X-Message-Number: 10575
From: Olaf Henny <>
Subject: CryoNet #10557 (Marty Kardon)
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 13:29:49 -0700

In Message #10557 Marty Kardon wrote:

>In a way, particularly for someone with heirs, to pay for suspension
>is a sublimely selfish act unless you assume that there will be
>something of value you can offer to those in the future distant. I
>wonder if anyone else has felt this way, especially those who have
>already signed up..

Hi Marty:

Let us put that into perspective:

If you are the average cryonicist, you had a post secondary 
education, which ended in your late twenties.  At the time you 
may have already stared a family, be burdened with repayment of 
student loans, mortgage/rent and the costs of raising a family,  
at age 45 your children are becoming independent, leave the nest, 
but still depend on you to subsidize their very costly education.  
You have started to accumulate some very modest equity, mainly in 
form of equity in your home, which will probably balance in value 
with the ongoing obligations your have toward the education of 
your children.

So basically you start at point zero of your wealth creation at 
age 45.  That means you have a measly 20 years of active earnings 
to build up your investment funds for retirement etc. including 
of course the sum earmarked for cryonic suspension or your legacy 
to your children.

Now take your children:

If there is any reasonable communication between the 
generations, they will be touched by your enlightenment and 
familiar with the path to information on life extension.  If they 
are young enough, they may have the advantage of arrested or even 
reversed aging in their life time; if not they have at least the 
same opportunity as you to use the bridge of cryonics to the 
future as you had, at a much better chance of success.  If they 
have access to rejuvenation technology, they will have 100's of 
years to build their own wealth and the contribution you could 
have made instead of paying for cryonic suspension would make 
little difference.

If you can all be suspended, you will have centuries to build up 
your family fortune together.

If you use you money to pay for suspension and you cannot be 
revived, because the present state of the art of cryonics was 
insufficient to retain enough information, then all your heirs 
have lost is a few years out of a much longer life than yours
for the purpose of wealth generation.

Do your children love you as much as you love them?  If so they 
will elect to have your company in future over the money you can 
leave them; - if not, your legacy won't buy it, just give them a 
bit of a good time, while rarely remembering, where it came from.

Best,

Olaf
P.S: Sorry, if I sound crude, by putting life and death 
considerations in purely financial terms, but that is all it is, 
your legacy, it 's just money.
___________________________________

Tolerance is wisdom's finest fruit
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