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no one is actually doing that
Hey, this is a site about rationality. I'll bet at least a few people save their money or donate to charity instead of buying stuff they don't really need.
I'll bet at least a few people save their money or donate to charity instead of buying stuff they don't really need.
That sounds like a bet you would win. However, the thing I claim no one is actually doing is taking the money they would be spending on whole life insurance premiums, and investing it as well as an insurance provider would, for the purpose of later subsidizing the larger premiums they would have to pay for whole life insurance when they are older. That would be a crazy thing to do, as it is more work, more risk in resources that are sub-linearly instrumentally valued, and doesn't cover you during the time you are investing instead of paying premiums.
It's not that the insurance provider is giving a good deal for signing up early, it's that life insurance is like an investment with risk management added on, and starting early gives your investment more time to grow.
Whole life insurance, yes. Term life insurance (which pays nothing unless you die during the specified time period), no. And the "cheap" premiums cited by cryonics people are for term life insurance.
I was explicitly talking about whole life insurance, which I advocate using for cryonics, and which I use myself. It is more expensive initially, but it lets you lock in your premiums when you are young and healthy.
If you do use term life insurance, it is cheaper when you are young because you are less likely to die during the term. But, unless you have a plan for how to fund your cryonic suspension after you survive the term, using it to fund cryonics is crazy.
I do not endorse citing the premiums for term life insurance as the cost of cryonics.
In response to
How to get cryocrastinators to actually sign up for cryonics
I was planning to write this up when I had the full results, but seeing this story of a young woman with brain cancer forced to beg to raise funds at the last minute reminded me that cryocrastinators are running out of time (even though getting brain cancer young is rare, there are cryocrastinators of all ages who aren't aware of when life insurance will become unaffordable).
Hm. Based on the research I did, there's no special advantage life-insurance-wise to signing up early. This makes sense from an economics point of view--there's no reason in particular for life insurance providers to give you an especially good deal just because you signed up early.
The premiums do go up as the age at which you start a whole life insurance policy increases. Unless when you are delaying you are saving the money you would have paid in premiums (and investing it as well as the insurance issuer would) to subsidize the higher premiums later (no one is actually doing that), getting life insurance is going to get increasingly expensive as you age. Unless you are increasing your income to match, this makes it less affordable.
It's not that the insurance provider is giving a good deal for signing up early, it's that life insurance is like an investment with risk management added on, and starting early gives your investment more time to grow.
Aw, sorry she turned you down. :-)
It would have been pretty impressive if I actually did get a girl to sign up for cryonics after she turned me down for a date.
In response to
[Link] Reddit, help me find some peace I'm dying young
Is it possible that she could suggest to the Cryonics Institute that they could set up an account in her name and we could donate directly to that account, cutting out the middleman but still directly contributing to this girl?
Also, I think that if it was a scam choosing cryonics is probably a bad choice since plenty of people even in an atheist forum seem to be against it, and thus its not as likely to generate as much sympathy. I think she could have said "I want to go on a safari in Africa" or some sort of trip that is moderately expensive (just like the skydiving comments claim) and received more funding.
Is it possible that she could suggest to the Cryonics Institute that they could set up an account in her name and we could donate directly to that account, cutting out the middleman but still directly contributing to this girl?
This comment on CI's Facebook page indicates that she and CI are in the process of setting that up.
When that is established, I plan to donate $500. (If anyone sees that it is set up, and I haven't followed up yet, respond to this comment.)
(ETA: There is now a fund set up by the Society for Venturism, and I have made my donation through them.)
In response to
How to get cryocrastinators to actually sign up for cryonics
me: So, you know what cryonics is?
her: Yes
me: And you think it's a good idea?
her: Yes
me: And you are not signed up yet?
her: Yes
me: And you would like to be?
her: Yes
You might have wanted to use a control question (e.g. "How many days are in a week?"), just to check if she'd have answered "yes" to that, too.
This was a snippet of the conversation, from memory. I already had reason to believe she wasn't a "Yes" bot.
How to get cryocrastinators to actually sign up for cryonics
At the end of CFAR's July Rationality Minicamp, we had a party with people from the LW/SIAI/CFAR community in the San Francisco Bay area. During this party, I had a conversation with the girlfriend of a participant in a previous minicamp, who was not signed up for cryonics (her boyfriend was). The conversation went like this:
me: So, you know what cryonics is?
her: Yes
me: And you think it's a good idea?
her: Yes
me: And you are not signed up yet?
her: Yes
me: And you would like to be?
her: Yes
me: Wait a minute while I get my laptop.
And I got my laptop, pointed my browser at Rudi Hoffman's quote request form1, and said, "Here, fill out this form". And she did.
The downvoting was related to the poor content of the article. It was essentially this:
How can you best use your time to make a difference?
Discuss.
Sincerely, 80,000 Hours
If the same article would be written by someone else, I would recommend them to ask the same question in the Open Thread. Should I vote differently just because of the person who wrote it? So now voting about articles is no longer about their quality, but becomes a political question?
Our allies are also expected to follow the local rules. We could make exception if this were the first article about 80,000 Hours on LW, so the main information of the article would be "80,000 Hours exists", but obviously that's not the case. The best way to promote friendship with our allies, is to write articles about them that actually provide information. For example, I would upvote a well-written article about "What is 80,000 Hours, what are their goals, and what exactly did they accomplish in the recent year". Because such article would contain interesting information.
It was essentially this:
How can you best use your time to make a difference? Discuss. Sincerely, 80,000 Hours
I don't see how you got that summary. Benjamin Todd was not looking to start a vague discussion. He was looking to gather questions important to people trying to make a difference so that people 80K could research well thought out answers to those questions. This is a simple but important step in guiding ongoing research to focus on answering questions that matter, and we should not expect great depth in the presentation of this step. The in-depth, well written articles may come after questions have been gathered. If you want to see what they have written on research they have already done, look around on their site.
So, the way I would summarise is:
We are doing research on effective ways of making a difference in the world. Let us know what questions you have about how to make a difference, and we will see if we can focus some of our research efforts on answering your question.
I hope you will give it another look, and try to judge it not as a polished stand alone contribution, which it is not trying to be, but as an important step in a process that produces a valuable contribution.
(And though I swamped with many projects, I will see if I can write the article you are looking for, or find the right person to write it.)
Each of you claims this is sickening. Each of you is exaggerating. This is not conducive to rational discussion, is it?
I don't see where Randaly called anything "sickening" (maybe a different comment than the one you are responding to? or pre edit?). I have gone so far as to call poor reception "disappointing", which I would not say is an exaggeration.
I don't agree with the equivalency of arguments you are implying.
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Actually, isn't there at least one respect signing up early does sort of subsidize yourself? The people who die after paying some premiums but lapsing and so never collect - the earlier you sign up, the more those lapsers subsidize the rest of their cohort who manage to keep up their premiums to the point of self-funding.
Yes, this also makes signing up early a better deal, provided you think you are less likely than average to lapse and lose coverage.