X-Message-Number: 3006 Date: 21 Aug 94 07:13:57 EDT From: John de Rivaz <> Subject: CRYONICS: Libertarians, Futures, Insurance, re Ronald Selkovitch's comment about cryonics and libertarians. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- I have long held the view that cryonics attracts people with libertarian attitudes, and this provides problems: 1. It is difficult to get people to join, because they have to regiment and order their lives to the directions of cryonics organisations (provision of funding in specified ways, execution of legal documents etc) and/or life insurance institutions (eg physicals, prohibition of activities, for example flying other than as a fare paying passenger of an airline recognised by the ins.co.) 2. This individualism makes it difficult to form and maintain consistent organisations. Both BACS (remember them?) and Alcor have split. Only organisations that have a very simple structure and make little demands on their members have any chance of long term survival in the same state. [cf RISC microprocessors as against CISC]. Of course we now that the problem in that an organisation that makes little demands on its members suffers greater risk of failure through legal adventuring, financial shortages and technical failures through lack of preparedness. "Private" people often don't want to admit (sometimes even to themselves) why they are not joining in with cryonics, and actually come up with spurious arguments, eg population, pessimistic views of the future, becoming the fodder for medical research etc., "duty" to next generation, the country, the church or whatever. The present organisations are being worked upon by evolutionary pressures, and in time these pressures should cause a cryonics organisation to form which has ideal characteristics to succeed. It has to achieve a balance between the individualism of the clients and the practical necessities of interfacing cryonics with the requirements of society as a whole. re English companies providing standby insurance. As far as I am aware, this is not available. Some correspondence did take place many years ago, but offers of support by the insurance companies were withdrawn as the complexities of the problem emerged. These have been well discussed on other Cryonet postings. re cryonics futures: --------------------------- I have suggested many years ago the possibility of cryonics futures being offered for sale as a means of allowing people to interface rising suspension costs with static sums insured, or sums insured rising at a lower rate. [At present the prices of the Cryonics Institute have remained constant at $28k for signed up members, or $35k for others, but being reasonable people, they can't guarantee that this will always be so.] Futures in for example pork bellies, coffee, sugar etc are regularly traded for a very similar purpose. The commodity markets are not there to help rich people gamble. They are there to smooth out differences in the supply and demand of commodities with volatile prices, so producers and consumers can control their finances. If you are a consumer of pork bellies, for example, and you fear that the price may go up but you want to stabilise the price of pork pies on your supermarket shelves, you can buy the right to buy pork bellies at a specified amount up to a specified date in the future. That right becomes a tradeable item, so if a seller of pork bellies decides that there may be a glut and the price may fall, he will be very happy to sell the right to buy at a specific price. If the price of pork falls, then he will have received the cash for the right he has sold, which will partly compensate him for the price he actually gets for the physical commodity. There rights are paper items, and are traded on a market. Every possible combination you can think of is available. You can even take a view that the price will remain stable, and "bet" on that. Unlike bets on race horses, they can be bought and sold. Therefore, if you take the view that the price of coffee will rise before a certain date and buy a position, and it goes the wrong way, you can cut you losses by selling before the position is out of time. Alternatively if you take a position where the price will rise to your advantage, and it rises quickly, you may sell and take a profit rather than risk that it will fall before the period is out. There are many rich people gambling on this market, but they are providing the funds for the real purpose, stabilising the prices for serious suppliers and consumers of the commodities. If a cryonics futures market could be developed (and I would suggest that it could require rather more interest in cryonics than there is at present to make a genuine market) then it could go a long way to removing some of the difficulties faced by people funding their suspensions from life insurance or indeed any fixed return investment. re Insurance Medicals and an In House cryonics insurance service: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- One factor that seems to have been missed in the discussion is the question of doctor-patient relationship in the matter of insurance physical examinations. Cryonics organisation ought to present to the public an image of a caring institution, ie one where you can tell them all your troubles and they will do their best to help (within the financial constraints of the contract). The relationship between a person and his doctor is the most intimate one he will experience except that with his sexual partner. This is accepted on the basis that the doctor is there to help the patient, and any intimate activity has this end in view. Indeed, the word "patient" expresses submission. In the case of a life insurance physical examination, the aim of the doctor is quite different. He is looking for weaknesses in the patient that will make his life more difficult if found. (ie his insurance will be more expensive or even refused altogether.) The patient is in a confrontational situation, but he can't fight back. Personally, I think that if cryonics organisations set themselves up as insurers and then start refusing people after medical examinations on the grounds that they may need suspension soon, they will be attacked and even destroyed by the press and public media. Someone who has got themselves into the state of mind that they want to be suspended, and are then told they can't but they will be annihilated very soon, would be a very dangerous enemy - one who has nothing to lose whatever he does. At the moment, such anger would be directed at another party - the insurance companies. I think it is better that it should stay that way. John de Rivaz - Member, Cryonics Institute. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=3006