“That’s amazing,” he said. “Convincing a young person to buy life insurance? That has to be the greatest scam ever.”
Why is it a scam? The low rate of implied interest in whole-life policies? (Not that existing interests or returns are anything to write home about...)
Costs would likely fall, and this would be good for cryonicists in general.
Increasing the demand for cryonics increases the demand for life insurance policies; thus insurance companies have a strong incentive to increase the demand for cryonics. Many large insurance companies would like nothing more than to usher in a generation of young people that want to buy life insurance.1
Going back to the previous question—the more capital that is looking for returns, the less returns are available. Hence, the more long-term capital looking for long-term returns, the worse the long-term returns...
A quick Googling says that ad spending by insurance companies exceeded $4.15 billion in 2009.
See above. Rational agents would spend on advertising up to the point where its marginal returns falls below other strategies; advertising is an arms race. Diamond advertising is famous, yes, but it was a very long time ago, is faltering in modern times, and is famous for how exceptional it is.
It’s not obvious that young people would or should sign up. Time seems to make a big difference in quality of cryopreservation (at least, if you go with Alcor; with CI the preservation is apparently low-enough quality delays may not matter much). Young people are the most likely to die of things like accidents and crime rather than nice predictable diseases, are they not?
Young people are the most likely to die of things like accidents and crime rather than nice predictable diseases, are they not?
Indeed, I think that, if I die before negligible senescence is achieved for humans, it’s more likely to be something which makes me a good organ donor but a bad cryonic patient (e.g. an accident or homicide) than vice versa (e.g. a disease). Or am I just rationalizing my choice not to sign up for cryonics?
For example, 15-24 (a non-trivial demographic on LW) mostly die from accidents, cars, murders, suicide, and cancer. The lead-time on cancer is not clear, but given the age group I imagine they are usually very quick and unexpected. Most of this is very bad for cryoncists—if you were diagnosed with systemic cancer today, would you fly out to California or Arizona immediately? Today I was reading the diary kept by Prince of Persia’s maker during the writing of it, where he writes for one day:
Adam Derman is dead. A couple of weeks ago he went to the doctor because he’d been having headaches, and they found out his whole body was riddled with cancer. It was too late to do anything. He was 23.
25-44 is a little more doable. HIV is #1 (this dataset is from 1995 apparently), but probably not too relevant for any young people reading this who haven’t reached that bracket, and then again accidents and car accidents (both bad for cryonics), cancer, heart disease, suicide, homicide, and liver disease. Of these, cancer and livers are the best ones for a cryonicists while heart attacks are pretty bad.
Adam Derman is dead. A couple of weeks ago he went to the doctor because he’d been having headaches, and they found out his whole body was riddled with cancer. It was too late to do anything. He was 23.
I was assuming that if I was going to die from cancer, I would likely know that a few years in advance, and hence shifting my probability assignment for myself dying by cancer within one year downwards from the statistic for people of my gender, age and country. I won’t do that anymore.
25-44 is a little more doable.
Hmmm, yeah. If I think a little bit more long-term, cancer becomes more important in comparison. According to http://micromorts.org/MortStats.aspx a person of my gender, age and country has 1.5% probability of dying from cancers within the next 30 years. (Then, 1.2% from circulatory system diseases, 0.93% from accidents, 0.35% from digestive system diseases, 0.32% from suicide. Whereas if only look of probabilities of dying within one year, it’s 499 ppm accidents, 100 ppm suicide, 69 ppm cancers, 55 ppm circulatory system diseases, 51 ppm “Ill-defined symptoms/causes” and 40 ppm “Mental and behavioral disorders” (how would that directly cause a death which wouldn’t count as a suicide?).)
Why is it a scam? The low rate of implied interest in whole-life policies? (Not that existing interests or returns are anything to write home about...)
http://lesswrong.com/lw/5w1/the_cost_of_universal_cryonics/
Going back to the previous question—the more capital that is looking for returns, the less returns are available. Hence, the more long-term capital looking for long-term returns, the worse the long-term returns...
See above. Rational agents would spend on advertising up to the point where its marginal returns falls below other strategies; advertising is an arms race. Diamond advertising is famous, yes, but it was a very long time ago, is faltering in modern times, and is famous for how exceptional it is.
It’s not obvious that young people would or should sign up. Time seems to make a big difference in quality of cryopreservation (at least, if you go with Alcor; with CI the preservation is apparently low-enough quality delays may not matter much). Young people are the most likely to die of things like accidents and crime rather than nice predictable diseases, are they not?
Indeed, I think that, if I die before negligible senescence is achieved for humans, it’s more likely to be something which makes me a good organ donor but a bad cryonic patient (e.g. an accident or homicide) than vice versa (e.g. a disease). Or am I just rationalizing my choice not to sign up for cryonics?
I’ve looked it up in the past, and I’m pretty sure I’m not rationalizing it. Here’s one data-source: http://www.allcountries.org/uscensus/129_death_and_death_rates_by_age.html
For example, 15-24 (a non-trivial demographic on LW) mostly die from accidents, cars, murders, suicide, and cancer. The lead-time on cancer is not clear, but given the age group I imagine they are usually very quick and unexpected. Most of this is very bad for cryoncists—if you were diagnosed with systemic cancer today, would you fly out to California or Arizona immediately? Today I was reading the diary kept by Prince of Persia’s maker during the writing of it, where he writes for one day:
25-44 is a little more doable. HIV is #1 (this dataset is from 1995 apparently), but probably not too relevant for any young people reading this who haven’t reached that bracket, and then again accidents and car accidents (both bad for cryonics), cancer, heart disease, suicide, homicide, and liver disease. Of these, cancer and livers are the best ones for a cryonicists while heart attacks are pretty bad.
I was assuming that if I was going to die from cancer, I would likely know that a few years in advance, and hence shifting my probability assignment for myself dying by cancer within one year downwards from the statistic for people of my gender, age and country. I won’t do that anymore.
Hmmm, yeah. If I think a little bit more long-term, cancer becomes more important in comparison. According to http://micromorts.org/MortStats.aspx a person of my gender, age and country has 1.5% probability of dying from cancers within the next 30 years. (Then, 1.2% from circulatory system diseases, 0.93% from accidents, 0.35% from digestive system diseases, 0.32% from suicide. Whereas if only look of probabilities of dying within one year, it’s 499 ppm accidents, 100 ppm suicide, 69 ppm cancers, 55 ppm circulatory system diseases, 51 ppm “Ill-defined symptoms/causes” and 40 ppm “Mental and behavioral disorders” (how would that directly cause a death which wouldn’t count as a suicide?).)