I’d dispute the claimed equivalence between several of these questions and cryonics (particularly the first) and I’d also take issue with some of the premises but I’d answer yes to all of them with caveats and I’m not signed up for cryonics nor do I intend to in the near future.
The reason I have no immediate plans to sign up is that I think there are relatively few scenarios where signing up now is a better choice than deferring a decision until later. I am currently healthy but if diagnosed with a terminal illness I could sign up then if it seemed like the best use of resources at the time. I estimate my chances of sudden death as relatively low and many sudden death scenarios would likely greatly lower my chances of successful cryonic revival (due to causing severe damage to my brain) so cryonics doesn’t seem a great investment currently.
Based on my age and health and the statistics I’ve seen I’d estimate a less than 1 in 1000 probability of dying in the next 10 years without sufficient warning to make arrangements for cryonics at the time but in a way that left my brain in a state where I’d have a non-negligible chance at future revival.
Life insurance has negative expected monetary value. Since I could afford to pay for cryonics from retirement savings if I was diagnosed with a terminal illness I don’t think it makes financial sense to fund it with life insurance. Funding with life insurance might have positive expected utility for someone who doesn’t expect to have the funds to pay for cryonics in the near future but there’s an opportunity cost associated with the expected financial loss of buying life insurance in the event that it is not needed.
Most people pay for cryonics with a life insurance policy, an option that would get very expensive for you if you were diagnosed with a terminal illness.
The danger to you of waiting is that you might get a disease or suffer an accident that doesn’t immediately kill you but drains your income and raises the cost to you of life insurance and so puts cryonics outside of your financial reach. You probably couldn’t count on your family to financially help you in this situation as they probably think cryonics is crazy and after you “died” wouldn’t see any benefit to actually paying for it.
If you think you would want to signup for cryonics if you got a terminal illness I would advise you to soon buy $150,000 in (extra) life insurance, which should be cheap if you are young and healthy.
If I am diagnosed with a terminal illness then I won’t be needing my retirement savings so I’d use those to pay for cryonics if I decided it was the right choice at the time.
This doesn’t work if you have (or will get) a family that is financially dependent on you or you get a financially draining illness.
In the U.S. (I think) if you are less than 65 years old the federal government requires you to spend most of your own money before its starts paying for some kinds of treatments. Even if you have health insurance you can lose it or run into its lifetime cap.
Also, you need to factor in mental illness. Getting depression might cost you your job, drain your savings and make it really expensive for you to get life insurance.
Finally, you could lose your retirement savings due to a civil lawsuit, paternity suit, divorce or criminal conviction.
I don’t currently have any dependents. If I have dependents in the future I think it would likely make more sense to ensure their financial security in case of my untimely death with term life insurance and still defer a decision on paying for cryonics.
I’m a British citizen and a permanent resident in Canada so health insurance issues are less of a concern for me than they might be for a US citizen. I have no family history of mental illness.
You can assume I will take appropriate steps to protect my assets from the threats you describe and others as I judge necessary and prudent.
I’d dispute the claimed equivalence between several of these questions and cryonics (particularly the first) and I’d also take issue with some of the premises but I’d answer yes to all of them with caveats and I’m not signed up for cryonics nor do I intend to in the near future.
The reason I have no immediate plans to sign up is that I think there are relatively few scenarios where signing up now is a better choice than deferring a decision until later. I am currently healthy but if diagnosed with a terminal illness I could sign up then if it seemed like the best use of resources at the time. I estimate my chances of sudden death as relatively low and many sudden death scenarios would likely greatly lower my chances of successful cryonic revival (due to causing severe damage to my brain) so cryonics doesn’t seem a great investment currently.
Based on my age and health and the statistics I’ve seen I’d estimate a less than 1 in 1000 probability of dying in the next 10 years without sufficient warning to make arrangements for cryonics at the time but in a way that left my brain in a state where I’d have a non-negligible chance at future revival.
Life insurance is a lot easier to get when you are healthy and not diagnosed with a terminal illness.
Life insurance has negative expected monetary value. Since I could afford to pay for cryonics from retirement savings if I was diagnosed with a terminal illness I don’t think it makes financial sense to fund it with life insurance. Funding with life insurance might have positive expected utility for someone who doesn’t expect to have the funds to pay for cryonics in the near future but there’s an opportunity cost associated with the expected financial loss of buying life insurance in the event that it is not needed.
Most people pay for cryonics with a life insurance policy, an option that would get very expensive for you if you were diagnosed with a terminal illness.
The danger to you of waiting is that you might get a disease or suffer an accident that doesn’t immediately kill you but drains your income and raises the cost to you of life insurance and so puts cryonics outside of your financial reach. You probably couldn’t count on your family to financially help you in this situation as they probably think cryonics is crazy and after you “died” wouldn’t see any benefit to actually paying for it.
If you think you would want to signup for cryonics if you got a terminal illness I would advise you to soon buy $150,000 in (extra) life insurance, which should be cheap if you are young and healthy.
If I am diagnosed with a terminal illness then I won’t be needing my retirement savings so I’d use those to pay for cryonics if I decided it was the right choice at the time.
This doesn’t work if you have (or will get) a family that is financially dependent on you or you get a financially draining illness.
In the U.S. (I think) if you are less than 65 years old the federal government requires you to spend most of your own money before its starts paying for some kinds of treatments. Even if you have health insurance you can lose it or run into its lifetime cap.
Also, you need to factor in mental illness. Getting depression might cost you your job, drain your savings and make it really expensive for you to get life insurance.
Finally, you could lose your retirement savings due to a civil lawsuit, paternity suit, divorce or criminal conviction.
Are you a life insurance salesman?
I don’t currently have any dependents. If I have dependents in the future I think it would likely make more sense to ensure their financial security in case of my untimely death with term life insurance and still defer a decision on paying for cryonics.
I’m a British citizen and a permanent resident in Canada so health insurance issues are less of a concern for me than they might be for a US citizen. I have no family history of mental illness.
You can assume I will take appropriate steps to protect my assets from the threats you describe and others as I judge necessary and prudent.
From the statistics I’ve seen, 1 in a 1000 over a 10 year period is definitely overconfident. It’s closer to 1 in a 1000 over a 1 year period.