I would put those at significantly more likely than even the pessimistic author had. After all, where on earth would the money come from to bring you back?
Imagine that your favorite cryonics company (Alcor/TransTime/CryonicsInstitute/etc) existed back in 1911 and has finally discovered how to thaw people, 100 years later. They magically came across the process back then and there’s warehouses full of people who can come back if the company spends a modest sum of $50,000 on the revival (which is a way, way, way, way low estimate). Their contracts back in 1911 were exactly the same as current ones.
The first couple would get thawed out as proof the tech works; the next few would be celebrities or people who have still-surviving rich family; after that nobody else would get thawed. Why would they? Nobody’s going to care about the rights of someone 100 years dead. There wouldn’t be a huge interest group interested in bringing back hundred year old corpses. Modern society wouldn’t want these people, who are racist, sexist, superstitious, have zero job skills, have zero life skills, and would cost enormous amounts to social services before they’re productive members of society (if they ever adapt). They wouldn’t even have advertising value to draw more signups; by the time cryonics is successfully pulled off, people won’t need cryonics anymore, so there’s no revenue stream to bring people back.
Cryonics hinges on more than just surviving all the small P values of danger like power outages or global extinctions. It means actively hoping that humanity gets through the singularity intact, gets to post-scarcity intact, and undergoes a moral revolution intact. It means society must have the knowledge, resources, and will to bring some stranger into the world with absolutely zero value other than novelty.
Cryonics relies on a very narrow bullseye of possible futures. I love the thought of cryonics being a net that catches everyone that died before their time then raising them to paradise, like the Bible’s pre-Christ purgatory. But that’s not how the current world works. And unless we make headway on creating a friendly singularity, that’s not how it’ll ever work.
Edit: Edited after looking into Alcor’s finances and double checking that they do not, in fact, set aside money for resurrection beyond the 25-110,000 to keep you cold.
It means society must have the knowledge, resources, and will to bring some stranger into the world with absolutely zero value other than novelty.
Not just some stranger; as you point out they’ll definitely do that. What I am skeptical they will do is revive and support millions of such people who are all needy in the same boring and tedious ways.
Yes, people might not try to thaw random people from a hundred years ago. But people who have been unthawed will have some interest in unthawing other people they know. Moreover, each set of cryopatiens will want to unthaw other people they knew. And the most recent cryopatients who are preserved will be people who still have living familes who will have an interest in them. I think you overestimate the problems.
Alcor doesn’t set aside funds for thawing. Even if Alcor wanted to, they wouldn’t be able to bring you back until things were post scarcity.
$200,000.00 Whole Body Cryopreservation ($110,000 to the Patient Care Trust, $70,000 for cryopreservation, $20,000.00 to the CMS Fund).
$ 80,000.00 Neurocryopreservation ($25,000 to the Patient Care Trust, $40,000 for cryopreservation, $15,000.00 to the CMS Fund).
The money you pay goes to 1) Paying to prepare/transport you when you die, 2) Freezing you, 3) Keeping you frozen. That’s it. They’re basically banking on a post-scarcity society to handle paying for your resurrection. The saved $25,000 is definitely not enough to pay for the medical procedure and a nice new vat-form body unless we’re seriously on the way to being post-scarcity anyways.
Maybe if you’ve got still-living family they could all pool their entire earnings for a couple decades to bring back Grandpa, but I still wouldn’t count on it. I definitely wouldn’t count on a chain of thawed people to spend decades of work each step to get the money to thaw me out.
“Clearly some additional money held in trust is needed to provide for contingent costs such as moving the patients, moving Patient Care Fund (PCF) money overseas in the event of inflation, and covering the costs of revival.”
The money would come from interest. Presumably, the company would be set up in such a way that they can’t use the money for thawing until they thaw you out.
If Alcor doesn’t set aside money, and doesn’t let the money set aside for freezing that doesn’t end up being used get used as such, I’d suggest either finding a place that does, or just setting up a trust yourself. Make it accrue interest until it reaches a given amount accounting for deflation, and donate the interest to charity or something, then make it pay off to Alcor, or whoever thaws you, when they do.
If these people really aren’t planning ahead that much, should some of us get together and start a fund like that? That way, you hire a company to freeze you, and join one of the funds to thaw you.
A few other ways you could get thawed:
A charity starts thawing people. People who have been thawed will tend to be willing to donate.
At some point, the cost of thawing gets low enough compared to keeping frozen, and the interest rate reduces enough, that it becomes cheaper to thaw people than to keep them frozen. This won’t work if the interest rate falls enough to make the cryonics companies go out of business before that’s possible. On the other hand, if they figure out how to thaw people before that happens, the government will likely step in to keep them from dying.
Over the past 80 years, the average annual return on Treasury bills (a proxy for savings accounts) has been 3.7 percent per year. Inflation, meanwhile, has averaged 3.1 percent per year. This combination has produced a “real return” of a paltry 0.6 percent per year. If you got to keep that 0.6 percent, you might still have an incentive to save: A $616 real gain on $10,000 in 10 years wouldn’t be much, but it would at least be $616 more than you have now.
To put it another way, the $25,000 Alcor has in interest will end up as $25,925. Inflation will bring this down to $25,146. Which means that Alcor can afford to spend about $150 dollars each year keeping you frozen before it starts cannibalizing the saved money. That strikes me as rather low, but according to Alcor they’ve budgeted to keep you frozen indefinitely. Realistically, I’d expect zero money left over as interest.
Charities strike me as unlikely. We already have trouble saving African children for $500 a life; I doubt donors would give hundreds of thousands of dollars per life to thaw out people who lived full lives already. Hell, I want to get cryonics and I’d still donate to a more efficient charity.
The only way you’d get thawed is if thawing costs + doctor costs + the cost for a new body + physical therapy costs ended up at roughly what you have saved now in real purchasing power. That means roughly, 7000 big macs, the average price of a new car, or about half a year’s work. And if we’re at the point where the average family can afford multiple back-up bodies (like we have multiple cars today), we’re probably damn near to a post-scarcity society anyways. I mean, we’re talking about a future where it’s cheaper to upload your consciousness to the office and inhabit a temporary shell while you work than it is to drive (though at that point I doubt labor would look anything like what we’re used to).
If that doesn’t qualify as post-friendly-singularity than I don’t know what does.
Savings accounts aren’t exactly known for having a high return on investment. Accept a little risk, and spread out the investment so it won’t all get lost. Also, keep enough extra to survive recessions.
Charities strike me as unlikely. We already have trouble saving African children for $500 a life
The people saved by it can’t easily donate to it. People thawed out can.
Savings accounts aren’t exactly known for having a high return on investment. Accept a little risk, and
spread out the investment so it won’t all get lost. Also, keep enough extra to survive recessions.
What matters is what alcor etc are actually doing. Alcor has this on their website on the distribution of their investment fund:
Cash and Equivalents 10.86%
Stocks / ETFs 34.62%
Government Securities 1.11%
Certificates of Deposit 53.41%
This doesn’t look very risky, which is good in that they’re unlikely to lose it but bad in that they’re unlikely to do much above inflation in the long term.
Did they not mention how much interest they’ve been getting?
From that link:
… as well as build capital to eventually fund revival and reintegration.
They understand that the money is supposed to eventually pay for you revival. But as you seemed to show, they’re likely being stupid with it so it won’t be there.
Did they not mention how much interest they’ve been getting?
Yes: “The Investment Account had a total annual return of 17.01% for 2009 and 6.18% for 2010”. Which is well above inflation. Though I think the market as a whole also might have done well over that period?
They understand that the money is supposed to eventually pay for you revival. But as you seemed to show, they’re likely being stupid with it so it won’t be there.
I don’t know enough about what they are doing or about what is good to say whether they are being stupid. But if they are being conservative, as trusts and foundations tend to, then there is a good chance they won’t make much if any money in the long term.
At some point, the cost of thawing gets low enough compared to keeping frozen
Keeping people frozen is cheap: you just need to top up the liquid nitrogen once in a while to compensate for evaporation; and I guess that as they make better and better dewars and better and better technology for liquefying nitrogen, the storage prices per year will fall even more.
Exponential economic growth can’t continue forever, which would suggest that the interest rate will fall arbitrarily low, so the cost of keeping someone frozen forever will increase.
But yeah, I think significantly underestimated the time until it would be worth while.
Come to think of it, there might be a point where it’s cheaper to wake you and then put you in debt for a while, but that’s a legal and ethical tricky area unless the user signs a contract before-hand.
Edit:
I should probably practice being a bit more straightforward with admitting errors.
I would put those at significantly more likely than even the pessimistic author had. After all, where on earth would the money come from to bring you back?
Imagine that your favorite cryonics company (Alcor/TransTime/CryonicsInstitute/etc) existed back in 1911 and has finally discovered how to thaw people, 100 years later. They magically came across the process back then and there’s warehouses full of people who can come back if the company spends a modest sum of $50,000 on the revival (which is a way, way, way, way low estimate). Their contracts back in 1911 were exactly the same as current ones.
The first couple would get thawed out as proof the tech works; the next few would be celebrities or people who have still-surviving rich family; after that nobody else would get thawed. Why would they? Nobody’s going to care about the rights of someone 100 years dead. There wouldn’t be a huge interest group interested in bringing back hundred year old corpses. Modern society wouldn’t want these people, who are racist, sexist, superstitious, have zero job skills, have zero life skills, and would cost enormous amounts to social services before they’re productive members of society (if they ever adapt). They wouldn’t even have advertising value to draw more signups; by the time cryonics is successfully pulled off, people won’t need cryonics anymore, so there’s no revenue stream to bring people back.
Cryonics hinges on more than just surviving all the small P values of danger like power outages or global extinctions. It means actively hoping that humanity gets through the singularity intact, gets to post-scarcity intact, and undergoes a moral revolution intact. It means society must have the knowledge, resources, and will to bring some stranger into the world with absolutely zero value other than novelty.
Cryonics relies on a very narrow bullseye of possible futures. I love the thought of cryonics being a net that catches everyone that died before their time then raising them to paradise, like the Bible’s pre-Christ purgatory. But that’s not how the current world works. And unless we make headway on creating a friendly singularity, that’s not how it’ll ever work.
Edit: Edited after looking into Alcor’s finances and double checking that they do not, in fact, set aside money for resurrection beyond the 25-110,000 to keep you cold.
Not just some stranger; as you point out they’ll definitely do that. What I am skeptical they will do is revive and support millions of such people who are all needy in the same boring and tedious ways.
Yes, people might not try to thaw random people from a hundred years ago. But people who have been unthawed will have some interest in unthawing other people they know. Moreover, each set of cryopatiens will want to unthaw other people they knew. And the most recent cryopatients who are preserved will be people who still have living familes who will have an interest in them. I think you overestimate the problems.
Alcor doesn’t set aside funds for thawing. Even if Alcor wanted to, they wouldn’t be able to bring you back until things were post scarcity.
The money you pay goes to 1) Paying to prepare/transport you when you die, 2) Freezing you, 3) Keeping you frozen. That’s it. They’re basically banking on a post-scarcity society to handle paying for your resurrection. The saved $25,000 is definitely not enough to pay for the medical procedure and a nice new vat-form body unless we’re seriously on the way to being post-scarcity anyways.
Maybe if you’ve got still-living family they could all pool their entire earnings for a couple decades to bring back Grandpa, but I still wouldn’t count on it. I definitely wouldn’t count on a chain of thawed people to spend decades of work each step to get the money to thaw me out.
Go to http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/CostOfCryonics.html and search for the header “Determining Safety Reserves For Long-Term Care”. Specifically:
“Clearly some additional money held in trust is needed to provide for contingent costs such as moving the patients, moving Patient Care Fund (PCF) money overseas in the event of inflation, and covering the costs of revival.”
That’s a good point but it makes more sense as a comment to Daniel above. I didn’t say anything about the cryonics orgs thawing people.
The money would come from interest. Presumably, the company would be set up in such a way that they can’t use the money for thawing until they thaw you out.
If Alcor doesn’t set aside money, and doesn’t let the money set aside for freezing that doesn’t end up being used get used as such, I’d suggest either finding a place that does, or just setting up a trust yourself. Make it accrue interest until it reaches a given amount accounting for deflation, and donate the interest to charity or something, then make it pay off to Alcor, or whoever thaws you, when they do.
If these people really aren’t planning ahead that much, should some of us get together and start a fund like that? That way, you hire a company to freeze you, and join one of the funds to thaw you.
A few other ways you could get thawed:
A charity starts thawing people. People who have been thawed will tend to be willing to donate.
At some point, the cost of thawing gets low enough compared to keeping frozen, and the interest rate reduces enough, that it becomes cheaper to thaw people than to keep them frozen. This won’t work if the interest rate falls enough to make the cryonics companies go out of business before that’s possible. On the other hand, if they figure out how to thaw people before that happens, the government will likely step in to keep them from dying.
That’s not quite how interest rates work.
To put it another way, the $25,000 Alcor has in interest will end up as $25,925. Inflation will bring this down to $25,146. Which means that Alcor can afford to spend about $150 dollars each year keeping you frozen before it starts cannibalizing the saved money. That strikes me as rather low, but according to Alcor they’ve budgeted to keep you frozen indefinitely. Realistically, I’d expect zero money left over as interest.
Charities strike me as unlikely. We already have trouble saving African children for $500 a life; I doubt donors would give hundreds of thousands of dollars per life to thaw out people who lived full lives already. Hell, I want to get cryonics and I’d still donate to a more efficient charity.
The only way you’d get thawed is if thawing costs + doctor costs + the cost for a new body + physical therapy costs ended up at roughly what you have saved now in real purchasing power. That means roughly, 7000 big macs, the average price of a new car, or about half a year’s work. And if we’re at the point where the average family can afford multiple back-up bodies (like we have multiple cars today), we’re probably damn near to a post-scarcity society anyways. I mean, we’re talking about a future where it’s cheaper to upload your consciousness to the office and inhabit a temporary shell while you work than it is to drive (though at that point I doubt labor would look anything like what we’re used to).
If that doesn’t qualify as post-friendly-singularity than I don’t know what does.
Savings accounts aren’t exactly known for having a high return on investment. Accept a little risk, and spread out the investment so it won’t all get lost. Also, keep enough extra to survive recessions.
The people saved by it can’t easily donate to it. People thawed out can.
What matters is what alcor etc are actually doing. Alcor has this on their website on the distribution of their investment fund:
This doesn’t look very risky, which is good in that they’re unlikely to lose it but bad in that they’re unlikely to do much above inflation in the long term.
Did they not mention how much interest they’ve been getting?
From that link:
They understand that the money is supposed to eventually pay for you revival. But as you seemed to show, they’re likely being stupid with it so it won’t be there.
Yes: “The Investment Account had a total annual return of 17.01% for 2009 and 6.18% for 2010”. Which is well above inflation. Though I think the market as a whole also might have done well over that period?
I don’t know enough about what they are doing or about what is good to say whether they are being stupid. But if they are being conservative, as trusts and foundations tend to, then there is a good chance they won’t make much if any money in the long term.
Keeping people frozen is cheap: you just need to top up the liquid nitrogen once in a while to compensate for evaporation; and I guess that as they make better and better dewars and better and better technology for liquefying nitrogen, the storage prices per year will fall even more.
Exponential economic growth can’t continue forever, which would suggest that the interest rate will fall arbitrarily low, so the cost of keeping someone frozen forever will increase.
But yeah, I think significantly underestimated the time until it would be worth while.
Come to think of it, there might be a point where it’s cheaper to wake you and then put you in debt for a while, but that’s a legal and ethical tricky area unless the user signs a contract before-hand.
Edit:
I should probably practice being a bit more straightforward with admitting errors.
You are right. I was wrong.