[extropy-chat] Wikipedia page and cryonics

[Keith Henson]

At 05:47 PM 4/13/2007 -0500, you wrote:
>At 11:37 PM 4/12/2007 -0400, Keith wrote:
>
> >I agree that there are people who call themselves
> >"transhumanists" who will not sign up for cryonics for one reason or
> >another.
>
>Speaking.
>
> >I don't take them very seriously
>
>Oh well.
>
> >and suspect they will be less
> >represented in the post human future than those who do sign up, especially
> >if they are older than say 50.
>
>The most serious objection, IMO, is: Who in Enron-Cryocorp will keep
>the dewars topped up when the CEO can run off to the Bahamas with the
>insurance money?

It's a serious problem.  There have been at least two such episodes I am 
aware of at Alcor, one many years ago in the depths of the Dora Kent 
problems and one more recently where a contract bookkeeper made off with a 
substantial amount in a trust account.  Each time there is this kind of 
ripoff, the policies are changed.  I believe bookkeepers are now bonded so 
that any such loses are paid by the bonding company.  It is said that every 
law involving insurance companies is the result of some major fraud.

>Eugen is right, that there's no money in cryonics at
>the moment; it's a labor of love by the convinced and hopeful. But if
>it grows a little in popularity? The usual answer is that cryo's
>accounting will be carefully scrutinized by the convinced and hopeful
>who also aim at eventual future resurrection.

You should be aware that people *have* thawed out, though not for several 
decades now.

>Sadly, the kinds of
>people likely to get involved in such utopian schemes are hopelessly
>naive (I speak as one) if not Aspergerish. Easy pickings. Either
>that, or the faithful 20th C die-hards will perish one by one and no
>newcomers will keep the home... freezers... freezing.
>
>As a friend commented offlist, "Until it's written as an amendment to
>the Constitution with punishment attached to non-compliance [`It is a
>right to allow one to pursue a cryo-future and a federal crime NOT to
>keep the freezers freezing'], the odds aren't very good."

It's a crime right now.  The bookkeeper noted above went to jail.

>And even
>then I wouldn't be too sure, especially after recent tiresome horrors
>of trying to deal with a major US insurance company (Unicare) who
>repeatedly denied payment of appropriate refunds--and when they
>finally broke down, *paid the already-paid medicos instead of
>providing a refund to the insured*. This is not the kind of
>institutional incompetence one wishes to depend on for one's revival.

Unfortunately it's the only game in town.

Far better that you live through the singularity than put your trust in the 
humans who keep the Dewars topped off with LN2.  But if you have no other 
choice, you have to trust people . . . . like me and my friends of the last 
22 years.

Keith