Well, I'm gonna do it. I plan to offer chemical fixation, pay-as-you-go cryopreservation, and lower cost than ever before. All with a solid business model.

Please see
http://www.oregoncryo.com/services.htm

Not there yet, but things are coming together, and it shouldn't be much longer.

Jordan Sparks

My question:

"$500/yr Maintenance Fee: Paid once per year in advance."
"$8000 Maintenance Fund: Paid separately from the Maintenance Fee. Optional."
"Once the fund reaches the full amount, the Maintenance Fee is no longer required."

Does this mean you'll keep someone suspended forever for $8000 + the $2000 initial fee?

If not that's still pretty good. A guy last year wanted CI to accept one of his relatives but he only had about $20k. This would've been great for him.

Does anyone know his name? He was keeping his relative cryonicly cooled by himself. Maybe he'd be your first customer.

Jordan, I am happy to see you making progress, but your web site raises some questions. It states:

"For patients who have planned ahead and are signed up with the Cryonics Institute in Michigan or with Alcor in Arizona, we can help arrange shipping. . . . We can provide pickup from the hospital, stabilization, and cool down with ice."

Do you have a contractual arrangement with either Alcor or CI? If not, with what authority would you intervene? Are you planning to ask local Alcor/CI members to sign an additional authorization for you? How would Alcor feel about this?

It sounds as if you don't yet have a local cooperating funeral director. Is this because you are planning to qualify as one yourself?

We do not have contractual arrangements with either Alcor or CI. We are simply volunteering our time and equipment to whomever needs it. Some people in Portland are very likely already certified by Alcor, so they might make use of our equipment, providing a more official role. We wouldn't need a contract with CI in order to assist a CI member. The authority would need to come from the next of kin I suppose. We do not plan to ask anyone to sign additional authorization. Honestly, I think there has only been one case in Oregon, and I think it's unlikely that there will be another one soon.

I have had meetings with two local funeral directors, and they both seemed eager to help. I did not bring up the issue of neuroseparation yet, so that is my next task. I do not plan to qualify as a funeral director because I now feel that we have the best chance by receiving a "donated organ" and allowing the funeral director to handle the disposition of the remainder of the body in the ordinary way. In other words, I'm taking the medical track as opposed to the funeral director track. I still may go to funeral director school later if it would allow us to avoid having to work with a funeral director.

eh?

Soon after you asked, I changed the website to make it more clear that it was indeed $10,000 for a perpetual cryopreservation.

I think it is a good thing when a new competitor enters the field. My question is about something that the current cryo organizations intentionally neglect: Are you going to establish Individual Trusts where the cryopreserved members can have their money administered and preserved until they are reanimated? The current cryo providers are quite satisfied when they get paid for cryopreservation and do not care about the fact that their deanimated members after their reanimation will be without their money, which their heirs spent long time ago.

I would love to if I could figure out how. This is not my area of expertise, but I'll take a stab at it. The first issue, I think, is that cryonics providers are forced by law to pool the money coming in from customers. One of the first things that both the Alcor and CI contracts make clear is that the cryopreservation agreement is not a trust. The language is boilerplate. The second problem, which I think Alcor ran into, was that someone has to be the beneficiary of a trust. But people who are legally dead can't be the beneficiary.

What I have always envisioned is not pooling the money. I would love to be able to keep it separate for each customer if I could. I've been reviewing the endowment trusts that cemeteries use to provide perpetual care. I'm trying to figure out if we can somehow keep the money separate. I don't know if having a large number of separate trusts turns out to be a much bigger headache than having one pooled trust. Or if we do have one pooled trust, I would like to word it so that each person has a separate amount within that trust.

Regardless of how this all works out legally, we will certainly keep track of the amount each person initially put into the Maintenance Fund. I fully appreciate the desire of people to keep their funds separate. Looks like I'll be talking to a trust attorney.

Cryonic's appearance is vital to it's success, and if you guys actually did this - if you created a for-profit interest scam to make money while you're dead - the media would destroy us.

We're still suffering from rumors that cryonics costs millions of dollars. We don't need more enemies. So I beg you guys to stop.

There's no guarantee that today's money system will exist when you're revived, so why not spend that money now to help cryonics?

Infact, I'll guarantee you your fortunes won't exist - havn't you noticed that everything Europe does we do a few years later?

They've started taxing wealth, & frankly in a day of hedge funds where people make billions while sitting on their bums, that's not so bad. (Who knows, maybe they'll replace income taxes with wealth taxes.)

Please don't put the entire cryonics community at risk so you guys can hopelessly try to keep money. That money won't be there, so spend it now.

I have no interest in trying to take any money with me to the "other side". But the way I look at it, if the money is not pooled, then it gives people much greater incentive to put their money under control of the cryonics organization. And that gives those people a bigger buffer in case of emergency. So for me, it's more about finding better ways to survive the next 100 years rather than trying to take wealth with me beyond that.

"I have no interest in trying to take any money with me to the 'other side.' But the way I look at it, if the money is not pooled, then it gives people much greater incentive to put their money under control of the cryonics organization."

I disagree - pooled money means the research & efficient bulk purchases that a large group can provide, it's not bad.

A trust fund system won't save you, but it's guaranteed to embarrass cryonics. It'd be such a blatant attempt at profit through unnatural means that we could literally be the joke of the century.

Dead people making interest for hundreds of years is such an absurd profit scheme that there'd be nothing in history to compare it to.


"What on earth makes that a scam?"

Well... You could wake up one of the richest people on earth purely for gaming the system.

So let me ask you: If you were born in 2100 would you allow some random frozen people to become earth's new financial rulers?

Never. It has zero chance of working but has a %100 chance to embarrass all of cryonics.

It has a %100 chance of making us all look like crooks.

And it has a %100 chance to force the government to regulate us.

This is just ridiculous.

1. Cryonics patient are not dead. That's the whole point of what we do. Dead people cannot be resuscitated by definition. That existing law does not seem to allow cryonics patients to execute an individual trust (although this cannot be completely correct because some individual cryonicists have executed such trusts) does not make these people dead.

2. If the patients cannot be resuscitated, the trust can provide for donating the money to a non-profit or existing relatives. There is no apriori reason why the cryonics organization would benefit from such trusts.

This part I do not even understand:

"Well... You could wake up one of the richest people on earth purely for gaming the system.

So let me ask you: If you were born in 2100 would you allow some random frozen people to become earth's new financial rulers?"

???????????????????

How does earning interest, or return on your investment, during long term care constitute "gaming the system"? How is that different from a person investing his money and not touching it for a long time? Where do you draw the line?

#1
I only said "dead" to show how normal people would view it. I believe we should call them patients.

#2
If the patients cannot be resuscitated, the trust can provide for donating the money to a non-profit or existing relatives. There is no apriori reason why the cryonics organization would benefit from such trusts.

I didn't even mention that. The post we were replying to was about "individual member trusts," which George1st explained like this: "The current cryo providers are quite satisfied when they get paid for cryopreservation and do not care about the fact that their deanimated members after their reanimation will be without their money,"

In other words, he supports *reanimation trusts.* Then Jordan Sparks replied "I would love to."

Later Jordan said "I have no interest in trying to take any money with me to the 'other side.'"

So I don't know yet what his position is.

what your concerns are. It is not really clear to me what you are objecting to.

Cytosine: “what your concerns are. It is not really clear to me what you are objecting to.”

Comment: He is objecting to the same thing that people objected for many Millennia. People without money always objected to people with money. That will never change, they always will envy successful people and in any orderly society there always shall be some tangible measure of success. Unless we will live in the Lenin’s Republic of Utopia, where everyone is a millionaire and as Lenin said: “The walls of public toilets will be covered with gold” and “everyone shall contribute according to his ability and everone shall get according to his needs.” But that was an old Marxist propaganda that even modern communists are rejecting.

As for money trust of dead people: One dead person, who will never come back, has already for 108 years a huge trust worth billions. His name is Alfred Nobel. Then there is Ford’s trust, Hughes’ trust, etc, etc, and that will continue for as long as there is a civilized society...

Don't twist people's words & call them Marxists, George. I said nothing of the sort. That might work on the Rush Limbaugh program, but not here.

My post was about the media assault on cryonics if dead people were making billions in interest over hundreds of years. They could awaken some of the richest people on earth due to an unnatural profit scheme.

You've never answered why you believe this isn't a problem. You've dodged this issue repeatedly.

George, do you actually expect the media to ignore a story about dead people making billions of dollars in interest over hundreds of years?

And don't you see how that would make us all look like crooks & force the government to regulate us?

...

But what did I say that upset you so much that you'd accuse me of Marxism?

This:

And you believe no money = welfare case?

Like Nikola Tesla?

And the people who's companies robbed them of their retirement funds?
(while their CEOs made millions?)

Like the sick people who never had an opportunity?


I was pointing out the obvious: that there's a lot of robbery, crooks, & luck in this world. That's not endorsing Marxism, it's saying we need rich crooks thrown in jail too, not just poor ones.

George, I hope you grow up before you die of old age. And last, are you sure that quote you used is even real? It even sounds made up.

Your search - "The walls of public toilets will be covered with gold" - did not match any documents.
-- google

Edward-M: “Don't twist people's words & call them Marxists, George. I said nothing of the sort. That might work on the Rush Limbaugh program, but not here.”

COMMENT: If someone wants to confiscate someone else’s property, they are either Marxists, Crooks, or Cooks. Which are you?

Edward-M: “You've never answered why you believe this isn't a problem. You've dodged this issue repeatedly.”

COMMENT: I answered it clearly. You just refuse to accept the answer.

Edward-M: “George, do you actually expect the media to ignore a story about dead people making billions of dollars in interest over hundreds of years?”

COMMENT: Which dead people are making billions of Dollars? And where? From where you pulled the number “hundreds of years”? Are the "cryo-crooks" stealing the money from widows and orphans, or is it something they own? As for the media, the story is that there is no story. End of story. End of paranoia.

Edward-M: “And don't you see how that would make us all look like crooks & force the government to regulate us?”

COMMENT: Crooks? People who are saving their own hard-earned money? No, I do not see any crooks. I only see honest people who are preserving their own capital. In a free, democratic society that abides by laws that is neither criminal, nor crooked.

Edward-M: “George, I hope you grow up before you die of old age. And last, are you sure that quote you used is even real? It even sounds made up.”

COMMENT: Insult wins you no argument (not that you presented any). It only shows you to be a jerk. Yes, It is as real as it gets. I have read Vladimir Ilyich. As for growing up, get busy, you have quite a job cut-out for you.

Finally, no one is forcing you to save your money for your uncertain future. You are free to dispose of it in any way you see fit, just do not rob others of their property rights.

Comment: Exactly the opposite. I think that any future society allows reanimation only of someone who will be financially secured and prepared to enter the society. I doubt that they will want to accept any welfare cases from the past. Simple rule: No money - no reanimation.

Comment: I do not know about you, but I do not want be reanimated to a new unknown world without a penny and only with some obsolete skills from the 21st century. Thanks, but not thanks. Why someone should give away all his money and property, so only to become a pauper in the future?

First off, do you actually expect the media to ignore a story about dead people making billions of dollars in interest over hundreds of years?

That's not a controversy?

And do you really expect people will still collect coins & shiny metals in the future?

...

"I do not know about you, but I do not want be reanimated to a new unknown world without a penny and only with some obsolete skills from the 21st century."

If the only skills you value are "job skills" then I don't understand why you even want to see the future.

And you believe no money = welfare case?

Like Nikola Tesla?

And the people who's companies robbed them of their retirement funds?
(while their CEOs made millions?)

Like the sick people who never had an opportunity?

...

You're simply wrong about that.

But who's winning this debate around the world? Conservatives? Of course not: frankly liberal ideas won long ago & now even here in America liberal ideas are winning. The debate is over, so give up & enjoy it.

Enjoy some weed, fairness & equal opportunity. They aren't so bad. And let's focus on keeping cryonics alive.

I am not alone among the great thinkers of the world (ahem!) who believe that if civilization endures at all, surviving obstacles such as the Singularity, P*tv*nesque world wars and economic destruction, and alien invasions, it will likely progress to the point that human labor is no longer needed for anything. No labor, no way to earn money, ergo no need for money.

If I had the choice of being reanimated in a civilization wherein I had to do slave labor (such as the one we are in now) to feed my face, and a civilization much more advanced than that where I don't have to lift a hand to do anything unless I want to, I would readily wait for the latter.

I haven't been following all the conversation in this remarkably fast-growing thread very closely. Does the above answer any questions?

Fondly,

FD

have you asked him his ideas about this?

Brian Wowk did not say this. He only said that it's not reversible with current technologies ("a dead end").

Brian Wowk is too smart of a person to make dogmatic statements about which technologies will allow revival and which do not.

As a matter of fact, Alcor (Mike Perry) just received $25,000 to investigate low cost alternatives to cryonics such as chemical fixation:

http://www.alcornews.org/weblog/2008/01/administrative_report.html

Let's see what happens with that money

X-Message-Number: 3359
From: Brian Wowk <wowk@cc.UManitoba.CA>
Date: Thu, 27 Oct 94 01:48:29 CDT
Subject: SCI.CRYONICS Fixation, reply to Ralph Merkle

Ralph Merke:

> The use of chemical fixation is debated from time to time and would
> seem to offer definite advantages. Current suspension methods do
> not preserve function, and the evidence that they preserve structure
> is at present based largely on light and electron microscopic images.

I think it is a bit misleading to say current suspension
methods do not preserve function. While they do not preserve
function of the brain as a whole, they almost certainly preserve
unit (cell) function. Alcor's monograph, The Cryobiological Case
for Cryonics, is full of references to work where glial cells or
fetal brain tissue were successfully recovered and cultured after
being frozen with really lousy cryoprotection protocols down to
-196'C. Although adult neurons cannot be cultured because they no
longer divide, synaptosomes from adult neurons resume metabolism and
neurotransmitter uptake after thawing from -196'C. (Aside: What is
really amazaing is that in some of these studies, the brains had been
dead at room temperature for serveral hours before they were frozen!)

Just because neither freezing or fixation preserves function
of the brain *as a whole*, does not mean they are equivalently damaging.
The havoc wrecked by fixation on the molecular level is devastating
compared to freezing. The only possible advantage of fixation might
be a reduction of mechanical damage from ice crystals. However I
don't know how significant this protection would be, and more to the
point I don't think any of us know how significant such protection
would be from the standpoint of protecting memory storage.

Present cryonics techniques preserve cellular chemistry and
functionality fairly decently. We are also now tantalizingly close to
technology for preservation the brain without any damage at all.
Under the circumstances, I think research oriented toward fixation
would be a step backward.

--- Brian Wowk

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=3359

Brian does not say anything of the sort. He just states that injury produced by chemical fixation is worse than that produced by (straight) freezing.

Since he also wrote Alcor's technical FAQ on chemical fixation, it would make sense to look at this as well:

http://www.alcor.org/FAQs/faq02.html#cryopreservation

"Also, fixation commits patients to a very high level of future technology for revival".

Note that this sentence does not say anything about the impossibility of resuscitating chemopreserved patients. As a matter of fact, I am not aware of any serious cryonicist who has claimed that resuscitation of chemopreserved patients is not possible.

Did anyone else notice the year of that CryoNet post? 13 1/2 years ago.

Did anyone else also notice this statement in it? -- "We are also now tantalizingly close to technology for preservation the brain without any damage at all."

And I'm not talking about the minor grammatical error.

FD

First, why is Jordan touting fixation? I think it would be incredible if there is any science to show it is better than cryopreservation. The only scientist I know who discussed it is Wowk, and from the quote I posted above, he seems to think very little of it.

And YES, again we have an instance of the disappearing future. Back then, Wowk thought that we would already perfect cryopreservation before 2008. Oops!

I would LOVE to hear Wowk or some other scientist-cryonicist who has studied the subject discuss the virtues of fixation.

Maybe wowk has a different perspective now.

And WHY the hell is Perry getting 25000 to study fixation? He is a COMPUTER scientist. Is this another instance of bad judgment and cronyism on the part of alcor?

I bet Jordan will tell us if nicely asked. He has never been reluctant to speak up straightforwardly on here.

If Wowk came on here (under his real name, not that pantyassed thing he used to try to discredit FD and failed), he would be welcomed and given all respect for his straightforward posts, by me.

Perry - that was a directed donation by some individual, therefore has to be used for that purpose. I seem to recall Mike having expressed an interest in chemical fixation before. Maybe some good will come out of it. Heck, how many years of that CryoMonk's wages will that amount cover, plus getting the dewars topped off along with the deal?

And yes he branches out from comp sci into quantum physics/computers and it isn't hard to see that if fixation saves the structure and info better, and if that is all that is important, I suppose the original could just be discarded. This of course gets into the "is a copy of me, me?" debates, and has altogether IMO to do with awareness of identity and wherein that resides, if indeed it is a real thing at all.

Shermer recently had a superb article in his rag "Consciousness is Nothing but a Word" by Henry D. Schlinger. It is a must read for anyone who thinks about consciousness and identity. It was in his 2/27/08 eSkeptic send - I don't know if it's on a web page or not, google?

TaaaaaDaaaaaa,

FD

Yes, I'm open to advice.

Oregon Cryonics is non-profit, but not tax exempt. So, for tax purposes, it's the same as if we were for-profit. As with Charles, I see no way around this. Alcor has just been really lucky to hold onto their tax exempt status. But even though we get taxed, we only get taxed on what we keep. So we won't be taxed on cryopreservation fees because we will spend all that money on supplies and equipment. What I failed to remember until you made this post is that we will be taxed on what we are calling the Maintenance Fund money, because we plan to hold onto that money forever. This is unfortunate. It means we need to raise the amount that a customer is required to put into the Maintenance Fund in order to pay taxes. This change has now been made on our website.

From: Brian Wowk <wowk@cc.UManitoba.CA>
Date: Thu, 27 Oct 94 01:48:29 CDT
Subject: SCI.CRYONICS Fixation, reply to Ralph Merkle

Ralph Merke:

> The use of chemical fixation is debated from time to time and would
> seem to offer definite advantages. Current suspension methods do
> not preserve function, and the evidence that they preserve structure
> is at present based largely on light and electron microscopic images.

...We are also now tantalizingly close to
technology for preservation the brain without any damage at all.
Under the circumstances, I think research oriented toward fixation
would be a step backward.

Comment: 14 years ago (in 1994) we were “tantalizingly close to technology for preservation the brain without any damage at all.” That apparently has not changed. We are still “tantalizingly close” and how many 14-year periods in the future we may still be “tantalizingly close “?

The simple fact is that all currently cryopreserved patients will require something as advanced as molecular nanotechnology to repair them. I don't care "how close they are to normal biological condition". The person was sick enough to die. They'll need a new body. The cryoprotectant is toxic. Perfusion is never perfect. There are cracks. Proteins are not in their naturally folded configurations. I could go on and on. They just ain't coming back without some very very advanced molecular repair.

Does anyone disagree with the above? So as long as we are doing molecular repair anyway, I don't see how it would be any harder to remove the cross-links caused by the fixative. Chemical fixation has long been the gold standard for preserving tissue structure.

THat is the crucial question. As long as the information is STORED someday we can recover it. And if we can recover that information, then I will be unperson once again, by nano or super-virus or by hook or by crook, one way or another.

But the question is whether fixation does preserve that critical information. All else is simply very complicated engineering that can be done in the future.

Chemical fixation has long been the gold standard for preservation of structure. In other words, it is clearly proven to accurately preserve the exact location and size of every synapse. Are some of the lipids getting washed out? Yes. But any micrograph you see on the Alcor website proving good cryopreservation is a micrograph of tissue that has been chemically fixed. It must be in order to view it under a microscope. It is well understood in histology that the fixative does not alter structure.