Let’s face it: we’re all (still) getting older, and aging leads to death. This is a major reason for cryonics’ existence — to preserve ourselves, usually in an aged, diseased, and/or deteriorated state, until medical science is capable of curing our ailments and prolonging our lives. Because many people (especially young cryonics supporters) tend to think that they will benefit from radical life extension therapies in their own lifetime, some choose to forgo making early cryonics arrangements. As discussed in a recent post, even if aging is ended or reversed there will remain a non-trivial risk of death by accident or other fatal incidents. Others who support cryonics but endlessly put off making their own arrangements also take an enormous risk in securing their own cryopreservations. It is important to be an activist for your own cause, too, after all.

That most people do acquire the financial means and/or appropriate insurance coverage to make arrangements as soon as they determine that they want to be cryopreserved is a cornerstone upon which cryonics providers rely to operate as efficiently as possible. The fact is that life insurance is easiest and cheapest to obtain when you are young and healthy. In an age where people nonchalantly dole out hundreds of dollars a month for their cell phone usage, life insurance coverage that will pay out the required amounts for your cryopreservation upon legal death is a trivial payment (on the order of $20-80/mo for a healthy young adult). Even if you are not totally sure yet whether you want to be cryopreserved, obtaining insurance at a young age that can provide for your cryopreservation is a wise move. Arriving on the doorstep of a cryonics provider as a “last minute case” is not advisable, since these are often the most demanding and controversial cases, and are also frequently subject to family interference.

Unfortunately, there are situations in which persons who have been dedicated to cryonics for many years fall upon hard times or are otherwise disposed of the ability to maintain their cryonics arrangements. For these legitimate cases, a plea for help can be raised when presented with adequate information concerning the person, their involvement in cryonics, and the nature of the circumstances leading to their disability to provide funding for cryopreservation. Of course, those who are already disabled or terminally ill before hearing about cryonics make up a good proportion of these legitimate claims, as well.

However, some of these “pleas for help” are not infrequently issued to the general cryonics populace at large via cryonics-specific Internet message forums, with little to no circumstantial information provided to assess the validity of the request. Such requests leave a lot to be desired in terms of properly addressing the need of the person desiring assistance, and devalue the importance of acquiring and maintaining cryonics arrangements throughout life, so they are not dependent upon others when bad times finally do befall them.

Looking forward, the last thing cryonics providers need are multiple series of last-minute cases and daily fundraising appeals when the “Singularity” turned out not to be as near as some people might have thought….