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jkaufman comments on Open thread, Dec. 1 - Dec. 7, 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: MrMind 01 December 2014 08:29AM

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Comment author: jkaufman 01 December 2014 11:18:44PM *  4 points [-]

The basic idea is that one can reduce the marginal cost by preserving a huge number of people in one vat.

Currently the main cost in cryonics is getting you frozen, not keeping you frozen. For example, Alcor gives these costs for neuropreservation:

  • $25k -- Comprehensive Member Standby (CMS) Fund
  • $30k -- Cryopreservation
  • $25k -- Patient Care Trust (PCT)
  • $80k -- Total

The CMS fund is what covers the Alcor team being ready to stabilize you as soon as you die, and transporting you to their facility. Then your cryopreservation fee covers filling you with cryoprotectants and slowly cooling you. Then the PCT covers your long term care. So 69% of your money goes to getting you frozen, and 31% goes to keeping you like that.

(Additionally I don't think it's likely that current freezing procedures are sufficient to preserve what makes you be you, and that better procedures would be more expensive, once we knew what they were.)

EDIT: To be fair, CMS would be much cheaper if it were something every hospital offered, because you're not paying for people to be on deathbed standby.

Comment author: Lumifer 02 December 2014 12:54:51AM 1 point [-]

So, for how long will that $25K keep you frozen? Any estimates?

Comment author: gjm 02 December 2014 02:06:56PM 2 points [-]

I believe the intention is "unlimitedly long", which is reasonable if (1) we're happy to assume something roughly resembling historical performance of investments and (2) the ongoing cost per cryopreservee is on the order of $600/year.

Comment author: Lumifer 02 December 2014 03:40:51PM 3 points [-]

we're happy to assume something roughly resembling historical performance of investments

The question is whether the cryofund can tolerate the volatility.

the ongoing cost per cryopreservee is on the order of $600/year.

Aha, that's the number I was looking for, thank you.

Comment author: gjm 02 December 2014 04:33:45PM 1 point [-]

Note that it's just a guess on my part (on the basis that a conservative estimate is that if you have capital X then you can take 2.5% of it out every year and be pretty damn confident that in the long run you won't run out barring worldshaking financial upheavals). I have no idea what calculations Alcor, CI, etc., may have done; they may be more optimistic or more pessimistic than me. And I haven't made any attempt at estimating the actual cost of keeping cryopreservees suitably chilled.

Comment author: Lumifer 02 December 2014 04:43:41PM 1 point [-]

And I haven't made any attempt at estimating the actual cost of keeping cryopreservees suitably chilled

Didn't you say it's on the order of $600/year?

Comment author: gjm 02 December 2014 05:10:55PM 2 points [-]

It sounds as if I wasn't clear, so let me be more explicit.

  • I believe the intention is to be able to keep people cryopreserved for an unlimited period.
  • For this to be so, the alleged one-off cost of keeping them cryopreserved should be such as to sustain that ongoing cost for an unlimited period.
  • A conservative estimate is that with a given investment you can take 2.5% of it out every year and, if your investments' future performance isn't tragically bad in comparison with historical records, be reasonably confident of never running out.
  • This suggests that Alcor's estimate of the annual cost of keeping someone cryopreserved is (as a very crude estimate) somewhere around $600/year.
  • This is my only basis for the $600/year estimate; in particular, I haven't made any attempt to estimate (e.g.) the cost of the electricity required to keep their coolers running, or the cost of employing people to watch for trouble and fix things that go wrong.

(Why 2.5%? Because I've heard figures more like 3-4% bandied around in a personal-finance context, and I reckon an institution like Alcor should be extra-cautious. A really conservative figure would of course be zero.)

Comment author: Lumifer 02 December 2014 05:41:13PM 2 points [-]

Ah, I see. I think I misread how the parentheses nest in your post :-)

So you have no information on the actual maintenance cost of cryopreservation and are just working backwards from what Alcor charges.

2.5%

I'm having doubts about this number, but that's not a finance thread. And anyway, in this context what matters is not reality, but Alcor's estimates.

A really conservative figure would of course be zero

That's debatable -- inflation can decimate your wealth easily enough. Currently inflation-adjusted Treasury bonds (TIPS) trade at negative yields.

Comment author: gjm 02 December 2014 07:26:32PM 0 points [-]

you have no information on the actual maintenance cost

Correct.

I'm having doubts about this number

I did try to make it as clear as I could that I do too...

That's debatable

Well, I defined it as the maximum amount you can take out without running out of money. I agree that if instead you define it as the maximum net outflow that (with some probability close to 1) leaves your fortune increasing rather than decreasing in both long and short terms, it could be negative in times of economic stagnation.

Comment author: philh 02 December 2014 04:48:48PM -1 points [-]

No, ve said that "unlimitedly long" is reasonable if that's the cost. Ve didn't say that that was the cost.

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