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Cryonics on the cheap?

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#1 YOLF

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Posted 07 October 2014 - 04:51 AM


Ok, so after reading Ralph Merkle's plan for affordable cryonics (we can bring the cost of preservation and perpetual storage to below $4k), I thought we needed to start polling people. So please share this poll. If you're already a cryonicist, please don't respond.

 


Edited by PerC, 10 October 2014 - 12:06 AM.


#2 Danail Bulgaria

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Posted 09 October 2014 - 08:48 AM

Cryonics for less than 4000 dollars? Now this is interesting. What is this Ralph Merkle's plan all about?



#3 YOLF

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Posted 09 October 2014 - 07:29 PM

Ralph Merkle wants to build a "Really Big Dewar" or "RBD" As you know, a Dewar is the storage vessel that is filled with liquid nitrogen and hold the patient in perpetuity. This dewar would be the size of a small skyscraper and would be mostly underground and have a much higher thermal efficiency than we are currently able to achieve with our smaller dewars as advanced as they are (in comparison to contemporary technologies). The RBD would house as many as 5.5M neuro patients and cost less than $1 per patient per year when full to store a patient indefinitely as compared with around $110 per patient at present.

 

In addition to this, and most notably, the real efficiencies of scale would be found with the number of cryonicsts and people receiving cryonics. 5.5M patients and more affordability would mean having all the efficiencies of a full time staff at various hubs where patients would be prepped for preservation as well as remove the notion that cryonics is only for the rich from the equation. The cost of labor, materials, and $200 for the perpetual storage trust fund would be $2,650 for a whole body with Merkle's projections. Despite financing cryonics with life insurance, the costs are still pretty high. My quote for cryonics was ~$150-160/mo and assumes that I will continue paying until until I'm 120 or for at least the next 87 years. That's ~$161,800 in total payments to afford something that's $80-88k and could be wasted considering that there may be other things I need that money for. Especially if cryonics doesn't materialize for me as is currently a problem. Many lose their coverage during periods of financial hardship and wind up getting cremated for lack of funds despite paying into their insurance for years. Others might have been able to live better and longer spending that money on something else, and many are persuaded to give up cryonics by family members who would rather have good lives in the now than maybe getting revived some day. In any case... Historically, I've immediately discounted any salesman who sells me on "affordable monthly installments" over value and ideal pricing. The only reason I'm even willing to consider funding cryonics with insurance at present is due to recent financial challenges. If it's not a house and I can't buy it with cash or put it on a credit card and pay it off by the end of the month... I just don't buy it. I've never owned a car loan or a loan for any big item other than student loans which just disgust me the way they've turned out. 

 

Life insurance in all cases except cryonics is deathist in nature and tells most people that their death is valuable to their families. We need to get away from this notion entirely. It's degrading and is a major driver for the choice of deathism over choosing life. An old man or woman who can't work or help their family in any other way sees their children suffering financially or going unfulfilled and there is nothing they can do to help them except die and leave behind insurance money! It's disgusting. People in the twilight of their lives see goals they haven't reached and feel better about aging because they're leaving behind insurance money to make up for it. This is why death is comforting to so many people. Life insurance is a means to an end, but it's no more than an opiate for someone who might otherwise spent their life fighting against aging and death! We can never forget that, no matter how old we may get. Unfortunately, annuities (an investment rather than an installment payment) can't be used to fund 100% of cryonics.

 

However, every teenager with a part time job could readily afford $4,000 cryonics and would most likely be guaranteed to have it in the event that it's needed. It also means we're no longer a first world only service and it brings us much closer to offering our products to those in developing countries or even raising money to subsidize cryonics for those whose citizenship doesn't permit income high enough to afford it. At this scale, no one will have to be left behind and that was the original intent of cryonics and immortality. Not to have it only for the rich and lifelong financially stable in first world economies.

 

This is what cryonics HAS to become. This is how cryonics "Mans up" IMO. Everything else is apathy.


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#4 chubtoad

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Posted 10 October 2014 - 06:17 AM

Where can we find Merkle's plan?



#5 YOLF

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Posted 10 October 2014 - 04:32 PM

Where can we find Merkle's plan?

 

Merkle's plan hasn't been published online as of yet and is only available in the print edition of Cryonics Magazine (there looks to be about a 1 year delay on publishing to the internet). I did however feel that this article was both important and compelling enough to take pictures of and post to the internet and I've made the pictures available in LongeCity's Members only forum. You can see them here (partial).


Edited by PerC, 11 October 2014 - 02:58 PM.

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#6 Danail Bulgaria

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Posted 10 October 2014 - 04:55 PM

Ralph Merkle wants to build a "Really Big Dewar" or "RBD" As you know, a Dewar is the storage vessel that is filled with liquid nitrogen and hold the patient in perpetuity. This dewar would be the size of a small skyscraper and would be mostly underground and have a much higher thermal efficiency than we are currently able to achieve with our smaller dewars as advanced as they are (in comparison to contemporary technologies). The RBD would house as many as 5.5M neuro patients and cost less than $1 per patient per year when full to store a patient indefinitely as compared with around $110 per patient at present.

 

Woow, this is what I call mega - structure! Underground, e.g. it will be one very big termo - isolated hole, with hudge number of frozen people in it. I thought, that this plan is some sort of a iconomics plan, such as moving the manipulations needed in a country with low cost medical care (something like a medical tourism). This RBD is mind-blowing :)

 

 

5.5M patients and more affordability would mean having all the efficiencies of a full time staff at various hubs where patients would be prepped for preservation as well as remove the notion that cryonics is only for the rich from the equation.

 

I like very much this style of thinking.

 

 

Especially if cryonics doesn't materialize for me as is currently a problem. Many lose their coverage during periods of financial hardship and wind up getting cremated for lack of funds despite paying into their insurance for years. Others might have been able to live better and longer spending that money on something else, and many are persuaded to give up cryonics by family members who would rather have good lives in the now than maybe getting revived some day.

 

This makes me ask one question? What happens with the money of all these people, who wanted to use the cryonics once and for one or another reason didn't do it?
 

If it's not a house and I can't buy it with cash or put it on a credit card and pay it off by the end of the month... I just don't buy it. I've never owned a car loan or a loan for any big item other than student loans which just disgust me the way they've turned out

 

Can you take a credit and pay for the cryonics with it? Which is better? To save money or to take the credit and pay it out? I think, that you are right. Loans and credit sucks. I also don'town money to noone.

 

Life insurance in all cases except cryonics is deathist in nature and tells most people that their death is valuable to their families. We need to get away from this notion entirely. It's degrading and is a major driver for the choice of deathism over choosing life. An old man or woman who can't work or help their family in any other way sees their children suffering financially or going unfulfilled and there is nothing they can do to help them except die and leave behind insurance money! It's disgusting. People in the twilight of their lives see goals they haven't reached and feel better about aging because they're leaving behind insurance money to make up for it. This is why death is comforting to so many people.

 

Man, this is scary.
 

This is why death is comforting to so many people. Life insurance is a means to an end, but it's no more than an opiate for someone who might otherwise spent their life fighting against aging and death! We can never forget that, no matter how old we may get. Unfortunately, annuities (an investment rather than an installment payment) can't be used to fund 100% of cryonics.

 

Well, it is really a big problem. Many people want to be immortal, and noone is making anything about it.
 

It also means we're no longer a first world only service and it brings us much closer to offering our products to those in developing countries or even raising money to subsidize cryonics for those whose citizenship doesn't permit income high enough to afford it. At this scale, no one will have to be left behind and that was the original intent of cryonics and immortality. Not to have it only for the rich and lifelong financially stable in first world economies.

 

Who are "we"? Are you from Alcor? :)
 



#7 YOLF

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Posted 10 October 2014 - 06:15 PM

@Seivtcho: If you pay into life insurance and the policy loses value, the insurance company benefits... especially if your policy lapses or the payout is substantially reduced. If you die and you don't get preserved the money is at the disposal of the cryonics company. If you've paid ahead of time, my guess is that the cryonics company keeps the money and it's non refundable. You may also reclaim ownership of the policy and leave it to family, though it would almost always be a more useful option to invest in an annuity IMO.

 

Cash is king, but being able to pay cryonics off in a short time is also preferable in my mind to paying it off for the rest of my life.

 

"We" means cryonicists. I'm a member of both CI and Alcor but hold no authority at either.


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#8 YOLF

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Posted 11 October 2014 - 02:49 AM

Looks like the average cost of death is $8k... This make $4-5k cryonics look very attractive IMO.


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#9 Danail Bulgaria

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Posted 11 October 2014 - 09:36 AM

Absolutely :) Hehe :) It is cheaper to be immortal, rather than death and eaten from the worms :D


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#10 PWAIN

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Posted 11 October 2014 - 09:57 AM

I love the idea but doubt that even at that great price we will find 5.5 million people. I'd certainly be interested :).



#11 Danail Bulgaria

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Posted 11 October 2014 - 10:51 AM

Such a grandeous project will take a lot of money. Does Ralph Merkle has the money to do that?



#12 chubtoad

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Posted 11 October 2014 - 01:15 PM

I wonder if Peter Thiel would fund a business around this kind of idea if someone actually fleshed out the details and demonstrated that people would actually sign up at that price point.



#13 YOLF

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Posted 11 October 2014 - 02:59 PM

At that price, why not! Conventional burial is more expensive... There is definitely a profit to be made here...



#14 Mind

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Posted 12 October 2014 - 11:35 AM

I would not want to be cryopreserved in such a facility. One single point of failure. One earthquake, one calamity, and 5.5 million people thawed/dead. I understand the desire for economics of scale, but survivability is more important. Smaller dewars can be moved, can be handled by hand if neccessary, easier to maintain by a small staff, etc... Having smaller cryo-storage facilities in many countries would be more robust.



#15 Danail Bulgaria

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Posted 12 October 2014 - 11:50 AM

I imagine it as people, choosing to live in an own big house, or in an appartment in a skyscraper. One single point of failure. One earthquake, one calamity, and the people in the skyscreaper are death :) But... these things are rare and people, who live in big house blocks are still alive. And if you don't have 200 000 dollars, you may have 4000.



#16 chubtoad

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Posted 12 October 2014 - 04:58 PM

While I agree smaller dewars may be more robust to natural disaster, I think having many more people involved in cryonics would be much more robust to economic or political disaster.  Why? Simply because there would be many more people with vested interest in the cryopreserved bodies.



#17 YOLF

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Posted 13 October 2014 - 01:03 AM

I would not want to be cryopreserved in such a facility. One single point of failure. One earthquake, one calamity, and 5.5 million people thawed/dead. I understand the desire for economics of scale, but survivability is more important. Smaller dewars can be moved, can be handled by hand if neccessary, easier to maintain by a small staff, etc... Having smaller cryo-storage facilities in many countries would be more robust.

 

The idea would be that a RBD fails slowly. I'm sure that if we can get 5.5M people to get cryonics, we can get plenty more. This won't be the only facility, and it would be possible to design towable riggs or utilize existing technologies to move patients should their be a need. I'm sure we'd have an ample insurance policy (to move the patients and build a new RBD) on something like this and there is plenty of overhead remaining to do so.

 

We can also design it to resist earthquakes and such. Failing a terrorist attack, our designs would have and likely exceed a planned lifespan. We just wouldn't build them near a fault line, volcano, ocean, or anything else that is likely to harm the structure. These things have already been built and we should have a pretty good idea of what to expect. We can even build RBDs specifically for LN2 storage that could double as backup facilities and be profitable for dispensing LN2 to other industries or keep them running on a sort of retainer to the nuclear power industry should they ever need to cool down a reactor beyond their available countermeasures.

 

There's plenty that we can do at this scale. 

 

I'm also thinking that on a small scale, we're more prone to failure for social and political reasons. 99% of the world won't care that someone is trying to make cryonics illegal if cryonics is a very tiny industry. On the other hand, if we're serving the masses, things will likely be good.


Edited by PerC, 13 October 2014 - 01:17 AM.


#18 Danail Bulgaria

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Posted 13 October 2014 - 08:53 AM

One question, that hit my mind... If 4000 dollars is for a cryopreserved head (the such called "Neuro"), then will a full body cost 8x4000 = 32000 dollars? I mean, the head is 1/8 of the body length? One head container shold be 1/8 of the full nody container. Right?



#19 YOLF

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Posted 13 October 2014 - 03:03 PM

The difference in cost isn't much. The cost of storage for a head is $1/yr, so if the body is 8 heads worth of space, it will just cost $8/yr to store (so however much money it takes to earn eight or so dollars/yr in interest) and the procedure to cryopreserve the whole body is ~$1,100 more for whole body under the Merkle plan. I don't think it would cost more than ~$5k.


Edited by PerC, 13 October 2014 - 05:47 PM.


#20 Danail Bulgaria

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Posted 13 October 2014 - 04:46 PM

That's even better. And the cost is still smaller than the funerelal cost. There definately will be many people, who to want this.



#21 PWAIN

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Posted 20 October 2014 - 12:36 AM

Is there a premium to be stored at the bottom of the tank?
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#22 YOLF

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Posted 20 October 2014 - 12:56 AM

With the present iteration of cryostorage, the tank would be filled with LN2 that would last 8 months in the event of an LN2 outage. In this case, the LN2 reservoir would last several months in the event of an outage, but patients would be stored at gaseous nitrogen temperatures.


Edited by PerC, 20 October 2014 - 12:57 AM.


#23 Danail Bulgaria

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Posted 20 October 2014 - 09:10 AM

Hm... so what will be the temperature inside the tank? I mean what is the gaseous LN2 temperature? Will it be enough to stop decomposition?



#24 YOLF

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Posted 20 October 2014 - 02:41 PM

It will be enough to at least maintain glass transition (vitrification) of your head/body (IIRC -50C). Though nitrogen can stay a gas until the -170 to -180ish IIRC.



#25 Danail Bulgaria

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Posted 20 October 2014 - 03:26 PM

OK. So, there will be some sort of compromise for those, who will be cryopreseved on that way. Can a human corpse stay 1000 years in -50C without decompose?


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#26 YOLF

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Posted 20 October 2014 - 04:32 PM

No real compromise... The $4-5k service doesn't include local standby and assumes that services will be rendered locally.

 

The backup supply of LN2 will likely last just as long as the conventional dewars, so I'm not seeing a real sacrifice... It's all in your head! Cheaper doesn't have to be worse.



#27 Danail Bulgaria

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Posted 20 October 2014 - 05:04 PM

Yup :) The cheaper or even the free things doesn't have to be worse. In this case are the -50C are supposed to be in cases of an LN2 outage, which may happen if the liquid nitrogen is not refilled after 8 months? In this case it becomes better, than the usual storage :) 


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#28 corb

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Posted 20 October 2014 - 07:21 PM

Ok, lets say the engineering principle is sound (which I don't think it is but whatever) - how would you market this facility?
Because even the people on this forum that want to be cryoed are like - Nah ah!

You want to make the concept more popular by making it more unsafe (everything done on a massive scale has a higher failure rate) and unsightly? How the hell is that going to work?


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#29 A941

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Posted 20 October 2014 - 09:02 PM

I dont really like the Idea of cryonics, as someone mentioned, it is the 2nd worst option, but at least better than the worst option.

Some may never be able to pay tons of money to use cryonics, so this cheap option is at least an alternative to not doing anything.



#30 YOLF

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Posted 20 October 2014 - 10:25 PM

Ok, lets say the engineering principle is sound (which I don't think it is but whatever) - how would you market this facility?
Because even the people on this forum that want to be cryoed are like - Nah ah!

You want to make the concept more popular by making it more unsafe (everything done on a massive scale has a higher failure rate) and unsightly? How the hell is that going to work?

I think we're looking at it wrong. A higher price cryonics is less sustainable than mass scale. If in 500 years we have 10-20k people frozen we aren't much of a concern and will in fact be thought of mostly as the privileged rich. If on the other hand, we have lots of people frozen, we are a much bigger concern. 

 

Additionally, if people look back and see that we could have made cryonics more widely available and didn't (resulting in a huge loss of potential lives), we'll loose their respect. The founder of the movement imagined everyone getting cryonics the world over, not just the rich. We can never become complacent with the facilities technologies that we presently have. That in itself is a failure.







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