X-Message-Number: 7090
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 96 14:28:56
From: Steve Bridge <>
Subject: Humor, reincarnation, and capitalism
To CryoNet
>From Steve Bridge, Alcor
October 28, 1996
In reply to:
Message #7080
From: ( RON SELKOVITCH)
Date: Sat, 26 Oct 1996 14:51:00, -0500
Subject: Saving for the Future
Message #7081
From:
Date: Sun, 27 Oct 1996 12:00:13 -0500
Subject: economics, cryonics
Message #7084
From:
Date: Sun, 27 Oct 1996 13:01:11 -0500
Subject: Re: Saving for the Future
AAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!
My original post was NOT about cryonics. Ron Selkovitch misread it,
asked questions like "The 23 years limit puzzles me. Does anyone reading
this message believe they will be re-animated within 23 years of their de-
animation?" --- and then two more people took him seriously.
Please read my original post again. This was an exact quote from
*Newsweek* Magazine.
>Message #7076
>Date: Fri, 25 Oct 96 11:23:58
>From: Steve Bridge <>
>Subject: Reincarnation Foundation?
> *Newsweek* of October 21, 1996 reports:
>********************************************
> BET YOUR LIFE
>
> So much for the adage, "You can't take it with you." Liechtenstein-
>based Prometh is now offering "reincarnation accounts" for the rich who'd
>rather not start from scratch the next time around. This "seed capital
>for your next life" (minimum $130,000) is redeemable within 23 years of
>death -- providing that the new you knows the name of your first parakeet
>and other personal facts. Prometh recommends a conservative investment
>portfolio. Says a spokesman, "You shouldn't be speculating while your
>soul wanders."
>
>**********************************************************************
>
[my own commentary]:
>
>Hmmm.... Liechtenstein, where the Reanimation Foundation is based.
> Prometh >>> Prometheus???
> $130,000 minimum ----- just above a whole body suspension.
>
> Saul Kent and Paul Wakfer: You guys wouldn't be hedging your bets,
>now, would you? :-)
>
>Steve
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This is not about cryonic reanimation -- it is about *REINCARNATION*.
Note the last sentence of the article. Who in cryonics talks about "souls
wandering?"
This is simply a highly imaginative scam and I thought it was very
funny. You give your money to an investment company and they get to use
it for a minimum of 23 years, making lots of money themselves. If your
soul has been reborn (reincarnated) as another human in that 23 years AND
you can remember your previous existence in that 23 years, then you can
get "your" money back.
Even if you accept reincarnation as true, most people assume the
"rules" of reincarnation are that you are not SUPPOSED to remember your
previous existences. If your soul does not make its new body aware of the
past, then you DO NOT get your money back. Since reincarnation is almost
certainly NOT TRUE, this is almost foolproof for the investment company.
Let's look at some lovely scam possibilities.
1. The investment company makes loads of interest by loaning out your
money for 23 years, then when you don't show up -- they KEEP the money.
2. The investment company merely makes its wad for 23 years and returns
the money to your heirs. (This is the "honest" version of the scam.)
3. Truly wicked: In 23 years, the investment company plants the answers
with someone 23 years old, hands them the money and gets 50% back in a
payoff.
The second part of my message was my own joke, wondering if Saul Kent
(who started the eerily similar Reanimation Foundation *for* cryonicists,
with investments in Liechtenstein) and Paul Wakfer (organizer of the
Prometheus Project) had started this to protect themselves in case
*reincarnation* works instead.
Anyone who knows Saul and Paul knows that they have ZERO expectation
that reincarnation is real. Someone in Liechtenstein may have heard about
the Reanimation Foundation, however, and decided to go Saul one better.
Within this joke background, I really hate to even approach the more
serious questions that the three responders posed. However, since a
number of cryonicists have made trusts in which they attempt to "take it
with them," either independently or through the Reanimation Foundation,
I'll throw in a couple of thoughts.
Ron Selkovitch asks:
>If this is the case then a better alternative to investing in 'Prometh'
>is to invest in our cryonics organization with the understanding
>that we will be reimbursed on re-animation.
It was not the case [that this offer was intended for cryonicists],
Ron. However, legally a non-profit, tax exempt organization (at least)
cannot promise you to invest money for you while you are "dead" and give
it back in the future with interest. Can't do it. That money is a
donation, not an investment. At least in Alcor's case, you need an
outside trust. Other organizations might be able to squeeze the legal
lines differently.
>Having said that, does anyone believe that our capitalist economic
>system will survive into the future ?. Can we really expect to sleep
>while our assets accumulate, and return in an advantageous financial
>position so we can let our assets 'work for us' while others provide for
our needs. It just won't happen.
That's the wrong question, Ron. It doesn't matter whether "our
capitalist system" survives or not. It matters whether our *investments*
survive. SOME system of economics and business will survive or there will
be NO CIVILIZATION LEFT to wake you up. And even the worst totalitarian
or communist society that ever existed had investments and made *someone*
money.
If you manage to invest your money with some company clever enough to
shift those investments into whatever part of the economy is most
important at any one time, then your value will be there in the future --
assuming that cryonics works for you so that you HAVE a future. It might
be in shares of asteroid mining futures or something completely
unimaginable today, and they probably won't hand you a pile of cash; but
*something* will always have value.
Now, let's lighten up a bit.
Steve Bridge -- who used to think he had a sense of humor until he started
posting on CryoNet. Sigh.
Stephen Bridge, President ()
Alcor Life Extension Foundation
Non-profit cryonic suspension services since 1972.
7895 E. Acoma Dr., Suite 110, Scottsdale AZ 85260-6916
Phone (602) 922-9013 (800) 367-2228 FAX (602) 922-9027
for general requests
http://www.alcor.org
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