X-Message-Number: 13780 From: "John de Rivaz" <> References: <> Subject: The failure to get reanimated - or how to be dead forever Date: Thu, 25 May 2000 10:54:04 +0100 I would like to endorse much of what David Pizer has said. There is no point in trying to be absolutley safe if by so doing you guarantee failure. Mike Darwin has pointed out how the protection racket being run by the axis between the legal and life insurance industries makes life insurance the "safest" form of providing for cryopreservation. However he also admits that it is a lousy investment. [I hope I have paraphrased this correctly, but the argument is that because the life companies are so wealthy and capable of fighting through the courts lawyers will not advise clients (personal, institutional or government) to rape policies in the same way they'll rape trusts and assets held in other ways, even prepayments. The life companies get 30% per year from effective stock churning and pay clients 10% or less on the investment part of their policies.This symbiosis has existed over several centuries and is very robust. It is, however, similar in some ways to authoritarian political systems and can't last for ever.] However most people can and do use efficient investment and trusts, and own other assets in their own names with perfect safety throughout their entire lives, and leave these assets to their successors designated by an ordinary and simple last will and testament. Cryonics relies on technology growth and long term investment in technology can and will provide at least 20% per annum growth. [Yes, I know that there has been a recent fall, but that is in response to unsustainable rises of 20% per fortnight during the first quarter. On a long term basis 20% to 25% per year is perfectly reasonable.] Investing at this level, protected if required by *term* insurance, a cryonicist could get to the proposed $45k easily and cheaply, and if he then went on investing and allowed his account to grow beyond the "minimum" then there could still be substantial funds available for his cryopreservation. Indeed he may even be able to gift in some of his friends and relations, which would meet Mr Pizer's other points. Of course, all this would still work much better with the Cryonics Institute's minimum figures of $28k, but there are many people and many reasons why enough people would chose Alcor at $45k. I have made a web page where you can enter figures to compare life insurance with direct investment over various scenarios. It can be found on http://geocities.yahoo.com/longevityrpt/lifeins.htm I have also made a web page of links to corporate web pages of many technology companies. http://geocities.yahoo.com/longevityrpt/shares.htm Sincerely, John de Rivaz my homepage links to Longevity Report, Fractal Report, my singles club for people in Cornwall, music, Inventors' report, an autobio and various other projects: http://geocities.yahoo.com/longevityrpt ----- Original Message ----- > Message #13767 > Date: Tue, 23 May 2000 17:48:18 -0500 > From: david pizer <> > Subject: The failure to get reanimated - or how to be dead forever > Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=13780