ASSET PRESERVATION GROUP MEETING - Cryonics Institute

ASSET PRESERVATION GROUP MEETING
By Ben Best
The fifth meeting of the cryonics Asset Preservation Group was
held at Benicia, California, a city north of Oakland, on Saturday,
May 14, 2011. Rudi Hoffman (http://www.rudihoffman.com/
who sells more than four-fifths of all cryonics insurance policies
sold) suggested that he and I share a rental car and hotel room as
a cost savings in attending this event. Both Rudi and I were
scheduled to arrive before noon on Friday the 13th of May. The
pre-meeting dinner was not to begin until after 6PM. With an
afternoon free to explore Silicon Valley, Rudi and I put-together
a rather ambitious schedule of brief (15-30 minute) visits.
The first visit was to Halcyon Molecular, a biotech startup which
aims to sequence human genomes for $100 each using a technique
which stretches DNA for rapid mapping through electron
microscopy. The main problem is to find markers that will rapidly
attach to DNA bases to facilitate imaging. The company has
50,000 square feet of high-tech laboratory space and 50 employees.
It is run mainly by two brothers who are in their twenties,
and is funded entirely by angel investors who believe in the
founders and their technology. The young businessmen place a
high value on imagination and brainstorming. Once a week they
have a meeting in which they concentrate on speculating about
the future, including space travel and life without aging.
The second company we visited ImmunePath, a biotech startup
founded mainly by John Schloendorn, whom I had met a few
times when he was getting his PhD doing research on the Lyso-
SENS aspect of Aubrey de Grey's rejuvenation program. John's
current plan is to give neutrophil stem cells to patients with immune
systems that have been compromised by chemotherapy
and other causes. Like the founders of Halcyon Molecular, John
is in his twenties and is being financed entirely by an angel investor.
Chana de Wolf was scheduled to spend the following day
in John's lab learning techniques for viability assay (to be used
in validating CI's new vitrification solution) while her husband
Aschwin attended the Asset Preservation Group meeting in Benicia.
Our third stop was to visit some scientists doing Suspended Animation
research at the NASA Research Park Because of the
complexities of getting badges, we met the researchers at a conference
room at the Silicon Valley Campus of Carnegie Mellon
University, and did not get a chance to see their laboratory. The
building was located near Singularity University
Rudi was eager to have his photograph taken in front of the
high-tech icon. The researchers showed us images of their research
on a PC. They claimed to have held mice in suspended
L to R: Jim Yount, Ralph Merkle, Carol Shaw, Dan Witt, Cairn Idun, Mark Voelker, Lori Rhodes, Barbara Witt, Rebecca Lively,
Ben Best, Mike Perry, Rudi Hoffman, Aschwin de Wolf
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animation for 20 hours- much longer than Mark Roth. They did
this by having found a protein that affects thermoregulation centers
in the brain, and use this in conjunction with hydrogen sulfide.
They had ambitions of achieving lower temperatures, and
were worrying about such things as cold denaturation of proteins.
An even greater concern, however, was funding. NASA's
funding priorities are highly unpredictable, and I could see that
the researchers had hopes of getting money from the cryonics
community. I wish I had the means to help them. Depressed me
tabolism technologies might be useful for limiting ischemic
damage for cryonics patients in various situations.
After picking-up Mike Perry at the Oakland Airport, Rudi and I
dropped by BioTime, Inc where we were met by Judy Segall.
Judy gave us a tour of the labs, which included a visit with Hal
Sternberg and a researcher whom everyone calls"Tumbleweeds"
because of his long frizzy hair. BioTime continues to earn about
a million dollars per year from royalties from the blood replacement
Hextend but with Michael West involved, is now getting
most of its money as grants from the State of California for stem
cell development. Research-only stem cell products can generally
be marketed without FDA approval.
After the BioTime tour, Judy led us to the Trans Time facility
where her husband Paul Segall is being stored in liquid nitrogen
along with two neuros and two pets. BioTime staff take turns
topping off the dewar inwhich the patients are stored. From
Trans Time we were able make our way to Benicia, where Dan
and Barbara Witt were hosting the pre-meeting dinner at the
head of the table:
The cryonics Asset Preservation Group was again organized by
Cairn Idun (the creator of the group), funded by the Life Extension
Foundation (Bill Faloon), and this (the fifth) meeting was
hosted by Dan and Barbara Witt. As founder of the Life
Extension Foundation, Saul Kent is helping to finance this
Group, but he has yet to attend a single meeting. He made some
comments during a revival trust discussion at the Suspended
Animation conference that are worth mentioning, however.
Saul said that he has heard many cryonicists say that they don't
care if they are reanimated penniless, as long as they are revived.
Saul's interpretation of this statement is that such people don't
think it is likely that cryonics is going to work. Saul asked who
would want to go to Paris, France without taking any money.
After introductions, the presentations began with Ralph Merkle's
updates on the Alcor Model Trust, which I described in my review
of the previous year's meeting:
No problems have been found with compatibility of Alcor's 501
(c)3 with the Alcor Model Trust. On the other hand, Ralph
Merkle and his wife Carol Shaw are still the only people with
the Alcor Model Trust, and their trusts remain unfunded. The
Trust is revocable pre-mortem, and becomes irrevocable
upon legal death of the Settlor (Grantor). Unlike ordinary trusts
that have three participants (Settlor, Trustee, and Beneficiary),
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perpetual trusts (trusts in jurisdictions having no law against
perpetuities often have a fourth participant: Trust Protector having
the power to change trustees and even beneficiaries. The
revived cryonicist must be recognized as the beneficiary, which
a cryonicist Trust Protector is expected to do.
In the Alcor Model Trust there are three trust protectors (called
"trust advisors"), two of whom are appointed by the Settlor, with
the third appointed by Alcor. Subsequent trust protectors could
all be appointed by Alcor. Alcor requires that all trust protectors
sign a Relative's Affidavit. Both Alcor and the chosen institutional
trustee (which administers the trust after the trust becomes
irrevocable) insert blocks of text in the trust which delimit duties
and requirements. (Vanguard as the trustee of Ralph's trust will
handle no assets other than cash, but other trustees may have
different policies.) Alcor Members wanting the trust would pay a
one-time fee of $500 to Alcor plus plus additional legal fees
Alcor may have to pay for legal review, plus any additional legal
fees the Member may want to spend for attorneys to
customize the trust for their own purposes.
Alcor encourages those creating revival trusts to have the trusts
make annual donations to Alcor from trust income, which will
increase Alcor's interest in the trust. Alcor is expected to be responsible
for revival, which will require funding research
into reanimation methods, as well as subsequent application of
those methods. As further revival incentive, the Model Trust lets
the Settlor assign a percentage of trust assets to be given to
Alcor upon successful revival of the patient.
When Ralph presented the Alcor Model Trust to a session at the
Suspended Animation conference the following week, one longtime
Alcor Member complained that the Trust wasn't the turnkey
solution he had been hoping for. Leaving Alcor Members the
responsibility of finding their own institutional trustee and the
management fees institutional trustees would charge, would
exclude all butthe very wealthy. Ralph answered that the Alcor-
Model Trust is a first step. Bill Faloon expressed the hope that a
group trust could be formed which Alcor Members with as little
as $50,000 could join without going to a lawyer.
The next presentation was Bill Faloon describing his project to
form a "Committee of Perpetual Guardians" to serve as trust
protectors of perpetual revival trusts for cryonicists. Bill imagines
that there will someday be hundreds of revival trusts created
by wealthy cryonicists who will want to preserve their wealth
for their revival. Some of the income from such trusts would be
used for research to develop reanimation technologies. The
Committee of Perpetual Guardians would protect the interests of
the beneficiaries by overseeing the trustees, directing investments,
and allocating trust income to promising proposals for
reanimation research.
Bill proposed establishing the Committee of Perpetual Guardians
as a subunit of the Asset Preservation Group. Bill determined
that committee members could best be protected from
liability if the committee was a nonprofit corporation of the

State of Virginia, where officers and directors have no liability if
they are not financially compensated. Bill drafted a proposed
set of ByLaws for the new organization, which would have a
President and Secretary-Treasurer elected by the Committee.
Lori Rhodes discussed the "medico-legal need for a cryonicsfriendly
autopsy". Lori estimated that about a tenth of cryonics
cases involve autopsy. She seeks legislation that would protect
cryonicists from destructive autopsy of the brain, and that would
ensure timely treatment of cryonics cases by a medical examiner.
Coroners typically have a backlog of bodies that they must
autopsy, which can take days. Although medical examiners
might have no personal objection to elevating cryonics cases to
the highest priority, they would prefer court rulings or legislation
so that they could not be challenged for deviating from a "first
come, first serve" priority list.
Aschwin de Wolf argued that by establishing that cryonics patients
are not dead they could own their own assets and have
bank accounts. He reprinted the written version of his presentation
on his Depressed Metabolism blog: "Neural cryobiology
and the legal recognition of cryonics cases"
Peggy Hoyt is a lawyer with extensive experience in estate law.
Peggy extoled the benefits of Delaware as situs for trusts, saying
that Delaware is a leader in trust law innovation. She gave the
example of Leona Helmsly leaving $12 million in trust for her
dog which a New York judge reduced to $2 million. Peggy said
that Delaware law is more conscious of honoring the intent of
trusts -- respecting the wishes of Settlors.
Russell Cheney gave each participant a copy of the book TO
OUR CHILDREN'S CHILDREN as an aid to collecting memories.
Russell said that
"memory is our most
important asset". Saving
memories in diaries could
assist in restoring personality
in revival. Russell
noted that memories are
more than a collection of
facts -- context, impressions,
and sensations are
essential aspects of
memories. A complete
picture of an individual
will include mannerisms,
attitudes, etc.
Rebecca Lively spoke on
protecting cryonics arrangements
from family
members. She warned
that family members who
are otherwise indifferent
about cryonics can become
antagonistic to the cryonics
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arrangements if they see that it will mean they get less money.
Financial rewards to family members if a cryopreservation goes
well would create more desireable incentives. Rebecca advocates
updating of cryonics documents because contracts that are
decades old are less convincing of a person's intentions at the
time of legal death.
Mike Perry updated his previous year's report on "Options for
Members with Brain Deteriorating Disorders". In Arizona (and
probably most states) voluntary stopping of eating and drinking
is a means of avoiding autopsy only if done by a person with
a terminal illness. For a healthy person, it would be classified as
suicide, mandating an autopsy. Most alarming is the fact that
Alzheimer's Disease does not qualify as a terminal illness because
it is too slow.
My own presentation was about "Offshore Financial Services
for Cryonicists". I had researched this subject in the 1990s, and
felt that it should be a matter of interest for this Group. So I did
some internet searches to update and expand my knowledge. I
made no pretense of practical experience, indicating that serious
investigation should be made preliminary to serious action.
Restrictive Bank Licenses are not difficult to obtain in many
offshore jurisdictions such as the Bahamas. I suggested that cryonicist-owned
banks could serve as trustees who would recognize
the validity of legally dead cryonicists as beneficiaries.
Moreover, trust income in many offshore jurisdictions is taxfree,
whereas US federal tax amounts to about a third of trust
income. On the other hand, only a few offshore centers have no
law against perpetuities because it is the US Generation Skipping
Tax that has provided the incentive for 23 states to allow
perpetual trusts in order to attract the wealth of dynasty trusts to
their states. There are other mechanisms, however, for establishing
the equivalent of perpetual trusts offshore. The Obama administration
wants to eliminate perpetual trusts on a federal
level ) so diversification of assets between onshore and offshore
seems most prudent.
Rudi Hoffman spoke on "Seven Silly Superstitions About
Cryonics Trusts", which he had posted here on CIYG:Rudi says
that cryonics trusts are affordable by most people for the same
reason that cryonics is affordable:life insurance. A cryonics trust
can be the beneficiary of a life insurance policy. I don't believe
that life insurance companies are giving-away money -- in most
cases they will make more on premiums and investment income
than they will give to beneficiaries. During his presentation,
Rudi was convinced by some of us to stop using the word
"suspension" to mean "cryopreservation".
During one of the breaks, Dan Witt (who was hosting the Group
and is an Alcor Member) approached me to tell me how much he
looks forward to receiving LONG LIFE, adding that he enjoys it
more than Alcor's CRYONICS magazine. LONG LIFE Editor
John Bull should take note of the fact that there are many people
who appreciate his good work, despite the fact that they rarely
express their appreciation to him.—- Ben Best