If at some point a working cryonics technology is invented (eg. instant vitrification), it makes financial sense to create a new company, without enormous potential liabilities from hundreds (thousands?) of damaged frozen bodies. After a successful demonstration, existing companies without this technology are going to become bankrupt. The old bodies are useless—reviving somebody after a year of being frozen has roughly the same value as reviving somebody after a hundred—it proves to the public that it’s possible. Media coverage is going to be roughly equivalent.
Even if existing cryonics company were to invent this, it makes sense to create a new one, sell the technology to it for all attainable money, and dump the indebted corpse. It’s standard business practice when the market changes drastically.
The year a working cryonics technology is proven to work is the year in which old frozen bodies are burned in an incinerator. Living relatives of frozen people may try to stop this, but it’s going to be an exception, especially because people with close relatives probably aren’t going to freeze themselves and because of time requirement. Also, while the bodies probably aren’t, the freezing equipment is company property. So the relatives wouldn’t have to pay for revival only, they would have to pay an arbitrary price for, effectively, a frozen body, as a body without equipment is completely dead. It’s a sellers market :)
Remember: frozen people are legally dead. The don’t have assets. They can’t pay for their revival. They’re a liability, they’re literally worthless for a cryonics company.
These are the reasons why I wouldn’t pay for cryonics for me, as the only possibility of revival is suicidal insanity of company’s management. However, company with insane management won’t last long. So the probability of being revived is basically zero. It’s better to spend the money before death on fun things, or give it to someone I care about.
I don’t think you understand the cryonics model at all.
If at some point a working cryonics technology is invented (eg. instant vitrification), it makes financial sense to create a new company, without enormous potential liabilities from hundreds (thousands?) of damaged frozen bodies. After a successful demonstration, existing companies without this technology are going to become bankrupt.
If you take money and offer something in exchange, you’re a company. Nonprofit is just a type of company where you can get tax exemption at the cost of a more complicated profit payout scheme. The best example of a company that is legally not (in the US atleast) is the Church of Scientology.
If you take money and offer something in exchange, you’re a company.
Making up a definition for what is a ‘company’ (a non-standard definition that excludes 9 of 10 definitions for ‘company’ in the OED and doesn’t match the last one either) does not address my point nor does it explain why your scenario would happen for cryonics as it is currently actually practiced and not how you imagine it is practiced.
You don’t have a point, your reply was just an emotional disagreement. If you have a point I urge you to write it.
Anyway, the broadest definition of a “company” is “an association of persons for carrying on a commercial or industrial enterprise” which agrees with what I wrote. It’s still irrelevant though—you can even start a “Church of Cryonics” and financial problems still apply.
Wow, you’re still wrong and now you’re trying to defend your indefensible made-up definitions despite my citation of the Oxford English Dictionary and calling it an ‘emotional disagreement’.
So fine, I will be blunt: your scenario is ignorant and will not happen as you envision it because for ALCOR alone there is a multi-million dollar trust fund (two of them, actually) plus a 501(c)3 charity charged with taking care of existing cryonics patients, and they do not respond to market incentives like you imagine they will; they will not simply dump the bodies out of the dewars because it is nowhere in their charter or mission and cannot even remotely be construed to be in their charter or mission.
This set-up is well understood, easily discoverable in Google for anyone who bothers to look rather than pontificate on LW, and in fact historically motivated by the Chatsworth disaster where the patients were stored with a for-profit corporation based on ongoing subscription fees and then eventually abandoned. So the current arrangements are literally designed to prevent what you think would happen.
So congratulations: you’ve exhibited Dmytry-like levels of arrogance, failure to do any research, and digging in your heels when someone who knows a little more tells you you’re wrong.
because for ALCOR alone there is a multi-million dollar trust fund (two of them, actually) plus a 501(c)3 charity charged with taking care of existing cryonics patients
Now why couldn’t you just reply with that, alone and in the first reply, instead of raging? And how does the existence of a separate trust fund change the fact that a nonprofit is a still company, just with a different tax scheme? Try responding like an adult next time.
Now why couldn’t you just reply with that, alone and in the first reply, instead of raging?
Because I am tired of people who, after 5 seconds of thought, think they’ve come up with a decisive refutation because apparently they think cyronics people must be idiots and the organizations involved have survived by sheer luck, and can’t be bothered to so much as read a Wikipedia article (the ALCOR Wikipedia article mentions in the infobox the patient trust fund as a source of revenue!).
And how does the existence of a separate trust fund change the fact that a nonprofit is a still company, just with a different tax scheme?
It makes all the difference in the world, as I’ve already explained.
If at some point a working cryonics technology is invented (eg. instant vitrification), it makes financial sense to create a new company, without enormous potential liabilities from hundreds (thousands?) of damaged frozen bodies. After a successful demonstration, existing companies without this technology are going to become bankrupt. The old bodies are useless—reviving somebody after a year of being frozen has roughly the same value as reviving somebody after a hundred—it proves to the public that it’s possible. Media coverage is going to be roughly equivalent. Even if existing cryonics company were to invent this, it makes sense to create a new one, sell the technology to it for all attainable money, and dump the indebted corpse. It’s standard business practice when the market changes drastically.
The year a working cryonics technology is proven to work is the year in which old frozen bodies are burned in an incinerator. Living relatives of frozen people may try to stop this, but it’s going to be an exception, especially because people with close relatives probably aren’t going to freeze themselves and because of time requirement. Also, while the bodies probably aren’t, the freezing equipment is company property. So the relatives wouldn’t have to pay for revival only, they would have to pay an arbitrary price for, effectively, a frozen body, as a body without equipment is completely dead. It’s a sellers market :)
Remember: frozen people are legally dead. The don’t have assets. They can’t pay for their revival. They’re a liability, they’re literally worthless for a cryonics company.
These are the reasons why I wouldn’t pay for cryonics for me, as the only possibility of revival is suicidal insanity of company’s management. However, company with insane management won’t last long. So the probability of being revived is basically zero. It’s better to spend the money before death on fun things, or give it to someone I care about.
for Alcor at least, the board of directors is stipulated to require being signed up and also to have a relative or loved one in storage.
Or work towards that cryonics killer, please.
I don’t think you understand the cryonics model at all.
What existing companies?
If you take money and offer something in exchange, you’re a company. Nonprofit is just a type of company where you can get tax exemption at the cost of a more complicated profit payout scheme. The best example of a company that is legally not (in the US atleast) is the Church of Scientology.
Making up a definition for what is a ‘company’ (a non-standard definition that excludes 9 of 10 definitions for ‘company’ in the OED and doesn’t match the last one either) does not address my point nor does it explain why your scenario would happen for cryonics as it is currently actually practiced and not how you imagine it is practiced.
You don’t have a point, your reply was just an emotional disagreement. If you have a point I urge you to write it.
Anyway, the broadest definition of a “company” is “an association of persons for carrying on a commercial or industrial enterprise” which agrees with what I wrote. It’s still irrelevant though—you can even start a “Church of Cryonics” and financial problems still apply.
Wow, you’re still wrong and now you’re trying to defend your indefensible made-up definitions despite my citation of the Oxford English Dictionary and calling it an ‘emotional disagreement’.
So fine, I will be blunt: your scenario is ignorant and will not happen as you envision it because for ALCOR alone there is a multi-million dollar trust fund (two of them, actually) plus a 501(c)3 charity charged with taking care of existing cryonics patients, and they do not respond to market incentives like you imagine they will; they will not simply dump the bodies out of the dewars because it is nowhere in their charter or mission and cannot even remotely be construed to be in their charter or mission.
This set-up is well understood, easily discoverable in Google for anyone who bothers to look rather than pontificate on LW, and in fact historically motivated by the Chatsworth disaster where the patients were stored with a for-profit corporation based on ongoing subscription fees and then eventually abandoned. So the current arrangements are literally designed to prevent what you think would happen.
So congratulations: you’ve exhibited Dmytry-like levels of arrogance, failure to do any research, and digging in your heels when someone who knows a little more tells you you’re wrong.
Now why couldn’t you just reply with that, alone and in the first reply, instead of raging? And how does the existence of a separate trust fund change the fact that a nonprofit is a still company, just with a different tax scheme? Try responding like an adult next time.
Because I am tired of people who, after 5 seconds of thought, think they’ve come up with a decisive refutation because apparently they think cyronics people must be idiots and the organizations involved have survived by sheer luck, and can’t be bothered to so much as read a Wikipedia article (the ALCOR Wikipedia article mentions in the infobox the patient trust fund as a source of revenue!).
It makes all the difference in the world, as I’ve already explained.