If you want to use them (trusts) as means of ensuring that you personally will still be wealthy after reanimation, I think the old saying still applies: You can't take it with you.
That's true, I'm sure. With rare exceptions, you won't be able to "
take it with you".
You'll have to "
make it back" at the other end.
A good start at this may be to promise to pay back the costs of reanimation and assistance in "getting started again" at the other end, if need be, as recently suggested in another
thread in this same topic section of the forum.
As in previous postings on this subject, I'd suggest reading a highly out-of-date article my partner wrote about this nearly twenty years ago, titled
LifePact, An Introduction.
"Coming back" at a future time is going to be a little like "being reborn", in terms of adjustment and integration into the general (perhaps very, very high paced flow) of activity in such a time. The way this happens may vary from suspendee to suspendee, based on factors we cannot well predict.
This is not a very encouraging way to look at it, but depending on how things unfold, the experiences of those "coming back" may range from what we currently think of as "being born in a poor part of the world" to "being born in one of the highly developed countries". That's a little scary, but this is the sort of uncertainty we all face in making arrangements for cryonics, in
addition to the uncertainties of
how well we will be suspended and
whether our organizations will endure and keep us suspended, until reanimation is available and widely practiced.
There's only one alternative to these uncertainties: The comfort of knowing, if you choose oblivion, pretty much what you'll get:
Nothing! Some of us don't like that alternative, in fact we'll do almost anything to jump over it, but we only feel comfortable in doing so if we know there are some others who understand it the same way, who are equally determined not the let it happen, and ready to work on practical ways to avoid it.
A long time ago, I felt that way, and there seemed to be many decades left for things to grow, before I reached a point where I could practically see the end coming up. In that day, it was with a great sense of excitement, as I remember, that my partner and I went to work on a handbook to get all the details we thought should be collected in one place, into that handbook. It was called:
Instructions for the Induction of Solid State Hypothermia in HumansWe imagined that the whole world would soon grasp this idea, and that a wave of revusion concerning the acceptance of death would take mankind quickly into the state of development that Robert Ettinger foresaw when he wrote, "Prospect of Immortality".
"Surely, many would quickly grasp the logic of this!" we thought.
How could they fail to do so?But the road has turned out to be longer than we thought it would be.
As many of you have observed, perhaps it's a failure of vision, or a "deer in the headlights" effect of religion, or some other kind of stupor that many of you doubtless feel just as puzzled about as we.
Whatever it is, it's
there, and we have to deal with it!
So, what are we to do?
I guess each of us has to communicate to others in the way we think makes the most sense. The message I feel inclined to give to others, in the simplest possible way, is:
1. Get yourself frozen. If not, get oblivion!
2. Promise to pay back the costs of it at the other end, no matter how big they are. If not, who will take care of this for you? Perhaps no one! Ever! If enough of us follow this pattern some enterprising person will figure out how to get us back, and reanimate those who can be expected to have enough memory to remember what they promised and stick to it. He or she will have "invested in the future productivity of cryonicists who will remember enough to do what they said they'd do," which is, pay back the costs on an installment basis.
Those who come back in this way will know others who are not going to get such a good ride, as far as memory recovery is concerned. They will know that those who are still frozen may only vaguely know who they are, or worse, they may be like amnesia victims, but they will not have enough memory to recall that they obligated themselves to pay back the costs of their reanimations and after-care. This is something that those who come back first will have to convince them of. One way of putting it to them might be like this:
a. We took a chance on you, because we knew you. Now, the whole world is watching. If you do what's right (pay back the costs), there will be enough confidence to go ahead with the other.
b. If this doesn't work, with you, all of those people out there who are watching this may decide to forget it, and walk away. Don't let that happen. Help us help you get back on your feet, and then stick around long enough to help an even greater number get back on track, again!5. Slowly, with this kind of teamwork, we might get people back. But it won't be because "somebody else felt sorry for us and did it"! It will be because
we did it! There's really nobody
else, to "do it". What we have to do is see that it's up to us, and lay the groundwork for it now. We have to recognize that without this, it just may not happen at all.
In a way, this is the start of a new version of the "Lifepact" article linked above, that was written so long ago, by my parter. Back then (1988-1989) there really weren't enough people who saw this as important, to do anything about it. There may still not be. But, eventually, there have to be. There's nobody else "to do" it! Except us!
boundlesslifeps - For those who want to get the utmost priority in getting reanimated, it might be well to make one more pledge; that after you pay back your own costs of reanimation, you will,
yourself, "become an investor" in the project to recover others.
You might pledge that once you'd grown strong enough, you'd go further, that you'd be part of the group that would "take a chance" on those with memory losses.
Perhaps you'd do this because you could see that if you did not, you might wait far longer to "get back in the game". Who knows why you would pledge to do this? That's up to you!
The important thing would be to
do it! That's the only way the underlying momentum for such a process will get going, it seems to me.
These are very premature suggestions, not something that's been well conceived or worked out, so please accept my apologies if they seem chaotic or haphazardly conceived.
However, the bottom line is that for it to happen
we have to do it, and for it to inspire the most people, at the soonest possible time, it would be a good idea for us to do it
now!
Edited by boundlesslife, 19 December 2005 - 10:49 PM.
