]
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2010 17:19:10 +0200

Hi cryofather,

Quote: ,Initially we estimated liquid nitrogen at around $1,000 per year per
patient, and this held up for many years. More recently we have seen sharp
improvements, with patients in our newest cryostats costing only around $100
per  year per patient." End of Quote

Wow, corresponds 100% my Ambitions. Minimum investment, high Chances of
winning (resurrection / rebirth). 
What happens to the financial surpluses (security / growth)?

*****
Wow, ganz nach meinem Geschmack. Geringer Einsatz, hohe Gewinnchancen
(Wiederauferstehung). Wie werden die finanziellen Uberschusse sicher
angelegt?


Best greetings Cryoson
Jens Rabis
Germany-Berlin



Message #32977
From: [email protected]
Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2010 13:12:34 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: realism

Charles Platt has offered his reasons for thinking that cryonicists are  
over-optimistic and that the outlook is bleak. I think he is wrong on
several  
counts. Rather than enumerating these, I'll just try very briefly to 
summarize  the  situation and outlook as they appear to me.
 
1. The main reason for rejection is not scientific or practical skepticism, 
 but just cultural inertia. This is clear for several reasons. For one 
thing, the  misimpression that mammals have already been successfully frozen
and 
revived did  not result in a wave of sign-ups. Also, a variety of sources 
indicate that, even  with guaranteed success, sign-ups would still be few. 
Also, look at the cases  where reasonably well informed people declined 
cryonics for reasons other than  likelihood of success, e.g. Pohl, Asimov,
Clarke, 
Heinlein, and some of my  relatives. 
 
In addition to cultural inertia, there is simple laziness or/and stupidity. 
 Think of smoking. Breaking the habit had little or no social stigma, had 
plenty  of main-line medical backing, and yet it took many years just to 
reduce the  incidence of the habit substantially in the U.S. (In Asia
apparently 
just about  everybody still smokes.) 
 
An important element of the cultural inertia, or cultural legacy, is the  
fear factor--fear of betraying one's commitments to a "higher" value, as
well 
as  fear of what the  neighbors will think. People mostly don't want  
radical change--just the present, gold plated and chocolate covered. 
 
Does this mean that motivation is hopeless? Far from it. Human stupidity is 
 formidable but not invincible. We are gaining much too slowly still, but 
gaining  none the less.
 
2. Financial viability. At CI, the marginal cost of a new patient is  
(relying on memory) around $20,000 lump sum. Talk of inflation is
misleading. We  
are not subject to most of the vagaries of inflation, and some costs have  
decreased. Initially we estimated liquid nitrogen at around $1,000 per year 
per  patient, and this held up for many years. More recently we have seen 
sharp  improvements, with patients in our newest cryostats costing only
around 
$100 per  year per patient. Nitrogen was initially considered a major cost, 
but now is a  minor cost. In event of unforeseen emergency I  believe we 
can count on  enough members pitching in with work or money or both.
 
Alcor has made many mistakes in my opinion, and wasted a lot of money, and  
I agree that LEF is unreliable as a source of future donations. But Alcor 
still  has a relatively large number of rich people, including several 
big-rich, and  large donations are still coming. I don't see them going
down.
 
Remember that there are millions of millionaires in the U.S.--millions of  
people who could afford cryonics with negligible cost to their estates. Some

of  these will come around sooner or later. As a gamble--expected value vs. 
 cost--you can't beat it.
 
Robert Ettinger

 Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII"

[ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] 

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=32977

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=32984

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message #32985
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2010 14:42:27 -0700
Subject: communitarianism
From: Charles in Arizona <[email protected]>

I have nothing against people helping each other--voluntarily.
Unfortunately the Alcor patient care trust (and perhaps the CI
equivalent, I don't know the details) is one big pool of money,
meaning that if you join Alcor and take the precaution of overfunding
yourself, and you die while your funding still exceeds the minimum,
everyone else in the pool will benefit from your surplus, including
people you have never heard of and even people you may not like very
much. Conversely, if you join Alcor and make arrangements for minimum
funding, and you die after the prices go up, you will be taking
advantage of the system whereby others, more prudent than yourself,
are helping to fund you. I especially dislike this second eventuality.

When we were laying the groundwork for CryoCare, someone associated
with the organization obtained financial advice from Bear Stearns and
from the IRS. Both agreed that if we wanted to set up a separate
account for each member who went into cryopreservation, we could not
be a tax-exempt nonprofit. This was a primary reason why we chose to
be for-profit: So that each person's financing could be kept separate.
Note that this does not preclude people from donating to each other if
they so wish. It just means that if it happens, it will be on a
strictly voluntary basis.

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=32985

----------------------------------------------------------------------

End of CryoNet Digest
*********************