X-Message-Number: 22895 Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 02:55:15 -0800 From: James Swayze <> Subject: Organizing standby fund, taking names amnd email addresses For all, this is important, I recently, with the help of others, developed an idea and shared it with the newly opened lists, the Cryonics Institute group first and then second the Venturist group. It's now time for a wider audience because several people have said they like it very much and want to get started. For sake of saving myself some extra typing repeating everything said before about it I'm going to utilize one of the best features of modern computing and copy and paste previous text so some of the following text may have been seen before. The idea began by suggesting mine and other's desire for setting up first of all a local standby team among North Western USA cryonicists. It then blossomed to include wishing to set up the same regionally and then worldly. It also involved funding it through a voluntary monthly paid into fund of about $10.00 US per person. This concerns everyone, regardless of organizational affiliation we can all help each other. This, cross organizational local volunteer standby assistance is encouraged by both organizations in the new spirit of cooperation laid down at the cryo summit. The main reason first on my mind for the fund was the purpose of funding equipment to be stored locally. As I said I first voiced this idea at a CI forum but stated then I thought it could work to be bi-organizational. Then I got the idea of putting together a fund that would simply pay for a standby from Suspended Animation Inc. I envisaged it as being sort of like an insurance policy. However, even if we could set up such a fund for utilizing SA, after first making sure any legal issues are resolved, there would still be a need for local volunteer standby for several reasons. Local teams might be able to mobilize quicker in emergency situations and either handle the whole thing, say if deanimation occurred suddenly or very quickly after their arrival, and secondly they could be there as backup while waiting for Suspended Animation Inc. to travel to the location. This last is crucial for any of whichever organization members not residing in the US. This was also meant as bi-organizational but so far has been discussed under the auspices of how would an organization such as CI deal with the legality of such a fund. CI was first to be considered and discussed owing to the forum I proffered the idea first in but Alcor and any other, perhaps those now mothballed, or any new to come also apply. If it were bi-organizational and not affiliated per se with any one organization then legality worries for either or any organization may melt away. But this is only in my humble and unprofessional opinion or hope. A quick calculation of roughly 1000 combined members currently involved in both of the main organizations means that with simply a ten dollar a month each donation to the fund, a whopping ten thousand dollars a month would fill the kitty. This would quickly afford an SA standby for the first to need it. However, it would need to get to a level capable of handling a number of standbys in a row in quick order or simultaneously before allowing any funds to be paid out. This would be insurance against multiple standby need and sudden unexpected depletion of the fund. If everyone agreed to this and understood that if the funds ever did deplete too quickly for timely replenish, in lieu of or unless someone of great means stepping in to loan temporarily the needed moneys to the fund, then all would agree someone might not get covered and have to accept either no standby or a volunteer only standby or paying one's own way with SA. It must also considered that owing to the fact that some standby's don't result in suspensions, the fund could be depleted with dry runs, something to ponder seriously. In this case perhaps the fund needs to be not let loose until it is ten standby's worth accrued. Or perhaps knowing that such a fund now provides for a larger customer base than the few that could otherwise on their own afford the cost of one suspension plus another [roughly what SA charges, the cost of a neuro Alcor suspension?], SA may be persuaded to work out a deal for standby's that don't result in suspension services, maybe costs alone, travel, wages and lodging paid? I hope first of all that SA is actually in business someday soon to offer their services and second that they approve of this fund idea. At any rate the purpose of this idea was to get everyone, every single one of us, the quality of standby of an SA standby. This would depend on those remaining alive and joining in the future continuing to carry the load for those gone before. If cryonics ever stopped acquiring new people to pay in it would cease to accumulate funds and thus viability. I hope this fact does not make it a p*****d scheme. No one is directly profiting, not while alive at any rate, so technically it's not a p*****d scheme [**didn't want search engines locking on for the wrong reason]. Anyone knowing the legality around this please feel free to chime in. Whether for funding an SA standby or for funding the equipping of local volunteer teams or both this needs to be more widely discussed. I hope we can rely on our resident insurance expert to add his expertise and I know we have a few lawyers among us that I hope will add theirs as well. Something else that comes to my mind while considering this is that such a fund and the standby and suspension services SA can hopefully perform, with storage being handled by one's member organization, means that we essentially automatically get a worldwide cryonics service providing SA is willing to travel to each and every member's location for all cryonics (storage facility) organizations. Does this sound doable and/or even desirable? A dream I have is that SA or something like them, if they can't get going, could actually grow to the point of having their own aircraft for overseas transport. Such an aircraft could be properly outfitted with temperature and pressure controlled travel dewers. Storage facilities attached to the various organizations could crop up all over the world, leaving our eggs in many baskets. Should one location become to be under hostile to cryonics local government control, hopefully there would be time to transport those patients to already long standing set up storage facilities elsewhere. An ideal situation I can see then maybe occurring is cryo-euthanasia tourism to and from somewhere, as recently discussed, like Switzerland for those seriously or terminally ill and especially for those threatened by certain illnesses with the horrible prospect of slow loss of memory or even identity. As I said I've had several people express a desire for such a fund. It has been expressed that standby and transport costs are not included in suspension services contracts and so for some an unexpected added burden possibly not funded under their current life insurance arrangements. Some have said that $120.00 a year is very reasonable for covering those costs especially with the added benefit of the level of service SA proposes offering. Of course only $10,00 per month each may not be enough, someone with knowledge of the statistics of probable death rates among our population, such as insurance actuary tables ( I assume such animals exist) would know better if it is enough. If this is going to happen we need to act now and not just sit and think about this week and then a year or more from now wonder what ever happened to that fund idea we had a while back. So, I am willing to begin by taking names and email addresses of those willing to get started. This will hopefully be many people and thereby pursued others to also get involved. From there we can plan how to go about actually implementing it and the logistics of banking the funds. Please send me your name and email, only those for now, and I will make a list. Please title you email "Standby Funding Plan" so I may better keep track of them and save them properly. I promise here publicly to keep it in strict confidence and for use only for this project. I wish to repeat this is for all that are members of any cryonics organization capable of storing your body. Lastly I wish to apologize if someone else long ago has had similar idea/s that I am unaware of such owing to not being involved in cryonet's early beginnings. James P.S. This was sent to CryonicsNW, Cryonics Institute, Venturists and Cryonet, lists. -- Member: Cryonics Institute of Michigan http://www.cryonics.org The Immortalist Society http://www.cryonics.org/info.html The Society for Venturism http://www.venturist.org Immortality Institute http://www.imminst.org MY WEBSITE: http://www.davidpascal.com/swayze/ Signature Memetic Virus--The worst enemy of those who now or will need medical care is the uninformed politician or moral fanatic who proscribe what doctors are allowed to prescribe and research, with the consent of their patients. Those who understand this are strongly encouraged to modify this to fit their personality, and add this to their signature file, and organize to recover our freedom from Big Brother. For those who wait until they are sick, it will be too late. Those who suffer from diseases which might have been cured by advanced medical research or schedule 1 drugs banned by Big Brother, have the right to hold accountable those who sat on their hands or worse, deferred their responsibility for personal and humanity's survival to unseen mystical agents, while they remained ill and dying. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=22895