X-Message-Number: 9825 Date: Sun, 31 May 1998 13:13:43 -0400 From: Saul Kent <> Subject: Reanimation Costs Steve Bridge (9819) deals with the issue of reanimation costs by first describing the current state of Alcor's Patient Care Trust, and then by stating the following: "I think that this investment growth, plus the inevitable overfunding that some members will provide to Patient Care in the event of their suspensions, may well provide enough earnings in a couple of decades to fund significant research in reanimation, PLUS end up with enough funding to handle the costs of repair, revival, and rehabilitation. Compound interest alone can greatly swell an account given enough time, and we are doing much better than that." I think this kind of vague optimism about reanimation costs is not good enough. The future holds many unknowns. Downturns in economic growth are just one of them. There may be costly legal and political challenges to cryonics that will have to be fought. There may be natural and man-made catastrophes that are very costly to deal with. And there may be very high costs required for attempts at reanimation. I think the only prudent thing to do is to start estimating and charging for reanimation, and to set up specific reanimation funds. The concept of cryonics includes the possibility of reanimation. That's the reason people sign up. Cryonicists spend considerable time discussing and arguing about the prospect of reanimation. Given that, I don't think we should ignore (or only offer vague hopes for) the costs of reanimation. Bob Ettinger and others (including me) have talked about offering lower-cost, low-tech cryonics options for people who cannot afford the best available cryonics methods. I think lower-cost options will be needed for social, political and ethical reasons when cryonics has more credibility because of improved methods, and the demand for it has gone up. One problem with lower-cost, low-tech methods, however, is that they are likely to cause more damage than more expensive, higher-tech methods. Steve Bridge raises the following question about such methods: "We don't want to offer procedures which offer no preservation of memory and identity. I can guarantee that we will not offer *cremation*, for instance. But are there procedures being used in cryonics today that are the practical equivalent of cremation? We don't know right now, but that will be a BIG debate in the future." Well, part of this "debate" is likely to deal with the costs of reanimating these people. Although it's impossible to estimate accurately what the costs of reanimation will be (at this time), it is reasonable to presume that the costs will be higher for those preserved with methods that cause more damage. How are these costs going to be paid? The issue of whether a particular patient can be revived may be quite difficult to determine scientically, even *after* we know a great deal more about the biological basis for both memory and identify. The "optimists" in cryonics believe it is likely that medical science in the future will eventually make it possible to revive many, most (or all) of today's patients. But at what cost? And who will pay for it? It may be necessary to make several attempts at reanimation before a particular patient can be successfully revived...or to determine that it will never be possible to revive that patient. Again, who will pay these costs? Right now, the cryonics societies have general patient care funds to which some patients have contributed little while others have contributed a great deal more. As Steve Bridge mentioned in his post, both Alcor and CI (you can add ACS to the list) have benefitted greatly from "overfunded" members. Well, this kind of socialism has worked so far and may continue to work for a while, but I don't think it is likely to be a satisfactory system when people begin to take the question of reanimation more seriously. People (and/or their relatives) who think their chances of reanimation are good are far less likely to be sanguine about *their* money being used to revive others, especially if the costs of reviving others are high. I believe this will become an important issue long before any patient has been revived. I think we should start dealing with these issues more effectively now. If we don't, I think we'll soon be *forced* to do so by the availability of better, more costly cryonics methods that will give the cryonics movement more credibility and lead to more business, but will also raise thorny questions about the costs of reanimation, and the affordability of cryonics. ---Saul Kent Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=9825