X-Message-Number: 22557
From: 
Date: Sun, 21 Sep 2003 10:32:11 EDT
Subject: cost corrections

Steve Harris had a few things wrong in his comments on the costs of cryonics.

>You'll pay (on average) far more than the [life insurance] policy value if 
you pay for
cryonics this way. It's exactly like buying a house on mortgage.<

No, it's very different, in obvious ways. More importantly, the cost of life 
insurance is less than it seems, for the following reasons. (1) The premiums 

are figured based on experience, which includes the fact that many policies are
eventually abandoned, or not renewed, with no refund. This gives a "profit" 
to those who maintain the policies. (2) The alternatives to life insurance, 

such as savings/investments, have their own special costs, including stress and
worry and the temptation to spend the savings. (The whole rationale of social 
security is the inability, in practice, of too many people to manage their own 
long term finances.) (3) Steve appears to overlook the importance of 

combination options. For some younger people recently quoted, the rate for 
$100,000 of 
20 year term is only about $160 a year or so. This means that an arrangement 
otherwise IMPOSSIBLE in the younger years becomes EASY. 

>And there are stresses on the patient as well, who often has
to die more slowly and publicly. I've seen both families and
(in at least one case) the patient break under the stress,
and decide during a cryonics stand-by that they didn't want
cryonics, because the intangible costs were too high (they
didn't put it in those terms, but that's what happened).<

This has happened, but the opposite has also happened, as Steve acknowledges 
but doesn't emphasize--I have seen patients and families wonderfully sustained 
and cheered by the hope, and by fighting rather than surrendering, and in my 
experience this positive outcome is more frequent than the other.

>Cryonics is a terrible
invasion of privacy even for believers<

This can be positive, especially for the patient. It's much easier to be a 
hero in public than in private. Nobody in the spotlight is likely to cave. I 

have not seen any cases of media publicized dying-in-progress, but several cases
where the dying was known to family and friends, and the patient was 
definitely helped by the attention.

>Not only are cryonicists denied many
conventional forms of suicide, due to risk of autopsy, but
because of the very public nature of standby, they can be
denied the best "under the table" forms of euthanasia, also.
These "happy death" options are quite common in hospice for
the non-cryonicist; i.e, for *conventional* hospice where
nobody looks too closely. But the more you bother the
hospice people and the more closely you observe them, the
stricter and less liberal about euthanasia-like situations
they get. And that's not good for the cryonics patient.<

I have been close to several hospice situations, with excellent results in 
all cases. The hospice people were very cooperative. Incidentally, in some 
states, such as Arizona, in a hospice situation it isn't even necessary for a 

health professional to pronounce death. In Mae's case, I pronounced 
death--within 
seconds--with her daughter and my son in attendance.

>And if you want a good suspension, you don't GET to die in your sleep and be 
discovered in the
morning, then to be shipped off to the funeral home at a
leisurely pace. Despite what the discount cryonics
organizations may tell you.


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