Become Your Own Heir After Being Frozen 375
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the what-could-go-wrong dept.
from the what-could-go-wrong dept.
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.'"
You're playing their game (Score:5, Interesting)
Given the assumption that cryogenic revival will be possible, this may work in principle-- but the insurance industry doesn't exactly function on immutable code-like rules that can be hacked for fun and profit.
It's much more a game-- and moreover, the game is owned by the insurance industry. You're just playing it. And if you figure out a particularly good trick to beat the house, they're either going to rationalize why certain technicalities mean they don't need to pay you (and thus 'easy money' becomes 'try to drag deep-pocketed defendants into court'), or they'll simply change the rules before you're revived, and you won't have been able to do anything about it because you were dead.
From a what-do-you-have-to-lose perspective, sure, it's worth a shot. But this simply can't be a dependable part of estate planning.
Key legal obstacle (Score:5, Interesting)
However, in Australia, and other common-law countries such as the UK, Canada and the USA, trusts have a limited life-time. The basic principle is that the dead cannot rule the living. It's called the "rule against perpetuities". If trusts could last forever, more and more of the world's resources would be tied up in trusts with narrow aims and the eventually all the world would be divided between trustees and beneficiaries. So goes the argument, anyhow (this is different from conditional gifts and foundations, by the way, before you start yammering about scholarships and charitable organisations).
The lifetime of a trust is specified at its creation. In the old days you could make it $DEATH_DATE_OF_SOMEONE + 21 years. So you'd have stuff like "For the life of the Prince of Wales and 21 years", the theory being that it's easy to know when the Prince of Wales carks it. More recently, most jurisdictions have introduced legislation allowing an optional ability to simply fix some time period, usually up to 80 years.
And that's the problem. If you go into cryo-storage for 81 years, then on awakening you may find that your trust was dissolved and the benefits distributed to your descendants. And until it's proved that you can really come back from death via cryogenic storage, I'd be amazed if the courts changed their stance. Because too many people would try to break the rule against perpetuities by being "frozen".
Of course, IANAL, this isn't legal advice, YMMV yadda yadda.
hah.. (Score:5, Interesting)
But worry not, your fortunes would have been confiscated by the corrupt state, and were you to be revived, you would owe a small fortune for the "maintenance" of your rotted corpse, despite the fact that your machine has too been cannibalized for it's parts and scrap.
Had you awoken in the future, you'd have felt you left a virtual paradise, for a poisoned and hellish war zone, your debilitated body and mind only barely aware that the band of rogues that revived you only did so for profit, and are holding you hostage, with yourself as the source of ransom. When it's found you are without value, your decayed body will be allowed to die it's second and final death.
Cryo has got to be the most brilliant scam ever (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course it is a bad scam preying on old people. But there are many such scams. The brilliant thing about cryogenics or whatever they call it is that the scammers can never be discovered. Let's face it it will not be possible to revive those poor dead people for a long time and probably forever. Even if micro biology advances it will not be possible because freezing tissue destroys all the cells and turns everything into mush. They need more than micro biology they need someone to reverse entropy, and good luck with that.
But anyways, let's imagine, for the sake of argument that it does become possible to revive those ppl. Even if that happens it will be far far in the future. And then of course when the people discover that everything has been stolen and there is no money in those funds, the perpetrators will be looong gone. Of course it is likely that by that time someone will have stopped paying the bills, the freezers would be switched off and some unlucky municipal government will have a hundred thousand rapidly thawing severed human heads to deal with.
Re:Money in the future (Score:5, Interesting)
One word: Fembot.
Once a reasonable facsimile of a real woman happens (nowhere near there yet), the tables will likely be turned, and in a big way. And no this isn't some sort of weird geek fantasy talking.
Thing is, men and women behave differently. A male human being has to mature a whole hell of a lot before he begins to sexually appreciate a woman as more than a collection of pretty smells, nice curves, and a warm vagina. We guys (not universally, but on average) are driven sexually by our five senses (esp. vision) more than anything else. Women OTOH are driven by far more factors, and look for these factors far sooner than guys do. This is why a male sex robot is fairly useless (unless someone pops the Turing route a whole lot sooner than anyone expect, that is), while a fairly dumb female sex robot would happily be useful to an unfortunate majority of the male population.
Objectively, it would have a cheaper ROI, you can treat 'em like objects (guys have a history of that with real women anyway), and when you get bored with one, you can get another. There are faults with the theory, though. If you're turned on by, say, a woman's intelligence, you're going to be like most of the women out there - sorely disappointed. Besides, my missus wouldn't let me get one anyway. :)
Back to TFM's topic? Why take the risks of sending your wealth to your (probable) unrevivable corpse? Just have some of your stem cells frozen, then let 'em make a close of you, and give the money to the copy of you (it won't be you, but hey - at least your DNA can still have some fun with the dough). It's cheaper (way the hell cheaper), far more certain with today's technology than necro-cryogenics, and a handful of cells would take a lot less space than a whole frickin' corpsicle.
Insurance co. says "YES PLEASE!" (Score:5, Interesting)
So say I run an insurance company. Someone comes to me and says they'll give me a pile of money on the condition I give them a huge payout after they return from the dead. I know that the odds that they'll be back someday are essentially nil. So basically, they want to give me free money. YES PLEASE!
As a general rule, you shouldn't be surprised that insurance companies will insure you against X, if X is impossible.
Re:Completely impossible, reviving after freezing (Score:3, Interesting)
Also note, the important part of the brain is the structure. As long as it's kept intact, the memories and personality remain intact as well.
Re:There's an easier way (Score:4, Interesting)
one slight problem with that
http://www.unclaimedfinances.co.uk/facts-dormant-bank-accounts-government-act.html [unclaimedfinances.co.uk]
In November 2008 the government passed the Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Act. One of the major principles of the act is to reinvest unclaimed money back into the community. So what exactly does this mean for those who are looking to reclaim their lost money?
Dormant Bank Accounts and Unclaimed Assets
In banking terms a bank account is dormant if there has been no customer activity within a set time period; usually between three and 15 years. Most banks will write to customers asking if they wish the account to remain active. However, in a number of cases banks will not be able to reach customers due to reasons such as moving home or name changes. Customers can still reclaim money in dormant bank accounts even if the money has been redistributed under the Dormant Bank Account Act.
Re: reviving after freezing-impossible (Score:3, Interesting)
Impossible is a big word-- temporize.
"Freezing essentially explodes the cell walls so there's nothing to revive."
Absolutely correct. The damage done in cryogenics happens at the start. It's likely not correctable going down the road with a few hundred years technology. Most substances reduce in volume when frozen/changed to a solid state, Water is a substance which expands on freezing..
The expansion upon freezing comes from the fact that water crystallizes into an open hexagonal form. This hexagonal lattice contains more space than the liquid state.
is there no way to attack this problem, by either
1.expanding cell size to allow for the minute volume increase to not burst cells
2. replacing the water in the body with an exotic substitute
3. finding a different way to freeze the water in the cells
according to this http://polymer.bu.edu/hes/articles/ds03.pdf [bu.edu]
which I get a really small fraction of - some really low temperature states of water exist that do not require water becoming a crystal, but rather a glass..
so it's IMPOSSIBLE RIGHT NOW
-- it may yet be a way is found.... we''ve got what-- 1129 days left???
Re:Key legal obstacle (Score:3, Interesting)
the theory being that it's easy to know when the Prince of Wales carks it
Of course, in practice, it would be really challenging to know when the Prince of Wales carks it, because periodically the Prince of Wales becomes the King of England, and one of his sons becomes Prince of Wales. There are in fact only 4 Princes of Wales that died while holding that title (Edward the Black Prince, Arthur Tudor, Henry Stuart, Frederick Louis). In other words, those trusts could be around a lot longer than intended, unless they were listed as basing the timing off of when the current Prince of Wales carks it.
Gold is worthless... (Score:3, Interesting)
And so are jewels, Confederacy dollars, Reichsmarks and Enron shares and stocks.
Jewels can be replicated today - they are pricey because they are artificially kept pricey.
Gold will probably be attainable from led or even rocks in the future.
Companies and countries cease to exit.
Several things will have (increased) value after a period of time.
One is land.
There is a limited amount of it on the planet. Even if you dry out oceans to make more - "old land" will still have premium value due to being closer to human habitats of old. You know, where all the culture is.
The other is exactly that - culture.
Works of art of any kind will only increase in value.
Hey... Action Comics No.1 from 1938 was originally sold for $0.1 - today they go for half a million.
Statues last longer than paper and canvas - and you can still bury them somewhere on that piece of land you own.
"Lost" compositions, songs, books etc. by famous artists can also be stored - but you would have to be either very rich and have a famous artist make something just for you, or stalk him/her, steal the work of art and possibly kill the artist (sooner he/she is dead, sooner the value will start to grow).