X-Message-Number: 32576
From: "John de Rivaz" <>
References: <>
Subject: Re: ten good cryonicists?
Date: Sun, 2 May 2010 12:27:10 +0100


It has been asked what the critical mass of prepaid people would be needed to 
build a cryonics preparation and storage facility in the UK to serve northern 
Europe. Ten?

This is a very good way of looking at it.


The obvious first question is how much to ask per patient. CI and Alcor vary 
widely. As we are considering the UK, then lets use British pounds. A CI 
membership in the UK includes a transport element, so to keep the maths easy 
lets suggest L50,000 as the prepayment fee, which is a bit more than the cost 
with CI. However the unreliability of air transport and international shipment 
has been removed, so it is reasonable to put a price tag on this benefit. 


Ten members therefore equates to a total of half a million pounds. Surely it 
ought to be possible to do it for this? I suspect not. Therefore the options are
simply to wait for more members or increase the price. Bear in mind this is 
prepayment, not insurance funding. Increasing the price would make the wait for 
enough members longer. The longer the wait, the more expensive the task becomes.
The cost of buildings and services are both subject to high inflation. Some who
may be considering cryonics will perish and be destroyed without the facility 
ever appearing.


I will make some guesses as to what would be needed. These are fairly wild 
guesses - maybe others can suggest some figures that are more calculated:

First lets look at the endowment fund needed to run it all:

Income required from endowment fund
                             L000s
wages                    25 (probably be lucky to get away with so "little")
taxes, insurance etc on wages
                              12
accountancy            2
building taxes, insurance, utilities
                               10 
equipment maintenance and liquid nitrogen
                                 5
that totals                54


in normal times one would probably aim at getting about 3% income after tax from
a fund whose principal keeps up with inflation, therefore to produce 54k invest
1800k

The capital therefore works out as follows:
                            L000s
building purchase 500
fitout                    100

professional fees etc (for business as well as premises, assuming volunteers not
available)
                              75
endowment fund 1800

total                    2475, say two and a half million.
                                

If adequate professional help is available, from determined and enthusiastic 
people, it may be possible to reduce taxes which could reduce these figures. For
example there is a 17.5% tax penalty on paying the professional fees and buying
any equipment and making maintenance expenditure which may be legally avoidable
with suitable professional help. In addition,  with suitable help, it may be 
possible to reduce taxation on funds used by members to make the prepayments. 
But cutting taxes doesn't mean it would become cheap, just less expensive!


An alternative method of funding the running costs would be to charge a 
subscription to live members. However this has the problem that when near death,
payments may be missed. And, of course, if the live membership drops without 
replacement, then the facility may become unviable. But with the proposed ten 
members, the subscription would be approximately 500/month. Not cheap, but 
feasible. But how many people would turn away from cryonics if it involved a 
loss of income of L500/month? They'd still have to put up nearly 70k each to 
join. That sort of commitment would certainly enhance the idea that cryonics is 
only for the rich. Also if the income earner of a household decides to commit 
part of his income and capital this way the other members may object.


Cryonics did not start on this sort of a basis. If these calculations had been 
done it maybe never would have started. But the price of a DIY or "garage" 
approach was disasters on the way. There do need to be facilities in different 
legislatures and also to reduce the risks and uncertainties of transport between
legislatures.


The Eyjafjallajokull fiasco illustrated how cheap mass air transport has become 
compared to traditional surface transport. People took cheap mass air transport 
for granted - until it was taken away.


We cryonicists should realise that cryonics as presented by the two US service 
providers is really very cheap compared to what it might be if started from 
scratch.

-- 
Sincerely, John de Rivaz:  http://John.deRivaz.com for websites including
Cryonics Europe, Longevity Report, The Venturists, Porthtowan, Alec Harley
Reeves - inventor, Arthur Bowker - potter, de Rivaz genealogy,  Nomad .. and
more

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