CryoNet #33061 - #33063

CryoNet - Mon 22 Nov 2010

    #33061: Re: "in good shape"  [John de Rivaz]
    #33062: Alcor funding minimums [Brian Wowk]
    #33063: Re: in good shape [un person]

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Message #33061
From: "John de Rivaz" <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: "in good shape" 
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2010 10:28:31 -0000

I am writing in support of Charles' article about inflation and life insurance policies. The only way to work out a correct sum to insure is to take a view on inflation, your age at the time of taking out the policy and calculating the sum needed if you were to perish at the end of your expectation of life.

This would make the premiums onerous at the start, but remember that as inflation proceeds they will seem less so as the years pass.

For a young person premiums for even a large sum assured are quite small in proportion. The difficulty though is in estimating expectation of life. With the advance of technology pointing one way and the burden of regulation etc the other it is hard to say what age people now aged in their 20s will reach.

I recall how fixed payout life insurance sold at the beginning of the 20th century to pay for funerals proved so inadequate when the policy holder started dying some 50 years later. Yet at the beginning of their policies policyholders were paying out a noticeable part of their disposable income.

The problem is that the cost of services rise far faster than the cost of manufactured goods, yet inflation indices usually include both. I am not sure whether there is a service costs only inflation index, but if there is one, it should be used in the above calculation.

-- 
Sincerely, John de Rivaz:  http://John.deRivaz.com for websites including
Cryonics Europe, Longevity Report, The Venturists, Porthtowan, Alec Harley
Reeves - inventor, Arthur Bowker - potter, de Rivaz genealogy,  Nomad .. and
more

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Message #33062
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2010 10:50:44 -0800
Subject: Alcor funding minimums
From: Brian Wowk <[email protected]>

        I thank Charles Platt for again bringing up the issue of
age-dependence of cryopreservation funding.  This issue has been
discussed as far back as 1991

http://www.alcor.org/cryonics/cryonics9110.txt

and never really addressed satisfactorily.  I believe that the blog
post Charles criticizes

http://www.alcor.org/blog/?p=1419#more-1419

is actually the strongest official statement that Alcor has made on
the subject to date.  Since as a board member I had the opportunity to
review the text before publication, I must take my share of blame for
any weakness of the statement.  The segment of text in question has
now been expanded to show historical rates of increase of
cryopreservation minimums.  Specifically, they have been

Neuropreservation Funding Minimums

1970s - $25,000
1982 - $35,000
1991 - $41,000
1994 - $50,000
2005 - $80,000

Whole Body Funding Minimums

1970s - $60,000
1982 - $100,000
1991 - $120,000
2005 - $150,000
2011 - $200,000

Unofficially, I think it is clear from this chart that members should
plan on at least doubling their cryopreservation funding for each two
decades of remaining life expectancy.  Officially, it impossible for
Alcor to predict future inflation or future technology costs.

        While some say that Alcor's response to the grandfathering
problem hasn't been strong enough, others have harshly criticized
Alcor's recent discussion of grandfathering for the opposite reason.
They've said that Alcor *should* guarantee the best possible
cryopreservation once a member signs up with minimum funding,
regardless of how far in the future it must be provided, or at what
cost.  So it seems impossible to craft announcements or policies in
cryonics these days without criticism from somewhere.  Anyone who
believes that Alcor should grandfather optimum cryopreservation
procedures at current minimums indefinitely into the future should
read Rob Freitas recent detailed analysis of the issue here

http://www.alcor.org/Library/pdfs/EconometricModelOfAlcorFinances.pdf

---Brian Wowk

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Message #33063
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2010 11:34:47 -0800 (PST)
From: un person <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: in good shape

Looks like charles platt has issued another one of his periodic rants against us oh so irresponsible cryonicists. We are all such libertines. Partying our lives away. Tsk tsk.

Charles, the rich cryonicists will just have to cover alcor on any funding shortfalls. THat is just the reality of it. 

that is the only way the rich people can have a chance of ever being cryopreserved. Even the rich need us poor folks to help them make it to the future. They need us. And so they will have to help alcor and other cryo orgs make it, too, or else they will have no chance at the future.

I think the rich cryonicists recognize this. And they accept this.

I think however that the uber-libertarian cryos do not accept this fact. It must really gripe their guts to think that their hard-earned/inherited money will have to go to help others. It must really grind on them that they will have to depend on others to get a chance at future revival.

Libertarians, what a laugh.

I think that Libertarianism in a person of advanced age could well be a sign of some sort of severe personality disorder. I mean, it is one thing to be a libertarian at age 30. Hey, I gotta confess I was one at that age, too. But to be one at age 50? Time to put away childish things, dude....

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