Become Your Own Heir After Being Frozen 375
destinyland writes "A science writer discovered it's possible to finance your cryogenic preservation using life insurance — and then leave a huge death benefit to your future thawed self. From the article, 'Most in the middle class, if they seriously want it, can afford it now. So by taking the right steps, you can look forward to waking up one bright future morning from cryopreservation the proud owner of a bank account brimming with money!' There's one important caveat: some insist that money 'will have no meaning in a future dominated by advanced molecular manufacturing or other engines of mega-abundance.'"
Re:You're playing their game (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, it appears that investing my cash in these companies in the business of bilking the terminally optimistic of their earnings *could* be a fine way to ensure my comfortable retirement. Thank you stupid wealthy people!
Haha (Score:1, Insightful)
More likely the criminals running the "deep freeze" will run off with your money and leave you to thaw out and rot in a mini-storage unit when all the LN2 in your dewer escapes.
They need to think about taking these people and placing them deep in a glacier or something, then maybe you have a chance of lasting for a while.
don't hold your breath (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah right (Score:2, Insightful)
Uh huh, sure. And we'll all have flying cars, and we won't need to work because we will have created new ways produce food. And there'll be no wars, and free ice-cream.
Re:eternal life: "can" does not mean "should" (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand, people in their 20s often pick up and go somewhere they know nobody, where the culture is very different and they have to pick up a whole new set of assumptions. It's called "college".
I think people in general are far more resilient than you give credit for, especially with the benefit of what would likely be advanced counselling methods.
Perhaps it's not to your liking, that's fine. Some people are more embedded in their world than others. I think I would manage fine, a whole new world to learn would be fascinating! Besides, you could likely still make the decision at that time that you didn't want to continue, no need to make it *now*!
Re:eternal life: "can" does not mean "should" (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Key legal obstacle (Score:5, Insightful)
Shouldn't this same line of logic apply to corporations and copyrights? Because right now, I would say the system is definitely breaking this "rule against perpetuities"...
Re:There's an easier way (Score:4, Insightful)
...and with the way inflation works, your 4.3 billion dollars will buy you half a slice of bread once you've been thawed.
Re:eternal life: "can" does not mean "should" (Score:5, Insightful)
Life without meaning? A new world with a new culture and new politics and new sciences and new games to learn?! Are you kidding! That would be the greatest thing ever.
Make new friends. Form a new family. Only this time if they can resuscitate a head then I'm probably nearly immortal so I have at least 10k years before I'm statistically killed in an accident. That's more than enough time to learn a few hundred lifetimes of insights.
So what you're saying is that if your family and friends all died in an accident you would want to die with them and no live your life? If you were orphaned and adopted by a foreign family you think life wouldn't be worth living or have meaning?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Who modded this insightful? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:You're playing their game (Score:5, Insightful)
The easy "out" would be that you weren't dead, and you owe them for unpaid premiums.
hidden treasure then (Score:3, Insightful)
Convert what you can to gold and hide it somewhere, hopefully some place that won't be discovered for the next 1000 years, I guess that would be the difficulty.
I predict that there will be a bank, maybe in Switzerland, maybe some place else, that will provide services helping the folks like that to hide their money, including from the law of other countries, for a percentage of annual interest perhaps.
Re:There's an easier way (Score:3, Insightful)
Has there yet been a bank or currency which has lasted that long?
Gold. Plus, if you get gold coins rather than bullion there's a chance that that they will acquire rarity value over 1000 years (due to the milling, engraving etc) over and above the value of the base metal itself and so enhance your rate of return. Ancient coins still have a high value attached to them despite the empires to which they belonged being long-dead.
Re:You're playing their game (Score:3, Insightful)
id sooner expect them to argue that if youre freezing yourself with the intent of thawing out, you arent actually dead and, as such, are not eligible to collect the life insurance monies.
Re:Cryo has got to be the most brilliant scam ever (Score:1, Insightful)
Of course it is a bad scam preying on old people.
How is it any different from the graveyard scam? What's the difference between paying someone to mow the grass over your coffin and polish your tombstone compared to paying someone to power and maintain a freezer?
Re:Completely impossible, reviving after freezing (Score:2, Insightful)
Cell walls? Are you reviving a plant?
Re:There's an easier way (Score:1, Insightful)
I don't know what bank you use, but from my perspective the entire industry seems bent on making sure that there is no such thing as perpetual wealth. On top of the annual membership fees most banks charged for credit accounts, there are now fees for non-use. The way things are going, I fully expect that that next fee will be one for crediting your deposit account with the interest earned on the principle.
Re:Completely impossible, reviving after freezing (Score:3, Insightful)
We freeze cells and keep them at -80C for future use. Most of the cells turn out to be viable and usable after the freeze/thaw cycle. I realize freezing a body is very different then cells, however, I would hesitate to say freezing a body or head is "impossible".
Re:You're playing their game (Score:3, Insightful)
The whole scheme is being run by the same banks and insurance industries that have served all of us so well?
Pull the other one.
It's got bells.
Why do you want to come back, anyway. You've wasted 20-35 years of your life in vanity and no real effect, so far. What makes you assume this will change after napping on ice for 150 years?
Then you have an eternity of half-finished Lego projects and failed relationships to look forward to - without every really wondering why you exist at all.
Re:Completely impossible, reviving after freezing (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:don't hold your breath (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, they wouldn't outlaw trust funds. They'd regulate and tax trust funds that were essentially scams to take away any advantage from playing dead.
I'd imagine the scenario would work out this way. This scheme catches on, and a few decades from now trillions of dollars are being managed for the benefit of "dead" people. Then some politician comes up with the obvious idea: let's cut the taxes for the living but shifting the burden to the *dead*. You get revived, and discover that you pretty much can recover your principle, but the interest has been used to create a tax-free socialist paradise for the living. That is *if* the laws allow you to be revived. Imagine the debate we're having about retirement demographics, only now it's *revival* demographics. In twenty years a whole bunch of people are going to be decanted and start drawing money out of the system and throwing their antiquated weight around and generally making life less pleasant for the currently living. Let's put it to a vote: shall we revive everyone's great grandpa and create a new class of economic overlords, or should we keep them frozen and continue to tax them?
Unless you can arrange to vote from the cryogenic "grave", you shouldn't count on taking it with you. You *might* evade death, but you *won't* evade taxes.
Re:Cryo has got to be the most brilliant scam ever (Score:3, Insightful)
freezing tissue destroys all the cells and turns everything into mush
Right, that's why if you freeze an embryo, you can't revive it and implant it and expect it to develop into a fetus and later a baby. It's just dead, because it was destroyed in the freezing process.
Re:hah.. (Score:3, Insightful)
A bunch of stupid apes running around using tools they barely understand.
Dude, you just described 95% of America, including yourself.
-FL