X-Message-Number: 31162 From: Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 10:09:24 EST Subject: Response to Jack Zinn's cryonics protocols Hello, Fellow Cryoneters, This is Rudi Hoffman writing from Florida. This posting is about the cryonic suspension of long term cryonics activist Jack Zinn. If you are serious about your cryonic arrangements, I encourage you to read Ben's report on this suspension at this link: http://www.cryonics.org/reports/CI91.html I am tremendously impressed with Ben Best and his detail oriented and thorough reporting on this very important and public case. What remains astounding to me is how difficult it is for even a highly educated, articulate, credible, reasonably wealthy cryonics activist to have optimal deanimation conditions in the current state of medicine and society today. Reading the report, it occurs to me that even I have much of the overly sanguine, "well, it will all work out well at the right time" attitude that I find is endemic to even fully signed and funded cryonicists. Smart people who ought to know better. But we all have a tendency to think we are slightly above the norm, that logistics and people problems may not apply to us. Reading this report may dissuade you of a bit of this snobbery. Given concerns against legal liability, medical "ethics" review boards and groups who may find cryonics unnacceptable, possible transmittable diseases that make patient handling problematic, logistics problems that are difficult if not intractible...the list goes on... and the question we should all be asking ourselves is "HOW THE HECK CAN I GET A CRYOSUSPENSION UNDER OPTIMAL CONDITIONS?" Do any of the rest of you find it is shocking and embarrassing to find that you/we/I occasionally fall into the same mental traps and lazy, inprecise thinking we may denounce in others? Reading the somewhat lengthy but highly detailed report of the suspension process of Jack Zinn that Ben Best has provided, I realize that I need to do a better job of preparing my friends and family...most specifically my wife and sister...to handle issues that may come up during a suspension. And, it brings a new sense of urgency to what Dave Pizer and the Venturists (sounds like a rock band?) and some other forward thinking people are trying to do about a community of cryonicists. And, if I may be permitted one last, and arguably commercial, relevant point, it makes sense to overfund...ideally dramatically overfund...your suspension. I have 2.3 million dollars of life insurance on me. And, regretfully, it is not because I am wealthy. It is because I place a high value on both taking care of my wife and taking care of my life, and this amount of coverage will do this. May I close with a quote from Ben Best regarding the funding for Jack Zinn's suspension protocols? Ben Best and a host of others obviously have expended tremendous...no...call it EPIC efforts on behalf of the hoped for future of Jack Zinn. And they were able to do so, in part, because of wise overfunding of life insurance which Jack had put in place for his suspension. Quote from Ben Best follows: The patient was overfunded by insurance policies above the minimum cryopreservation fee, so I felt that I had some leeway to incur extra expenses. (The patient had not been paying his premiums recently, but there was enough cash value in the policies that the premiums were covered.) I cannot say that I could have made these efforts on behalf of CI Members who fund at the bare minimum. I may not even have been able to change funeral directors, because the Inman funeral director would have been much less expensive. CI Members are advised to fund above the minimum for this and other reasons (such as protection against future uncertainties, and access to future services which may be available at extra cost). Yours for Centuries, Rudi Rudi Richard Hoffman CFP CLU ChFC Board Member Financial Planning Association fpafla.com Board Member Salvation Army salvationarmy.org Member Alcor Life Extension Foundation alcor.org Certified Financial Planner(TM) CFP Board of Standards Member Libertarian Party libertarianparty.org Member National Rifle Association nra.org Member World Transhumanist Association http://transhumanism.org/ World's Leading Cryonics Insurance Provider rudihoffman.com **************Get the Moviefone Toolbar. Showtimes, theaters, movie news & more!(http://toolbar.aol.com/moviefone/download.html?ncid=emlcntusdown00000001) Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=31162