6 ms·

Death annoys me. People who can afford $300/year for a cheap cryonics membership and life insurance, and who don't sign up, annoy me. A lot of them are probab

by Eliezer 16y ago

Death annoys me. People who can afford $300/year for a cheap cryonics membership and life insurance, and who don't sign up, annoy me. A lot of them are probably being held off by the trivial inconvenience of signing a few papers without a paid salesman to hold their hand. It therefore annoys me that cryonics is poorly marketed and that there are no paid salespeople - that no one gets a commission when you sign up for cryonics.

ww520 16y ago
Does cryonics work? When one with a cryonics membership dies, is his life insurance benefit still paid out? Assuming he can be revived via the cryonics process. Cryonics and life insurance seem incompatible.
- dzlobin 16y ago
  Great question, I'd hate to be revived and then stuck with a 2 million dollar bill for previously paid out life insurance. My guess is that insurance companies haven't bothered to write that fine print yet, but who knows.
- ben1040 16y ago
  When one with a cryonics membership dies, is his life insurance benefit still paid out? Yes, as many people pay for their suspension by taking out a life insurance policy that names the cryonics organization as a beneficiary.
grandalf 16y ago
Links to good/cheap cryo? I will sign up today.
- Eliezer 16y ago
  Cryonics Institute: http://www.cryonics.org/ http://www.cryonics.org/ Membership is $120/year. You'll also need at least $50K of life insurance with them as beneficiary. I pay around $170/year for $250K, and went through Rudi Hoffman who does cryo-compatible life insurance.
  - grandalf 16y ago
    Excellent. BTW do you know if any cryo companies are using the sort of suspended animation technology described in Mark Roth's TED talk? It would seem to have potential benefits.
jtbigwoo 16y ago
I have no faith that a cryonics company is going to last for more than a few years. If the money doesn't run out (which it will because someone will get greedy), all it takes is one incompetent employee to open the wrong door or push the wrong button for my investment to be entirely wasted. (or it could be an earthquake, or a 100-year flood, or rising sea levels...)
- fredBuddemeyer 16y ago
  true but your investment could help the industry evolve and help others in the future. these grateful folk wake up to a world with time travel and return the favor ;)
- adamta 16y ago
  "I have no faith that a cryonics company is going to last for more than a few years." Alcor and the Cryonics Institute have been around since the '70s and don't appear to be in any danger.
davi 16y ago
I do electron microscopy on nervous tissue. I know what it takes to get good brain preservation at the fine scale, at the level of synaptic connectivity. I know how small problems in fixation and embedding can completely trash the anatomy at this fine scale. I am skeptical that current cryonics methods can preserve the brain at anything better than 'massive stroke' quality.
- Eliezer 16y ago
  Fixation? Cryonics involves cryoprotectant and vitrification at liquid nitrogen temperatures, not plastination, and the last I heard the results looked excellent under a microscope. Also, think in terms of the brain being carefully examined on the molecular level by nanotech for tiny hints in the process of being restored to its exact old state, not in terms of trying to warm people up using present-day technology and hoping they pop back to life. The whole point of cryonics is to wait until technology advances to the point of being able to restore you so long as the necessary information is physically there in any form.
  - davi 16y ago
    last I heard the results looked excellent under a microscope Do you have a reference to some images I could look at?
    - Eliezer 16y ago
      Fired off your question to Aschwin de Wolf and got back: http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/newtechnology.html http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/newtechnology.html (Figure 4 and 5 for the more recent technology, earlier photos are older technology) http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/braincryopreservation1.html http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/braincryopreservation1.htm... (photos as of 1995 tech) Aschwin also notes this paper is important: http://www.ijcep.com/707005A.html http://www.ijcep.com/707005A.html
      - davi 16y ago
        Thanks for inquiring and relaying the response you got. Here is an example of the scale I'm interested in: http://synapses.clm.utexas.edu/atlas/1_6_2.stm http://synapses.clm.utexas.edu/atlas/1_6_2.stm Things that look like the newtechnology.html's figs 4 & 5 can look very bad at higher mags. I know this from painful experience. I don't see any high mag pictures at newtechnology.html or in Lemler et al. 2004, which that page cites. These mags are quite accessible once one has gone to the trouble of preparing sections for transmission electron microscopy. Sheleg et al. 2008 was interesting and surprising to me. It is published in a journal not included in the ISI Science Citation Index, so I can't tell at a glance how their paper might have been received by other workers. I might try replicating their results myself at some point down the road, it would be a pretty simple experiment for me to do (at least, the EM part, not the histology work). I understand the hope that even anatomically degraded tissue could retain sufficient information for cryonics to be useful. I just don't plan to bet my own money on this hope, at least not at this time.

by Eliezer 16y ago

ww520 16y ago

Does cryonics work? When one with a cryonics membership dies, is his life insurance benefit still paid out? Assuming he can be revived via the cryonics process. Cryonics and life insurance seem incompatible.

dzlobin 16y ago
Great question, I'd hate to be revived and then stuck with a 2 million dollar bill for previously paid out life insurance. My guess is that insurance companies haven't bothered to write that fine print yet, but who knows.
ben1040 16y ago
When one with a cryonics membership dies, is his life insurance benefit still paid out? Yes, as many people pay for their suspension by taking out a life insurance policy that names the cryonics organization as a beneficiary.

grandalf 16y ago

Links to good/cheap cryo? I will sign up today.

Eliezer 16y ago
Cryonics Institute: http://www.cryonics.org/ http://www.cryonics.org/ Membership is $120/year. You'll also need at least $50K of life insurance with them as beneficiary. I pay around $170/year for $250K, and went through Rudi Hoffman who does cryo-compatible life insurance.
- grandalf 16y ago
  Excellent. BTW do you know if any cryo companies are using the sort of suspended animation technology described in Mark Roth's TED talk? It would seem to have potential benefits.

jtbigwoo 16y ago

I have no faith that a cryonics company is going to last for more than a few years. If the money doesn't run out (which it will because someone will get greedy), all it takes is one incompetent employee to open the wrong door or push the wrong button for my investment to be entirely wasted. (or it could be an earthquake, or a 100-year flood, or rising sea levels...)

fredBuddemeyer 16y ago
true but your investment could help the industry evolve and help others in the future. these grateful folk wake up to a world with time travel and return the favor ;)
adamta 16y ago
"I have no faith that a cryonics company is going to last for more than a few years." Alcor and the Cryonics Institute have been around since the '70s and don't appear to be in any danger.

davi 16y ago

I do electron microscopy on nervous tissue. I know what it takes to get good brain preservation at the fine scale, at the level of synaptic connectivity. I know how small problems in fixation and embedding can completely trash the anatomy at this fine scale. I am skeptical that current cryonics methods can preserve the brain at anything better than 'massive stroke' quality.

Eliezer 16y ago
Fixation? Cryonics involves cryoprotectant and vitrification at liquid nitrogen temperatures, not plastination, and the last I heard the results looked excellent under a microscope. Also, think in terms of the brain being carefully examined on the molecular level by nanotech for tiny hints in the process of being restored to its exact old state, not in terms of trying to warm people up using present-day technology and hoping they pop back to life. The whole point of cryonics is to wait until technology advances to the point of being able to restore you so long as the necessary information is physically there in any form.
- davi 16y ago
  last I heard the results looked excellent under a microscope Do you have a reference to some images I could look at?
  - Eliezer 16y ago
    Fired off your question to Aschwin de Wolf and got back: http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/newtechnology.html http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/newtechnology.html (Figure 4 and 5 for the more recent technology, earlier photos are older technology) http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/braincryopreservation1.html http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/braincryopreservation1.htm... (photos as of 1995 tech) Aschwin also notes this paper is important: http://www.ijcep.com/707005A.html http://www.ijcep.com/707005A.html
    - davi 16y ago
      Thanks for inquiring and relaying the response you got. Here is an example of the scale I'm interested in: http://synapses.clm.utexas.edu/atlas/1_6_2.stm http://synapses.clm.utexas.edu/atlas/1_6_2.stm Things that look like the newtechnology.html's figs 4 & 5 can look very bad at higher mags. I know this from painful experience. I don't see any high mag pictures at newtechnology.html or in Lemler et al. 2004, which that page cites. These mags are quite accessible once one has gone to the trouble of preparing sections for transmission electron microscopy. Sheleg et al. 2008 was interesting and surprising to me. It is published in a journal not included in the ISI Science Citation Index, so I can't tell at a glance how their paper might have been received by other workers. I might try replicating their results myself at some point down the road, it would be a pretty simple experiment for me to do (at least, the EM part, not the histology work). I understand the hope that even anatomically degraded tissue could retain sufficient information for cryonics to be useful. I just don't plan to bet my own money on this hope, at least not at this time.