X-Message-Number: 17626
From: 
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 07:30:14 -0400
Subject: Re: CryoNet #17616-- Somebody's Frozen Unfunded Mother

Message #17616 rom: "Trygve Bauge" 19 Sep 2001

I have got a request from a Canadian cryonisist. His mother died earlier this 
Summer. She received a straight freeze a few

hours after death and is presently stored in dry ice at a funeral home in 
Detroit. The Canadian cryonisist can not presently afford the USD 28,000 ++ that
it costs to have his mother stored at C.I., but he might be able to afford an 
electrical freezer if he can find someone in the US that has a site where he can
place such an electrical freezer. 

Thus he has three requests: 

1. Is anyone (or a group of people) willing to lend him USD 20,000 

to 25,000 so that he can place his mother at C.I.? (25 people lending USD 1,000 
each, would be one way to spread the risk around?) 
He offers to pay back a total of USD 200 to 300 a month. 

or alternatingly: 

2. does anyone have a site in the US, where he can place an electrical freezer 
with his mother? and 

3. Is anyone willing to join him in buying an electrical freezer?

===============================================


COMMENT: 


It was said in the Old West that it no kindness to hang a man slowly. Similarly,
today we know that it is also no kindness to give poor people money for dry ice
or electrical freezers for their dead mothers. Cryonics history teaches that 
this kind of thing hasn't worked in the past, and it's not likely to work in the
future. It is money down a rat hole. Trygve Bauge should know better, but then 
Trygve needs some serious help himself in the practicality department.


Here's scoop, I'm afraid: the situation in question merits neuroconversion, 
followed by liquid nitrogen storage. This kind of thing can be done privately 
for a few years, and indeed has saved more than one cryonicist until they could 
be transferred to an institution and eventually properly funded. We know it's a 
viable alternative because we know of unthawed cryonicists who made it into 
institutional storage that way, and would not have made it any other way. We 
also know of a lot of now-decayed and buried people who started out as 
somebody's large and private dry ice sink.


For those who need the layman's picture: yes, I'm talking about the Chain-Saw 
Option, or something similar. It's been done in the past, and has worked. (Note:
if you rent the chain-saw, don't forget to clean well before returning...) Use 
what money you have for a smaller dewer. You can pick up a 35 liter widemouth 
with a decent boiloff rate for less than $1,500.


We hear these stories too much. Unfunded mothers are in a way like unwed 
mothers. I'm thinking we also need some kind of Facts of Life book for people 
who are going to call themselves "cryonicists."  Like those old books about the 
birds and the bees for children, that started "Because your daddy loved your 
mommy very, very much..."  Only the cryonics version would have chapters like 
"Entropy and You", "How Mother Nature and Father Time Nibble the Toes of 
Underfunded Cryonicists," and "Why Straightfreezing the Whole Bodies of Your 
Parents Just Leads to Further Problems Down the Road." 


As for cryonics companies: you could do your part by coming up with a lost-cost 
neuro option that allows for unprepped storage of prefrozen neuroconversions or 
brains for $15,000 or so (Alcor) for even less (CI). Basically, for the cost of 
perpetual storage, plus appropriate low initial service fee. Shame on you for 
not offering it in the past, considering how many of you yourselves have been 
there personally with your own parents. Perhaps the future will bring a change 
of heart?

SBH

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