It’s easy to get lost in incidental costs and not realize how they add up over time. If you weren’t signed up for cryonics, and you inherited $30K, would you be inclined to dump it in to a cryonics fund, or use it someplace else? If the answer is the latter, you probably don’t REALLY value cryonics as much as you think—you’ve bought in to it because the price is spread out and our brains are bad at budgeting small, reoccurring expenses like that.
My argument is pretty much entirely on the “expense” side of things, but I would also point out that you probably want to unpack your expectations from cryonics: Are you assuming you’ll live infinite years? Live until the heat death of the universe? Gain an extra 200 years until you die in a situation cryonics can’t fix? Gain an extra 50 years until you die of a further age limit?
When I see p(cryonics) = 0.3, I tend to suspect that’s leaning more towards the 50-200 year side of things. Straight-up immortal-until-the-universe-ends seems a LOT less likely than a few hundred extra years.
Where’d that $30K figure come from?
You’ve said you’re young and have a good rate on life insurance, so let’s assume male (from the name) and 25. Wikipedia suggests you should live until you’re 76.
So, it’s less that you’re paying $50/month and more that you’re committing to pay $30,000 over the course of your life.
What else could you do with that same money?
Portland State University quotes ~$2500/semester for tuition. 3 semesters/year and 4 years/degree ~= $30K. Pretty sure you can get loans and go in to debt for this, so it’s still something you could pay off over time. And if you’re smart, do community college for the first two years, get a scholarship, etc., you can probably easily knock enough off to make up for interest charges.
I’m not that young—I graduated collect four years ago. If I inherited ~30k, it would go into a generic early start on retirement / early start on hypothetical kids’ college fund / maybe downpayment on a condo fund. Given that I’d just be holding on to it in the short-term anyway, putting it in a cryonics fund doesn’t actually strike me as completely crazy. Even in that case, though I think I’d get the insurance anyway, so I’d know the inheritance money could be used for anything I needed for when said need arose. Also, I understand that funding through insurance can avoid legal battles over the money.
The average college graduate is 26, and I was estimating 25, so I’d assume that by this community’s standards, you’re probably on the younger side. No offense was intended :)
I would point out that by the nature of it being LIFE insurance, it will generally not be used for stuff YOU need, nor timed to “when the need arises”. That’s investments, not insurance :)
(And if you have 100K of insurance for $50/month that lets you early-withdrawal AND isn’t term insurance… then I’d be really curious how, because that sounds like a scam or someone misrepresenting what your policy really offers :))
It’s easy to get lost in incidental costs and not realize how they add up over time. If you weren’t signed up for cryonics, and you inherited $30K, would you be inclined to dump it in to a cryonics fund, or use it someplace else? If the answer is the latter, you probably don’t REALLY value cryonics as much as you think—you’ve bought in to it because the price is spread out and our brains are bad at budgeting small, reoccurring expenses like that.
My argument is pretty much entirely on the “expense” side of things, but I would also point out that you probably want to unpack your expectations from cryonics: Are you assuming you’ll live infinite years? Live until the heat death of the universe? Gain an extra 200 years until you die in a situation cryonics can’t fix? Gain an extra 50 years until you die of a further age limit?
When I see p(cryonics) = 0.3, I tend to suspect that’s leaning more towards the 50-200 year side of things. Straight-up immortal-until-the-universe-ends seems a LOT less likely than a few hundred extra years.
Where’d that $30K figure come from?
You’ve said you’re young and have a good rate on life insurance, so let’s assume male (from the name) and 25. Wikipedia suggests you should live until you’re 76.
$50/month 12 months/year (76-25 = 51 years) = $30,600.
So, it’s less that you’re paying $50/month and more that you’re committing to pay $30,000 over the course of your life.
What else could you do with that same money?
Portland State University quotes ~$2500/semester for tuition. 3 semesters/year and 4 years/degree ~= $30K. Pretty sure you can get loans and go in to debt for this, so it’s still something you could pay off over time. And if you’re smart, do community college for the first two years, get a scholarship, etc., you can probably easily knock enough off to make up for interest charges.
I’m not that young—I graduated collect four years ago. If I inherited ~30k, it would go into a generic early start on retirement / early start on hypothetical kids’ college fund / maybe downpayment on a condo fund. Given that I’d just be holding on to it in the short-term anyway, putting it in a cryonics fund doesn’t actually strike me as completely crazy. Even in that case, though I think I’d get the insurance anyway, so I’d know the inheritance money could be used for anything I needed for when said need arose. Also, I understand that funding through insurance can avoid legal battles over the money.
The average college graduate is 26, and I was estimating 25, so I’d assume that by this community’s standards, you’re probably on the younger side. No offense was intended :)
I would point out that by the nature of it being LIFE insurance, it will generally not be used for stuff YOU need, nor timed to “when the need arises”. That’s investments, not insurance :)
(And if you have 100K of insurance for $50/month that lets you early-withdrawal AND isn’t term insurance… then I’d be really curious how, because that sounds like a scam or someone misrepresenting what your policy really offers :))