Well, the clear thing at least is that people seem to understand the difference between medically dead and information-theoretical dead, and possibly soul-dead. I'm wondering what the results would be if they cremated the medically dead guy instead of buried him. At the very least even religious people seem to think what a person is rests in a brain. Now on to the next set of steps to try and get people to sign up for cryonics...
I don't have a medical background, but as far as I know, the medical advances of three decades haven't brought us closer to safely preserving human bodies.
In 2004, some scientists at 21st Century Medicine managed to cryopreserve a rabbit kidney, thaw it, and transplant it back into the rabbit. They removed the other kidney so that only the rabbit had to rely solely on the treated kidney. It survived, though at first it had elevated creatinine levels. They repeated this experiment several times to show it wasn't a fluke. The paper is here: http://www.21cm.com/pdfs/cryopreservation_advances.pdf
The cryoprotectant invented by that team is now used by Alcor. The Cryonics Institute uses a similar formula. If either of those organizations get to you in time, the nanostructure of your brain will be accurately preserved.
I don't understand. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=life+expectancy+at+21 says that my life expectancy is 76.62 years and my probability of dying is 0.001329. That's a really low probability of dying already and I haven't even weighted in statistics like being healthy, high income, and taking the bus instead of car or bike. I can't believe that my probability of dying before I'm thirty is any higher than 0.1%.
0.001329 is 0.13%, and that's just for the next year of your life. On Wolfram Alpha, look under survival probability and you'll see that your chance of dying before age 30 is 0.93%.
I'm well aware that 0.13% is for the next year. The survival probability on Wolfram Alpha, however, doesn't take more specific statistics into account. The only things the data have are race, age, and sex. My supposition is if it took more interesting things into account (socioeconomic class, general health, commute patterns, drug use, etc) my actual probability of death before age 30 is no more than 0.1%. I'm not worried.
The CDC data just shows causes of death. The first most common is "Unintentional injury," which I assume covers things like car accidents and risky sports. Neither affect me because I don't drive (take the bus) and don't participate in dangerous sports.
I shouldn't have to address homicide. I'm from the Baltimore area -- I know exactly who that age group is weighted by and I'm not concerned about dying by homicide.
I'm not going to commit suicide.
Malignant neoplasm (cancer) is unlikely. I'm low on risk factors and don't have a high genetic propensity. I'm also in the fortunate position of having a better knowledge of my medical risk factors than most people because I'm from a family of doctors.
Your second example isn't even a real example. You have no data, you're just making a claim. As far as life insurance goes, I doubt they collect extremely accurate statistical data. It's not in their best interests to lower their premiums so I would expect any life insurance policy to be heavily weighted in their favor.
