Jonathan here. Being woke up by my wife crying because the donations just aren't stopping is both heart-breaking and comforting.
For those of you who haven't seen the 'Bucket List' post, here's what it says at the very top:
As I try to deal with the reality that is my impending death I can't help but wonder how many things I might have been able to accomplish given just a little more time. When I was diagnosed, I had only one thing that I wanted; to live long enough to see my children grow up. The reality is that the odds of me living long enough to see my children grow are quite slim. The only available treatment will eventually stop working and then it's just a matter of time.
This is the list of things that I want to accomplish while I still have time. Many of them aren't for me. They are for my family. They are meant to provide security for my wife and kids so that they can celebrate my life instead of mourning my death when that time comes.
My priorities are taking care of my family just as they always have been. Sometimes, we just can't plan far enough ahead to deal with something like this. If you saw the original page you would also note that Trips and meeting celebrities is not high on my list of priorities. Those are things that would provide me with a small boost on an emotional level but I don't consider them something that must happen before I die.
Life Insurance: I changed jobs and don't have any and now that I'm terminal, the cost for obtaining it is prohibitive. I agree that this is poor planning on my part, however, I'm 35 and no one expects to find out that they are going to die at 35. We all think we have plenty of time and the reality is that we don't.
Health Insurance: Thank god that I have this or we would've been sunk from the beginning. Despite having insurance, there continue to be ongoing costs and once I go on long-term disability I'll be paying cobra rates to keep the same coverage. I have no idea how expensive this will be but I don't expect it to be cheap.
This really isn't about me or the money, this is about my family and trying to ease their pain. I know that I'm living on borrowed time right now and I could be dead at any moment. All I want to do is spend as much time as I can with my kids so that they know I loved them. You try telling a 6 year old that her daddy has cancer and will be dead before she turns 8. Hardest thing I've ever had to do and I would never wish it any one.
For those of you that have helped us, thank you is not enough.
I was happy to make a donation. This hits close to home because my wife was diagnosed with Stage 0 Melanoma-in-situ when she was 35 years old. We have three kids of our own and imagining them growing up without their mother is terrifying. Fortunately, we caught it at Stage 0 though which has a 100% cure rate. So let me stand up on the soapbox for a minute:
Everyone should go to a dermatologist every year for an all-over skin check starting when you're in your 20s. That's what my wife did and it's what I started when I was in my late 20s. It's literally the difference between dying young and growing old.
To stay on the soapbox for a minute, everyone should really have at least $500,000 in life insurance when your wife is pregnant with your first child. I pay about $1,500 per year for $2.0 million in life insurance above what my employer supplies me (3x salary). You really, really need term life insurance outside of what your employer offers. Just think - if you get very sick and lose your job, you don't want to lose your life insurance as well. Don't get whole life - it's generally a rip off. Just get term life insurance. I have a ladder of 10 year, 20 year and 30 year policies that expire as I get older and need less life insurance. In fact, my 10 year term policy just expired a couple months ago (my oldest son is 9.5).
Also, get disability insurance outside your employer's policy as well. Policies supplied by employers are typically worthless. It's generally good to get an "own occupation" policy because otherwise you can be denied payment because you're able to work a McDonald's drive-through even though you've been a surgeon your entire life.
Yes. This. The dermatological point is very, very helpful, but the rest of it is a grand-slam home run.
The sadness of early death is something way too many people have to embrace ... but there is also an element of preparation. For all the articles about preparing for a proper launch, preparing for VC, preparing for #whatever on HN, this is an element glossed over in most every circle I have ever been in.
To everyone: Get Term Life Insurance.
To everyone: Get Disability Insurance.
Do your research, and be prepared - because life is coming regardless of your level of preparation.
Great points all around, thank you for making them! Please don't help perpetuate this myth about whole life being a "rip off" though. Your statement is semi-accurate, but a bit misleading.
Don't get whole life - it's generally a rip off
Yes, if purchased from a non-mutual, financially shaky insurance company, it's quite likely a bad idea.
However, when purchased from a financially strong mutual insurance company (Northwestern Mutual, Guardian Life, etc.), it can make a great complement to term life insurance (and can be beneficial to the overall financial plan for a number of reasons).
One wouldn't want to "fully" insure themselves with whole life (that'd be cost prohibitive and inappropriate from an asset allocation perspective), but again, as a small piece it can make a lot of sense.
Anyway, didn't mean to detract from your overall points. It's hard to put a specific number on peoples' insurance needs without knowing their situation, but the spirit of your points was spot on. Especially about "own occupation" disability coverage - which I think is especially relevant for programmers.
TL;DR on insurance: Talk to a professional that you trust, figure out what amount of protection makes sense, and get protected. Term life insurance is an affordable way to get a lot of financial protection for your family. Your ability to earn an income is perhaps your greatest financial asset (edit: assuming you have many working years ahead of you), so treat it as such. Think about protecting it with disability income insurance.
I'm heartbroken every time I read one of these deeply personal stories. The situation is already stressful enough - one shouldn't have to worry about how the family will keep the lights on.
I'm in IT but I am also a CFA charter holder (Chartered Financial Analyst). I disagree wholeheartedly on your assertions on whole life. I have only seen whole life be an appropriate investment vehicle for very wealthy families that are doing estate planning. There may be other times where whole life is appropriate but I don't know what they are. In almost all circumstances someone would be better off buying term insurance and doing their own low-fee investing somewhere like Vanguard or Fidelity. They've made it so simple with Target Retirement funds.
> There may be other times where whole life is appropriate but I don't know what they are.
$80,000 for cryonic suspension, which is most likely to be successful if you die of a terminal illness; which is most likely to happen when you're old enough that term life insurance is ridiculously expensive (but could happen when you're young, which is why to go whole life instead of just investing and then paying up front for the suspension).
If term life insurance + self-invested funds nets more money than whole life insurance then it is better to buy term life insurance and self invest your funds.
The problem with whole life are the massive profit the company takes and the massive commission the salesperson takes. If:
A represents the value of a term life policy after costs
B represents the value of investing after costs
C represents value of a whole life policy after costs
In all circumstances I've evaluated but one, A+B comes out ahead of C. The only circumstance where C has a chance of coming out ahead from what I've seen is as part of an estate plan to minimize taxes.
Based on your comment, I know you won't be swayed, so I won't argue :) My point was simply that allocating a small percentage of your money toward a WL policy can make some sense because it's such a flexible financial instrument (tax-deferred growth, tax-free withdrawals, policy payments made in the event of disability, a small but reasonable tax-adjusted return, permanent death benefit, etc.).
If/when I get married, my plan will look like this: majority of life insurance via term, modest WL policy, disability income insurance, some index funds, and some stock of two or three companies that I know deeply.
What happens to folks who retire after a crash like in 2000? It'd probably be better if they left their investments alone, and instead drew some money from their WL policy. You could argue that their allocation should've been well tilted from equities at that point, but what if it wasn't?
In a perfect world of automatic 10% yearly returns, and diligent saving/investment, buying term and investing the difference (from WL) would smack the performance of WL. Unfortunately it doesn't work like that. Most people don't save/invest diligently, and the market isn't automatic.
I'm the son of a parent who died well before I graduated high school. I hate to say it, but $500k isn't nearly enough unless you're in a very low cost of living state. Even if the surviving parent makes a good wage, you will have a surge of childcare expenses. And if the surviving parent wasn't the primary earner that's when you really need the insurance. The thing lots of people don't consider is that you may not die from a car accident where shit just happened. If someone should be unlucky enough to get cancer, you may face several years of illness with not only reduced income or disability pay but an astounding amount of money spent on medical treatment. Just for starters, insurance will not cover eg childcare for young children while parent #1 is sleeping at the hospital while parent #2 is recovering from surgery or chemo or radiation or whatever it may be.
From my experiences as the oldest of several kids, $1mm is really the minimum and it's worth a quick talk with an attorney to not only have (1) a will; (2) a written discussion ahead of time of what you want to have happen if you or your SO should ever be severely injured (see eg the Terri Schiavo debacle); (3) a discussion of who you would like to have raise your kids should both parents be injured; (4) tax avoidance strategies should someone die early.
These are all unpleasant things.
The other thing you may find shocking is how long it takes to get a death certificate issued / the challenges getting access to accounts held only in a single name. Maybe our experiences where unusual but you should not be surprised if it takes 3-6 months to get some of these things sorted. Not to mention the surviving family are usually an emotional wreck.
I think the better message is to think about what would happen if you or your spouse died or couldn't work. There isn't a one-size-fits-all plan. Someone with a $500,000 mortgage, $50,000 in other loans, and no real nest egg needs more than your recommendation. Someone with a spouse that makes a good income, has very little debt, and having a substantial nest egg may not need any life or disability insurance. The key is to be realistic with your situation.
Best wishes to Jonathan. I've chipped in my little bit.
Agree about the importance of getting term life. One thing to add, the Internet (or the society) is a life insurance! Help some one in need. One day the karma will come back to you.
Jonathan, my heart truly goes out to you. Someone very close to me was diagnosed with stage 3 melanoma a few months ago, so while I can barely imagine what it must feel like to face this, I do know what the medical picture looks like and the information available looks grim.
I don't want to tell you about your disease, but if you haven't yet, please find a way to get evaluated at md anderson. They're in Texas, and possibly the best (at least top four or five) place in the world to be treated for melanoma. And they're one of three hospitals in the country with trials ongoing in TIL therapy (sometimes referred to as ACT), which, having done as much research as a lay person can do, seems to the most promising avenue of treatment with long term response rates as high as 70%.
And just to give you some hope, as horrible a diagnosis as you've been given, there has never been a better time in history to receive it. There are literally new treatments coming down the pipeline every few months.
I am hopeful that I live long enough for the next great breakthrough to happen. The treatment that I am on didn't get FDA approval until late 2011 and is actually working to shrink the tumors. Unfortunately, they don't know where mine originated and it has progressed so quickly that they don't give me good odds. I literally went from being fine one day to having cancer the next. There were no external signs and the internal tumors are huge, ranging in size from golf balls to soft balls.
I have hope but I'm also being realistic based on how my treatment has progressed. I have to plan for the reality that I may not have more than 9 months and hope that I'm still here in 15 years. It's a very difficult place to be emotionally.
With regards to MD Anderson, I've heard great things from them, however, I trust my doctors and they work with many of the doctors from MD Anderson. Before they did my gamma knife treatment they actually sent the MRI results over to a neuro-surgeon peer group to ensure that the right actions were being taken. They have taken no chances and are doing the right thing as far as I'm concerned. I continue to do my own research looking for the next best thing and will definitely consider MD Anderson should I find that they have something better available than the treatments I'm on.
I'm glad you mentioned this. My father just recently passed away from this terrible disease. But if this was just a few years ago he would of had almost zero treatment options. So many new treatment options are coming out. Be sure to get with a specialist they are the only ones who really understand this disease. Also look into PD-1 inhibitors they are only in clinical trials but have shown a lot of promise as well. Stay strong you're not gone yet and even though it might seem like it's the end, it's not.
and it was only a couple of months ago that BRAF and MEK combo therapies were FDA approved... after decades of melanoma being a diagnosis without a lot of hope, the last couple of years have seen some really amazing advances.
If you can make it to Florida I can take you and your family to any of the four Disney parks, at no cost to you. I can't find your email address anywhere, but if you can provide it I'll send you my info so that you can reach me if you do decide to come.
sonnyz, this is very generous offer. I didn't hear from you but you can also reach me at darthclue@gmail.com
With regards to making it to Florida, I don't that this would ever happen even if someone stepped up and covered the cost of the entire trip. With my current health, every day is an unknown. When I got up this morning, I had no idea that I'd end up in the ER yet again nor that I'd be so exhausted I'd come home and sleep for several hours. This has become my unfortunate reality. Even if it was an all expenses paid trip it would likely kill me before it was over and it is for this reason that I consider this to be near the bottom of the bucket list. It's more for my kids than it is for me and it's meant to provide them with happy memories that will hopefully sustain them through my death. That said, if we make it to Florida I will at a minimum be in touch just to say thank you.
As someone who was diagnosed with cancer back in August at the age of 33, I can relate, thankfully, it was easily treatable, testicular cancer that by all appearances had not spread. I literally gave my left nut to get rid of it.
That was the only thing that really bothered me too, having a, at the time, 8 month old daughter who I might not get to raise. That of all things was my greatest regret and fear.
I had terminal life insurance already to cover loss of income and pay off the mortgage, etc. I'm not saying this to you, nothing you can do about it now, but people if you have a family you care about that relies on you for their well being in anyway, even if its just child care, and extra income, etc. Get some life insurance, insurance is for exactly this reason, highly unlikely events, but events that are financially devastating all the same.
As someone who was also diagnosed with skin cancer recently and who's mother is dying of metastatic cancer, I can particularly relate. It's amazing that simply being told you're sick can physically make you so. If you want someone to talk to, I'm available. Contact information is my profile. Good luck.
I wouldn't say that it's made me physically sick. I am physically sick but it's the emotional toll that is the worst. Just knowing that this body is dying and there is nothing I can do is frustrating and when I consider what it means for those around me I become an emotional wreck. I could care less if I die, but I do care about what it will do to my wife, my kids, my mother, my grandmother, my aunts, uncles, cousins, close friends, even complete strangers who took the time to send me $5 and a few simple words of encouragement. These are lives that I've touched in some way and my death will impact them. Some more than others but it will still impact them. Doing what I can to lessen that impact and make it a more positive experience for them is the least I can do as my final act of thanks towards humanity.
> 3) read about Melanoma, was shocked how much I didn't know.
Yeah it's weird how little people know about something so prevalent. People are shocked to find how many different types and sub-types of cancer are out there and how different the prognoses vary from one to the other.
I just got the diagnosis a month or so ago (26 y/o, a year after my dad dies of lymphoma... epic wtf's all around).
First response is "Oh, well at least it's only skin cancer. They just cut it out and you're good." -- heh... NOPE.
Also, I was walking around with it and a lump in my neck for months because Dr. said it was only a birthmark, probably just scarred node, etc. Until I pushed for a dermatologist.
tl;dr: Get checked. Be paranoid. Don't take "you're young, it's nothing" for an answer. Demand a biopsy.
I hope you recover quickly and that everything will be fine!
My condolences on the loss of your father.
I'm always paranoid, this is why I used to avoid being checked :)
I donated earlier today and I wish you the very best.
Please also don't feel bad about taking advantage of this opportunity at the top of Hacker News and add a clear link in at the top of your blog post saying "You can donate here".
It's hard for someone scanning to see that they can donate and while there's a time and a place for being shy it would be a shame to lose out on the opportunity you have here.
Very best of luck (and please do clearly add the link)
Peter
Our basic needs are taken care of for now. We have a strong group of friends and family who have been by our side throughout this entire mess and provided us with indescribable support. Spiritual support of any kind is always welcome.
I don't have a lot to give. But me and my wife and our four kids pray together every day, so you can be assured when I say that we'll include you in our prayers. We'll pray that God comforts and guides you and your family through this unimaginable time, and that He reunites you with your family in the next life, with never ending happiness.
[I'm 39, have daughters aged 5 and 7, and had a fist-sized brain tumor removed just over a year ago. So, though I'm doing fine right now (next MRI is tomorrow morning, hoping for another clean scan), I can certainly relate.]
If you have the strength, try to take up running. My world-class oncologist (at MGH in Boston) said he wished all of his patients were runners. Not occasional joggers, but real runners as in 3 to 5 miles multiple times per week.
Also avoiding refined sugars and red meat can't possibly hurt and there's a lot of evidence that it can make a huge difference.
More generally, I urge you to fight to stay alive. Anything is possible if you just hang on and keep alive. The pace of innovation and understanding in medical science is accelerating, and “incurable” diseases have been eradicated. HIV was once a death sentence; now patients live about as long as never-infected people. Just keep breathing, and hang on. Positive change is coming.
Sending all my positive vibes and loving best wishes your way.
I know you're inundated with messages from strangers but if you read this and want to talk or I can do anything for you, please do reach out. I'm "cweekly" on twitter and gmail.
Love,
Chris
PS This excerpt from Alan Watts -- "Think of Nothing" -- also helped me cope, when I thought my end was near. If you're a devout Christian you might find it offensive, but I (a humanist with zen buddhist leanings) found it comforting. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ5upMz0_ig&index=35&list=FLf...
I wish I had the strength. As it is, I'm so weak that I can't even get upstairs to my own bed anymore. This is one of the most difficult things that I've had to accept is physical limitations. I've always been able to do physically challenging things that included running, although I'm horrible at it, and moving furniture around when needed. Now? I can barely lift my laptop and we won't even talk about the need to use an electric cart at the store now. It makes me feel weak and feeble despite mentally knowing I'm too young to be this damn old.
And I intend to fight until I have nothing left. I refuse to just give up and die. It's not in my nature.
Hey Jonathan do not worry, slowly things will fall into place. I wish you luck and pray for you and will also curse this unfair world for you. Stay strong and instil your little ones with confidence and happiness. Take care.
A question about insurance. If you join a new job, typically you can have yourself insured without answering medical questions upto 2-3x your salary. I don't know how your health is right now, but it might be something to keep in your mind.
What does that matter at all; it's no longer legal to discriminate based on pre-existing conditions. He can simply sign up with any insurance company, they cannot turn him down because he has cancer. Obamacare solved this problem.
You implied you're in Texas - you may wish to look into natural burial - I don't know where in Texas you are - but I was considering it for myself.
http://www.eloisewoods.com/index.html is one option - but there are many others - it comes with the advantage of being much cheaper - you could even dig.. well you know.
I hope you beat it dude, I really do, I'm 31 - 4 years ain't that much.
Have you or your doctors discussed the possibility of getting you on Yervoy (AKA Ipilimumab)(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipilimumab)? It's an immunotherapy drug indicated for the treatment of late-stage, metastic melanoma.
I'm not a doctor, so I don't know if Yervoy could help you or not, but I figured I'd mention it just in case.
My mom recently got diagnosed with a terminal illness. This was a very sad eye-opener for me. Having lived that in the family it has made me think about many things and how suddenly life can pull the rug from under you.
I can say from my own experience that being happy and enjoying every day as much as you can are the best gifts you can give to your loved ones.
My heart goes out to you and to your family.
Almost at tears reading this. If I have to die today, the most painful thing will be seeing by family going away from me, and most importantly my precious daughter who is just few months old now.
I run a startup (around wishing & bucket-list) and I keep telling folks - life is short, fulfill every wish you have. Be strong bro, that is all I can say now.
ACA rates might be a little less but I wouldn't expect they'd be much less. The insurance I have via my employer is far superior than anything I can get from ACA at this time and resetting to an ACA plan would reset deductibles and out of pocket expenses possibly costing me more money in the long run. It's something I will be looking at when the time comes that I have to make that choice. Until then, I am thankful that I still have insurance through my employer which is reasonably priced and has paid out more than $280,000 to keep me alive for the last 2 months. Without it, I would most certainly be dead at this point.
If this was a Wikipedia fundraising campaign, this would be true. But this guy is dying of cancer. He needs cash. Sell your bitcoin and give him cash if that's what you want.
If someone has the resources, it may be a last-ditch attempt to elude death. It's very unlikely someone frozen today would be able to watch his or her children grow - we don't have the technology to revive a frozen person and we don't know if it's even possible.
Then, I understand the odds are probably better if I'm frozen while alive, with minimum damage to brain tissue. It would be a hard choice to give up my last few couple hours with my family in order to undergo an uncertain procedure on the slim odds of getting resurrected decades from now.
This hits home hard for me. My father found out he had terminal cancer when my mother was 3 months into pregnancy. In the late 60's he didn't even know I was a boy. Medical science couldn't give him anything better than a less painful death. He never heard me cry and never got to hold me in his arms. He would be no better now if he were frozen when he died - he'd still be dead and would remain so for at least a good couple decades. I'm 46 and, with luck, I'll have another 46 years to live. He died at 40.
As a father in my thirties this hits home but I can't help but wonder WHY DON'T YOU HAVE LIFE INSURANCE? This is what it's for! For the cost of a few dinners out a year you could have 500k of coverage and right now you'd be spending time with your loved ones instead of worrying about money.
Please, if you have dependents (people that need your income) buy life insurance. It's cheap (if you're young and healthy) and death can happen to anyone of us at anytime for any reason.
/ end rant.
I feel for you though, this is super sad and I can't imagine not seeing my kids grow up. I wish you the best.
"At around 5AM, I awoke to the sound of Michelle crying while staring at her phone and mumbling incoherently. She eventually calmed down enough to tell me that she was being spammed with Give Forward donation notifications. It took me a bit to figure out that somehow, my 'Bucket List' had been posted to https://news.ycombinator.com/, aka hackernews, and was the number 1 result"
If you could by any chance set up a BTC address more may donate because of the lower fees. I will donate via the provided page, but just something to keep in mind :-)
If memory serves, it just means it's not an Extended Validation certificate, which is supposed to physically verify the identify of the issued business/person, rather than just be a generic (but fully secure) cert.
Kind of bizarre seeing someone else's value system which is completely alien to my own. If I was leaving my wife and kids with mortgage and car loan debt, I wouldn't spend $10-20k on a graveyard plot, that's for sure. I don't think I would in any case, I'd just get cremated or whatever the cheapest option is.
It is sad that we all think we are entitled to a piece of the earth for eternity. Not only is it a huge waste of money but a huge waste of land. If everyone who ever lived had a marked grave reserved for them forever, there would be no land left for the people who are living right now.
It is the ultimate sense of entitlement.
By the way caskets cost like 5 grand or something too. I was there when we were picking one out for my grandma I think that was the price of hers and it was on the cheaper side. My grandma pre bought her plot, but it still cost 10 grand to do a funeral that really wasn't elaborate or anything, mainly the basic stuff. If it were up to just me, things would have been different.
>we all think we are entitled to a piece of the earth for eternity //
I live next to a graveyard - the stones often are so decayed after 100 years as to be unreadable. Graves get reused eventually or the graveyard gets reused as a whole (at least that's how things have happened in my country thusfar).
Funny half the people ITT seem to be saying we've got loads of resources.
Also FWIW a graveyard isn't wasted space - it's basically a park with memorial stones. People use it to walk, jog; it's a good space for wildlife, trees prosper.
I feel that wanting to be preserved in a casket & grave is sort of morbid anyway. I'd rather decompose under a tree or something, in keeping with the "circle of life" meme.
I feel for the guy, I wouldn't wish his position on anybody. But reading that list, I can't help but think he needs to learn how to sacrifice a bit.
I get that he wants to take care of his finances and spend time with his family. But everything that he listed can be done for 1/5th of the cost. Get cremated, travel by bus, put everybody up in a 1 bed motel room, etc.
I think he is just comfortable with his life and can't see out of his own worldview. He believes these things are "bare necessities." This is why I have trouble relating to the middle and upper class and especially this guy.
I grew up poor. Really poor. My friends in the neighborhood had to live without electricity some times because they got shut off because their parents couldn't pay the bill. I thought we were pretty well off because we could afford a car and we could afford to keep the lights on. I thought of a car (any car) as a big luxury item when I was a kid because so many families around me couldn't afford one. I realize now we were also very poor, just not as poor as some of my peers. I believe because of that experience I have a much different outlook on what is actually needed and what one can live like happily if you get out of a certain mindset.
When I see people begging for "donations" to pay off their 19,000 car loan, I am very put off. He could sell his van and buy an older (but still nice) van and save thousands. Ever single financial blog will tell you the first thing you do to save money is downgrade your car. Of course instead of going without or making sacrifices he needs to ask other people for money. He already has a lot more than most of the kids I grew up with will ever have and yet none of us felt entitled enough to beg. I drove a beat up car that was 13 when I retired it for years when I could technically afford a newer one. Why? I'd rather spend that money on life experiences, weekend trips, and visiting friends and family. When I bought a new(er) car (1 year old with 30,000 miles) I was able to pay cash for it freeing me of having a car payment. It is insane that "car payment" is part of our lexicon, especially for someone claiming to have money problems. You can do a real lot without a car payment.
Look up any research on happiness. That van doesn't make you happy, in fact it does the opposite. What makes us happy is not the items in our life but the life experiences we have. When you are sacrificing life experiences for a van you're doing it wrong. He clearly owns a van he can't afford.
As I said before, nobody needs to spend even close to 10K on a funeral. That's a big luxury item.
I currently have two hard working friends with two children who are struggling to make ends meet and making actual real sacrifices (like Internet). Their kids will never have half of what this guy "needs."
I remember going on a trip where we stayed in a cabin at a campsite because it was cheaper, and we packed a cooler full of food for the duration of the trip so we didn't have to spend money on eating out. This trip was a good time for very cheap. They also have all included bus tours/trips which are cheap, I went on a couple of them as a kid too.
Funny thing is my parents are no longer poor. My mom worked a civil service job so she was able to eventually move up to a better paying job and get a pension at retirement. She is now retired.
I think the mortgage is about reasonable though, that doesn't seem too excessive. Expensive but not overly so.
I do feel sad he is dying at 35 and his family has to live without him. However, his sense of entitlement puts me off completely. I thought this was going to be an interesting article not some self entitled guy begging for money.
Comfortable? Yes. Out of touch with you and your poor friends? You know nothing of my life.
I've worked my ass of to get where I am and while you may find our expenses excessive I would point out that they are what meet our needs and keeps us financially secure. Do I like asking for help? Hell no. As a matter of fact, this has been one of the hardest parts of this whole process. As I've been forced to accept that I will die and will likely leave my wife with debts that cannot be repaid I have to consider what will really happen. Without a home, she moves in with her parents. This isn't a bad scenario but it's also not the best scenario. Without the van, she has no way to provide for the basic needs of our children like taking them to the doctor. Note, her parents live in the boonies, there is no public transportation. The cost of a funeral? Have you priced these recently? They aren't cheap no matter how you look at it. And there are far more decisions that go into this than how cheap it is. This has long-lasting emotional impact on my wife, my kids, my mother, my grandmother and a host of other relatives. I can only hope you have people in your life who you care about enough to actually think before you act in the event of your death.
And the moment you begin to think you know anything about how anyone grew up or how hard they've worked to get where they are or how happy they are, you need to stop and rethink your own priorities and happiness. This isn't about things or happiness, this is about security and easing the pain of my death. Memories will make them happier than anything else I can do and we have memories in this house and in that van. And the moment you think I have a sense of entitlement is the moment you need to go down to the nearest shelter and volunteer. You'll soon discover just how entitled you think you are and realize just how wrong you are.
May you find peace and experience true humility before it's too late.
>the cost of a funeral? Have you priced these recently? They aren't cheap no matter how you look at it.
Yes, I have. We spent 10 grand on my grandmas funeral and she had per bought her plot. Still a luxury item. If it were my choice I would never do that, but it wasn't my choice. Nobody needs an expensive funeral, come on. Wedding and funerals are now overrun by their respective industries trying to sell sell sell. Inventing new things you "need."
>Without the van, she has no way to provide for the basic needs of our children like taking them to the doctor.
You don't need a $20,000 van to take your kids to the doctor, you can do it in a $10,000 van. You however don't want to downgrade. My point was you're putting the expensive van (which requires a car payment) over spending your money on experiences with your wife and children.
>need to go down to the nearest shelter and volunteer
I do my volunteer work, though not at a homeless shelter. I also donate lots of toiletries to our local homeless shelter on a regular basis. In my adult life I've also been around, befriended, and talked to many many homeless people and people with significant health problems due to the places I've been.
>I can only hope you have people in your life who you care about enough to actually think before you act in the event of your death.
I made my wishes very very clear. I would like to be cremated as soon as possible. No embalming. I don't want onlookers gawking at my dead body and no stupid funeral home upgrades. I've said it here in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7391663 I think my friends and family should then throw a party honoring my life if they choose to.
I did something similar with my wedding and stayed out of the wedding industry almost completely. I had an out of touch friend say "You have to spend over $20,000 on a wedding and I was getting the base packages!" um... no... If you stop with the consumerism then you realize that isn't the case at all.
A family friend died while his kids were out of the country. They cremated him right away and waited for the kids to get back to have an event to celebrate his life. It was in a park and it was a wonderful tribute.
>this is about security and easing the pain of my death
Cutting back your lifestyle will provide much more financial security now and in the future.
I may come across as a callous bastard, but this occurred to me as well.
Cheap cremation or donating my body to a medical school (there's one at the U across the lake). I'd much rather not give money to some funeral parlour shyster -- one of my uncles ran one of those things, and while I like to think he was one of the honest ones, that industry is all about taking advantage of vulnerable people, worse than being in used car / camel / spacecraft sales.
My wife had her father's body donated to science. It cost $200, and several months later she got an urn of her father's ashes by mail.
We then rented a boat and spread his ashes in his favorite harbor. It turned out to be a solemn and yet mildly joyful occasion as each person talked about fond memories and spread some ashes in the water.
I want students to cut my corpse up and learn things. I want my body to contribute to society for a little while longer after I am gone.
Allow me to clarify my value system for you then. You'll note that the graveyard plot is the 3rd item on the list. If we are unable to fund it, I am prepared for cremation options. This is a 'bucket list', it is more like a wish list than anything else and this is why items are listed in 'priority' order. This is about providing for the financial needs of my wife and kids. Giving them a home and transportation are the most import aspects of making the process of my death easier. There are so many conversations that have to take place between two people who love each other and most of those will always remain private. Telling my wife where I want to be buried and discussing what we need to do before we even begin planning for this was just another of many difficult conversations I've had to have over the last 2 months. I have to make difficult decisions that will impact everyone around me. When you find yourself facing death, I hope that your commitment and resolution to cremation remains as it is today.
I agree, but it made me feel better (poor wording?) to see Jonathan's blog post on 01/19/2014 (the earliest post to be tagged "cancer"):
I have told my children that if I should lose this fight that there will not be a funeral, there will be a party, a celebration with music and cake and ice cream and friends and family and dancing and laughing and singing.
This was one of the most difficult conversations I had to have. It came about because of my 6 year old who asked if she could go to my funeral. No 6 year old should ask that question and no parent should have to answer it. She has been the strongest through this which is making it even harder because she fully understands what is going on and is asking tougher and tougher questions for which I do not have any good or easy answers. I've cried more trying to come up with the answers than I have in my first 34 years of life.
My family, including my wife, children, mother, grandmother, and extended family would benefit from a public viewing. Cremation is something we've considered but would like to avoid but we have made a final decision on which way we will go because we don't have the finances in place to make that decision yet. And yes, $20k is about as cheap as I could manage to get it with the research I did given that this would be an out-of-state burial requiring my body be transported across state lines. I've done my research and worked to keep costs as low as possible because that's just part of me trying to give everyone what they want and deserve without creating additional burden on anyone if I can. This isn't an easy decision and my wife are still discussing it because it isn't easy. None of this has been easy.
Right. I think this is what bothers me about this list. It's material driven. There's a saying that goes (paraphrasing) "don't wish for better circumstances, wish to be a better person."
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Mark 8:36 KJV.
Jonathan, you and your family must look to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is your judge. Through Him all things are possible.
Yep, lets just jump on the god-phone and call god to get him to help him out in this instance. Just like he helps starving or diseased people throughout the world every day. Or my uncle, who died of cancer recently.
The list seems material because he is worried about his family. They need to eat and they need a roof over their head. We are all a bit material. I notice you are using hacker news which suggests you must have some kind of an income and access to technology. He is dying. He is worried. Would you not feel the same?
How about, instead of quoting bible bullshit to help you not so silently judge a man with cancer, you shut the heck up and donate a tiny bit to the man so he can live the rest of his days with that much less worry?
Jonathan : Find solace where you can. My heart goes out to you.
I can't say where I stand spiritually but everyone who suggests I should simply rely on God obviously believes that they are not responsible for any of their own actions. And if you truly believe that is materially driven then you haven't bothered reading and understanding what is written.
Don't try to talk to me about God until you've taken the time to actually read and understand who it is you're talking to and what it is you're saying.
It's sad that when we find out something this devastating (you're dying), that we have to spend our last weeks/months/years worrying about, of all things, money. Nobody deserves this sort of thing happening to them, and when it does happen, it hurts me to think they can't spend their last months on earth focused on enjoying time with their loved ones and instead have to live in fear that their family is going to be able to survive without an extra paycheck. It should be a time of finding peace within the chaos that is life, but instead it's like adding insult to injury. :(
No one deserves this, especially not at 35. That is far too young. I've had more than a couple of people close to me pass away from cancer and other causes and it all seems very depressing that in some cases you can't really do anything at all.
Forgive me for asking but doesn't health insurance cover costs of cancer treatment even in the USA? I really don't want to sound like a narcissist and I'm not trying to judge in the least, but I'm curious why the OP wasn't more diligent about planning ahead in terms of health insurance given he made a decision to have/raise four children.
Do people really not take into account stuff like children's education, cost of living expenses per additional member of family, emergencies, black swan events? I know my parents decided to have only X number of kids because they knew that they wouldn't be able to provide well for more than X children. This was a conscious decision given that my father grew up with 7 siblings and my mom says she would have had more children if they would have been able to provide for them.
Also I'm genuinely curious whether $20,000 for a final resting place seems like a good amount to put on a list of priorities given all the other costs involved? Mortgage and transportation seem like good goals, but minus the cancer, if some one else decided to raise money from the internet to spend it on traveling, I'm not sure a lot of the comments would be so positive?
I'm really sorry for being so negative, but these are general questions that I have and they are in no way directed towards the OP. Cancer sucks. Period.
If you're insured in the US (sadly, this is still a fairly big "if"...) the costs of cancer treatment will be covered, but unlike most of the rest of the developed world there are still a lot of caveats: depending on the quality of your coverage, you could end up paying very little, or quite a bit of money. It's not a simple question, unfortunately.
That said, it sounds like he's not looking for money for treatment, but for things like paying down the mortgage and car before his income is lost. This is what life insurance is meant to cover, but again, there's a wide range of coverage options and many people don't think about how much to buy, especially when they're young.
If you've just bought a house and a car and had a kid you're probably in a lot of recent debt, with the assumption that you'll have a lifetime to pay it down. All it takes is one bad accident to turn that assumption upside down. Get life insurance, folks.
>If you've just bought a house and a car and had a kid you're probably in a lot of recent debt, with the assumption that you'll have a lifetime to pay it down
Out of self discipline I bought a life insurance at the same time my home loan was approved; the insurance amount being same as loan amount.
I have always wondered why don't Government have regulations in place that forces a borrower to purchase a life insurance. Or at least make the borrower opt into insurance by default with the option of opting out.
Left to themselves borrowers are not likely to think about insurance at the time of taking loans. I think by nature we underplay risks to our life because of which our loved ones end up suffering financially over and above emotionally.
> I have always wondered why don't Government have regulations in place that forces a borrower to purchase a life insurance
It's the old "nanny state" debate... In France, life insurances are mandatory when you get a mortgage. However, one still has to be particularly careful with insurance policies. My mother died to a cancer, a few years after she contracted a loan. However, the insurance company refused to pay off the loan. The contract was nullified as she didn't mention a disease she had 15 years before (unrelated the the cancer that killed her).
> I have always wondered why don't Government have regulations in place that forces a borrower to purchase a life insurance. Or at least make the borrower opt into insurance by default with the option of opting out.
Because that's literally an unfair subsidy for insurance companies off the backs of homeowners. Insurance isn't a scam, but it is trading some reward to decrease risks. Probabilistically, you're better off saving the insurance money. I'm not saying that's the best choice for everyone, but it should be a choice.
Personally, as a single adult I'd never consider life insurance——nobody would be financially ruined if I died, so I'm much better off rolling all excess money into the stock market.
Life insurance is to protect the people that rely on your income, not pay off your debts (I don't think this is a deep insight, I just think it is the sensible way to talk about it).
If you have children and only insured the value of your house, you probably need to buy more (but of course you might have discussed a simplified version of your situation or whatever).
That's a fair point as others have also pointed out. It's that I couldn't even imagine such a scenario. The society I live in, India, you will very rarely come across such a person, i.e., a single person with no dependents owning a house on mortgage. Once you start earning here there's almost someone financially dependent on you :). Could be your parents, spouse, children at various points in time.
It certainly makes you confident that insurance company will take care of everything when you die. But are you really sure? Did you check the fine print? What if your death is 'because of age' or 'because riding a bicycle is a dangerous activity'?
Life insurance business in India is very tightly regulated. In fact till very recently there was just one player, LIC (Life Insurance Corporation of India), which is essentially backed by the state. And LIC, being the oldest player in India, is profitable and has the highest claim settlement ratio, about 98%. Even though I haven't really checked the complete fine print I'm more or less certain, looking at the settlement ratio, that they wouldn't include such clauses.
That's the reason I'm fairly confident the insurance company will take care of everything.
Well, i'm relying on maths, not on government regulations. All the data is there, you can calculate the expected payout value for current mortality data and compare it with your yearly insurance cost. I don't know how much you pay but my calculations showed that insurance companies must seriously reduce the payout amount and/or exclude a majority of 'payable' illnesses or death causes, or they would lose money on every life insurance sold. That's why i don't believe in life insurances and prefer other solutions.
From what I've heard from friends/family that have mortgages, here in the UK the mortgage company stipulates that you have to get life insurance in place to cover the remaining loan amount before they approve your mortgage.
That's not at all true. Banks will be very happy to sell you life insurance, for sure, and may make it sound important - but the only insurance requirement is on the building itself, and even then the cost of rebuilding it, not the value of it.
>> Do people really not take into account stuff like children's education, cost of living expenses per additional member of family, emergencies, black swan events?
If you have a life insurance policy, and Aflac, you'll get a ton of money from having cancer. Aflac will pay cash for every hospital visit, every procedure, transportation (not pay FOR it, your health insurance will do that, but give you cash on top of that) and then the life insurance policy will cash out when you pass away.
Your family will miss you but at least they won't have to worry about paying for stuff.
My stepfather died from stomach cancer last year, the public health system here in Paraguay covered all the treatment, some of the drugs cost more than 15 or 20 times the monthly minimum wage.
There are over 7 billion people on the planet. A day doesn't go by without a story like this. We just don't hear about most of them. Someday a person like this will simply go to his doctor, get a prescription, and go on to live a normal life.
Rather than dwelling on sadness, maybe we should ask if there isn't something we can do, as a group, to make that day arrive sooner. What would it take to cure, or at least treat, cancer(s)?
Really quite a huge number of people are asking that question already. And a massively disproportionate amount of science funding goes towards cancer research. Far more people in the world die of communicable and vector-borne diseases or illness related to malnourishment. These issues get much less research attention and funding because so many people in the western world are focussed on cancer. So while my heart goes out to the OP, and I hope his treatment is successful and his family are well provided for, I really don't think what we need is more people to focus on cancer. Lets focus on saving as many lives as possible.
You are right for the wrong reason. The problem with cancer research is that we are trying to solve an unsolvable problem, wasting disproportionate amounts of money. In some sense, cancer is a symptom of a body gone havoc. Research should be targeted upstream, to really tackle the root cause. It is like trying to fix a hardware issue by patching software. Yes, you can get some results by implementing better error correction, retrying I/O operations, etc, but at the end, you just need to change the fucking RAM module.
BTW, same thing with researching "illness related to malnourishment": Avoid malnourishment and then, there is no need to cure anything.
It's not a waste of money. Therapies for certain cancers do get developed and, in conducting such research, we learn a great deal more about cell biology.
Yes, the trigger for carcinogenic mutations is mostly environmental influence - some of which can be controlled and some of which can't - but that's no reason to cease funding research into the actual cellular mechanisms of cancer.
Fair enough, but I see cell biology advances as a by-product of cancer research as in "how does this cancerous cell react to this candidate drug ?" instead of "why does a healthy cell go havoc ? Why is the immune system unable to detect and destroy a cell gone havoc ?"
I see what you're saying but it's not really just a by-product, it's an integral part of the research. Both the "why" and the "how" are needed, especially when looking at rational drug design to have specific targets to screen for.
Youre 100% right and im not a food scientist, but i strongly feel the increase on cancer in humans can be attributed to the largely corn based diet humans are fed.. and the other terrible food items were fed by the powers that be.
Everything is made with corn or corn byproducts and its not healthy at all.. not only that were feeding it to all our animals.. its a bad bad situation how our food supply is treated, and the more we push "lab grown food" the worse its going to get.
The rise in cancer incidence is mostly due to people living longer; advancing age is the biggest risk factor for most cancers.
Anyway there are many other risk factors, and evidence for corn itself being one is scant. Alcohol intake, smoking, red meat consumption, lack of dietary fibre, high salt levels in one's diet and obesity are much more concerning, given the correlative evidence.
either way, humans weren't made to eat a largely corn based diet nor were animals. Most of the food in grocery stores is just corn remade. It's extremely unhealthy food.
You can taste the difference in a cow that's been fed a corn diet and a cow thats been grass fed. Problem is if you see those cattle lots they have so many head of beef(far to many for the acreage) it's just dirt. Then it's dipped in a bath of ecoli killing shit, and squished up with a bajillion other cows.. it's disgusting. I'll stick to raising my own food.
If science has shown anything, it's that this is the wrong way to think. Leave the answers to those who do the science, feelings are a terrible way to come to conclusions. Blaming corn based on your feelings is irrational and very likely completely wrong.
I suspect the "increase in cancer" is noticeable because we're generally not being knocked over by something else first. I believe there is an interesting relationship between prevalence of heart disease and cancer over time (one rises as the other falls).
It´s kind of natural for me. I am a geek and I have a genetic disease that is slowly destroying my body. I find lots of similarities between us/computers and god/humans. I am not a religious - in the strict sense - person, but the phrase "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" (Genesis 1:26) really applies to us, "makers" of computers.
Yeah, the fact that millions of people still die of diseases we can treat, and are often even trivially preventable, is a far bigger social tragedy than there being some diseases we cannot cure yet.
Life sucks sometimes, but there's so much more we could be doing to make it suck a lot less for a lot of people.
That's true only in the specific case of HIV in the USA - the funding in the USA for cancer vs HIV is about right for the global number of deaths from those diseases. Especially if you consider that cancer is showing no sign of being a curable problem, while HIV is.
For other diseases - malaria, dengue, hepatitis, typhoid etc., not to mention malnutrition - global spending is massively disporportionate in favour of cancer.
It's not just that we haven't found a solution. Cancer is not a single condition - it's a multitude of different diseases with similar mechanisms and different causes. The cure for one type of cancer is usually ineffective for most other types. Frequently researchers have encouraging results on one set of patients that never happen again on another set.
HIV is a relatively easy problem when compared to cancer.
I'm not suggesting cutting back on research, but distributing the research budget effectively. We need some long-term research into cancer cures, but not at the cost of the lives of people who can be saved today or in the very near future.
Can you provide any data or any additional clarity? There's enough food produced in the world, for example, but it just doesn't get to the people who need it. I'd like to add that I wasn't saying that money is necessarily the answer. The power of crowd-sourcing, for instance, can help in other ways.
The WHO produces a report on causes of death wordwide[0]. Heart disease and stroke are the biggest killers, but these are, like cancer, really quite complex. Diarrhoeal diseases and respiratory infections kill a ridiculous number of people, but these are largely solved problems in the western world. Organisations like the Gates Foundation are doing great work exporting what we know about these diseases to the developing world, but governments do a pitiful amount. A number of chronic lifestyle diseases are rising: lung/throat cancer (due to smoking) and diabetes (due to eating sugar). My suggestion is that we should prioritise disease research and treatment based on how many people are dying and how easily those problems could be solved. But because funding bodies are all human, and all in the developed world, the disease they most fear is cancer.
Regarding food security, there is technically enough food produced in the world to feed everyone, if we could solve the distribution and storage problems and prevent rich governments' protectionist interference in agricultural markets and corruption in developing nations' governments. But a large amount of that wastage is also not really suitable for human nutrition. Probably the fastest way to alleviate hunger is to enable each part of the world to feed itself with food produced nearby. Because we've reached the limits of arable land in much of the world, this means making more land suitable for food production, finding new ways to provide water, and making crops be able to grow better in different conditions. The FAO's State of Food Insecurity report[1] is a good summary.
2 years ago, my diagnosis would have meant death within a matter of months as the treatment I am getting didn't exist. I look forward to the day when no one has to go through this. For now, I am not dwelling on the sadness but I am trying to leave my wife and children with as few worries as possible and with as many happy memories as possible. It breaks my heart to know that I might not live to see my 6 year old's birthday and no one should have to go through that.
Best of wishes to you. I hope you find peace and can really get the most out of what time you have left... And even more so, I hope your treatment is effective beyond belief and you beat this altogether.
This is also what I'm thinking. Yes, this is probably a terrible experience he is going through, but if people 'really' wanted to help maybe giving to a cancer research institution or donating to people that have 'real' needs, like putting food on the table or access to fresh water. Wouldnt that honestly be more fair and better than to a guy who needs to pay of his mortgage today?
I mean the average time to pay of a loan is something like 15 years, and given his situation he could probably try to apply for a better deal from the company where he took his loan (decrease monthly amortization costs but increase loan period for example?).
Personally, I will not get hooked by this story and give him money. But point me to the nearest cancer research institution that has made tangible results and I would be happy do donate.
But also, out of personal reasons due to the crappy humans nature we all have, I guess I'm kind of jealous that this guy will be making tons of money on something so bad. I'm a young guy, my girlfriend (my first real love) died last year, and honestly, noone gave a fuck about that.
Hm, unfortunately the misanthrope in me agrees with ilovecookies. My donation, too, will be going to feeding and providing basic medicine to underprivileged people, not financing some guy's huge car and 4 children in a 1st world home.
It's about morals and values I guess. Alot of people would prefer donation to their neighbour rather than a uneducated or starved child in asia or africa. Even if that means taking the neigbours children to disneyland, casa bonita, expensive restaurants and paying of the guys mortgage and SUV. That's just because it's something we can relate to, so people develop more feeling for things like that. (Ever wondered why reality TV became so popular?)
The important thing here is not that you gave to someone else, but that you gave and when you need it most, I can only hope that someone will be there for you because you gave to someone else.
Our loan is a 30 year term, cause ya know when you're 35 you don't expect to die in 2 years. Getting it re-financed isn't really an available option at this point.
If you feel that your money is better spent donating to a cancer research center, then please do. But your jealousy is seriously mis-placed and you are seriously confused with regards to my motives. I'm not any more worthy of this than the next guy. That's the simple truth. And asking for help of any kind is the last thing I want to do. But I also can't just die and leave my family to suffer and fight for themselves. My human nature tells me that I should do everything I can to take care of them and to take care of those around me. I can't count the number of times I've done something for a complete stranger, like paying for their meal, just because I felt that I had been blessed that day and there was a need to pass it on.
Even as I sit here and look at what happened with this today I am torn between actually using the donations to pay off our housing and transportation debts along with my final resting place or just giving the money to someone else who needs it more than I do. It is not easy being in the position where I know what my family needs and knowing that there are others who deserve so much more.
I'm sorry that no one was there when your girlfriend died. That is truly sad and shouldn't happen to anyone. I can only hope that you find it in your heart to give something to someone and realize that when you need it most someone will be there for you.
I reeeally hope so but I wouldn't count on random people giving me money at all. Hope you are not saying that to make me feel guilty about not giving $$$ to you.
"Even as I sit here and look at what happened with this today I am torn between actually using the donations to pay off our housing and transportation debts along with my final resting place or just giving the money to someone else who needs it more than I do."
Yes, you should be.
If you are really in a dire situation maybe you should look into getting money from the government by participating in research and stuff like that. That's what I would do if I were in your situation.
Hope your last time on this planet is good. This is a process everyone will have to experience eventually I'm afraid. No matter if you are young or old. Crazy thing is that everything will just keep moving on, your kids will grow up, maybe have kids of their own and eventually, in a long time, themselves face the same situation. It's an endless cycle these lives. Even if we can't recognize that because we're stuck in the middle of it trying to make money for our future or something else we aren't sure about.
This is a really good book by the way. Helped me get through the hard times. Although im not sure the english translation is that good.
I'm sorry, I didn't do any other research other than the info on the project website.
I recently got into BOINC again because of my frustration with so many people having their computers churning away just to generate a few $ worth of cryptocoins each day.
I was looking for some interesting projects to grind, and found WCG.
I find it really sucky that it hardly gets any traction anymore. Our combined computing powers are vastly growing every day, yet these efforts are not reaching mainstream.
Bigger companies who'd love to show they are involved with the world, would rather post donations.
Maybe donations are more effective, who knows.
I have a feeling we are missing out. I've been thinking of ways to have the system get more traction, or something that would stimulate development/improvements of a distributed computing grid for world problems, but can't figure it out.
If anything I would love to contribute my time and efforts to promote such a thing. I think being able to prolong the live expectancy of many patients, cheaper cures, or right-out curing some types of cancer is a very viable platform that could get some traction down these lines, and a very important one at that.
I can see why the idea of looking for ET or analyzing gamma ray bursts to map neutron stars is a bit distant for people.
I think this proves once again that scientists suck at marketing. Maybe we can help out, start a combined collaboration project to improve the efficiency of distributed workloads in this specific field to start with.
As I'm writing this, more and more I want to do this. But I'm just a webdev with the powers of Google at my disposal.
If someone is too lazy to click and read - Anita healed herself completely from stage 4 cancer by dropping all fears out of her system. Then her body completely healed itself in a few weeks.
Worth spending some research dollars teaching people how to clean their inner emotional states and eliminate debilitating fears that causes sicknesses and so many deaths.
Without sounding unfeeling, do we really want to add to the overcrowding and population explosion problem that much?
Earth is full. Our population has doubled in the short time I've been alive. Doesn't that scare the shit out of anyone else?
Imagine what would happen if you suddenly cured all forms of cancer. People would live even longer. Population would shoot up. Lack of housing, lack of jobs. More pensioners...
edit: Downvote brigade... why am I wrong? What's going to save us from our own 'success'? How many more billion people can the planet take?
1) Despite your disclaimer you are sounding unfeeling.
2) It seems convenient for a (presumably) relatively healthy and youthful person to be advocating large sacrifices that will hit others first.
3) Many of us don't share your pessimistic view of human progress. If we can figure out how to thwart death from disease, we can probably figure out how to deal with overpopulation.
4) And of course the obvious, and entirely heartless rejoinder: if you're so keen on death to reduce overpopulation, isn't it a bit selfish of you to keep on living?
5) He hasn't offered a sensible and complete policy - what counts as saving lives? Cancer treatment? What about transplant surgery? What about amputations? What about medicines that prevent many conditions from becoming serious? Or lets make things really fun - what about mental illness? How about a person who's solving overpopulation in some way who suddenly contracts cancer? Where does one draw the line and who gets to draw it?
This is a slippery slope and the only solution is not to go down it.
There is no solution I can see, and that's worrying. While we're all running around curing diseases, solving global warming etc, the thing that will kill off our species is our own "success".
6. You're expressing yesterday's fear. Population growth in the first world is stable, low, or even negative. We currently have no reason to believe that the third world's population growth won't do the same. Current projections for peak world population are "a little bit larger than now" instead of "trillions and trillions", and the problems of providing for them indefinitely "surmountable".
* Population growth in the first world is stable, low, or even negative.
A quick google search shows that whilst population was pretty stable in UK in the 80s, since then it's been steadily rising. Growth is now 0.75% a year.
The US has a similar story, fertility rate below 2.0 plus migration from the third world results in net population growth, even though the population of the US is no longer "exploding".
Don't know if you noticed, but in western countries the population is aging, due to a decrease in birth rate/fertility, a decrease in mortality rate and a higher life expectancy, all leading to a sharp decline in population growth. Europe has a Wikipedia page about it, check it out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Europe
Population growth is not really exponential, it's rather an S-curve. As soon as the quality of life reaches a certain threshold, that growth stagnates. And btw, we have long surpassed the need to be healthy in order to reproduce. Assuming somebody that dies at 35 for various reasons, by then that person could have given birth to 10 children already, something which happens quite often in the impoverished populations of third-world countries.
At this point, what we really need to do in order to survive as a species is in fact to eliminate premature death, to raise the quality of life for everybody and to find ways to drop the cost of energy and food to zero - a long shot, but in such a future money wouldn't be needed anymore to simply live, the economy wouldn't depend anymore on birth rate and maybe we would stop feeling the need to destroy our environment for profit. And maybe we won't feel the need to give birth to children in order to survive.
Besides, unless you're a selfish jerk (and selfish jerks don't contribute much to our species btw), you should agree with me that nothing is more valuable than human life.
Earth is not full, it is just badly managed. And overcrowding is only happening for poor people in parts of the world historically exploited by people who are now rich.
Even if we accepted that Earth is full, surely we don't just let all the poorest people die? And extending that reasoning, why treat any diseases at all?
The fact is that we could feed everyone and cure some of the biggest killers in the world today. These are not insoluble problems, they just aren't priorities for the richest nations because they're happening elsewhere.
It's still awful and hugely expensive and unpredictable. If you don't want anyone over 60, let's get people living healthy 'til 60 and then go all Logan's Run - it's horrifying, but only more horrifying than the current situation because we're a little bit used to the current situation. And maybe we'll find that we don't need to.
In Malthus's model, new people only consume food and breed. But we do this other cool thing, too, we also think about human problems and how to solve them. We all add resources to the computer of humanity.
Some really cool, like Norman Borlaug, go around the world and teach people how to grow more reliable crops, stopping famines, increasing the reliability and scale of the food supply while lowering the resources it takes to produce the food. It's sometimes said he's saved a billion lives. He did so without increasing the strain on others, but by spreading knowledge and increasing efficiency, maybe even lowering the strain on the planet.
Humanity's ability to solve problems isn't in a flat linear relationship with how many people we have either. If we just have 100 people, they all have to farm all the time, and can't stop and think about much. With a billion people, we get economies of scale, so we just need 40% to be farmers, and we can have, say, 20% work on logistics, 10% work on massive aqueducts and public infrastructure, and 10% be scientists and inventors.
At a certain point, every additional person makes it easier for more people to survive on the planet. And yes, there is some raw physical limit to population on this rock... but visit the Russian Taiga, Wyoming, Namibia, or Mongolia. We're nowhere near that point yet, it's several orders of magnitude away. And if you note Rosling's points, we probably won't keep growing anyway.
He notes that population growth is really a switch towards health systems with lower infant mortality. You have previous generations that keep having 10 kids because only one or two of them will survive, then the health conditions improve and suddenly all of them survive. The next generation or so reverts to normal family planning, having just one or two kids. Malthus was wrong to suggest that people just breed as much as humanly possible.
All that said, I don't think you should be downvoted for asking a question. If we buried every premise we disagreed with, we'd never get a chance to lay out the reasons we believe the opposite, we'd never convince anyone. We'd just be insisting on dogmatic agreement, rather than any actual understanding of the complex issues.
Norman Borlaug is the father of the Green Revolution. Green revolution agriculture techniques require a massive amount of oil and gas as inputs. Eventually we're going to run out of those. When oil prices start to spike, people will starve. Also it has decreased diversity to only a few high yielding varies of crops making our food supply more susceptible to pathogens because of lack of biodiversity.
As well as a whole host of other problems, such as people switching to profitable crops to export rather than to feed the local population.
I'm familiar with the criticism, but remain unconvinced that:
1. oil and gas are strictly "required" as an energy source
2. energy consumption of these methods is higher per yield than traditional farming
3. oil/gas will run out in any meaningful time frame
4. peak oil/gas will be sudden or catastrophic
5. adaptation to new conditions is impossible
6. exporting profitable crops is a net social loss for a local population (or even the stronger corollary, that locovorism is ever beneficial)
Some of those are contentious areas, matters of continuing study. Some are probably hyperbole, and we'd likely agree on more moderate formulations. Some I'm pretty firmly convinced are incorrect. Even if they were all just mildly suspect, though, it's a lot of shaky steps for me to take all at once. So I remain cautiously optimistic, skeptical that food insecurity due to Borlaug's methods and oil shocks will have any meaningful impact for the next fiftyish years. I guess there's some chance, just seems exceedingly unlikely to me.
That said, I think you laid out your criticism of his methods in a clear and concise way, and while I disagree with some of the premises, they're not radically unreasonable or anything, I can see how one would stand by that conclusion. Have an upvote for a well formulated dissenting view, something we should all encourage whenever possible.
We've been saved by falling reproduction rates. First world countries have around 2 children per couple. If growth stayed exponential, then no amount of increasing crop yields would help. Exponential growth is a terrifying thing. After a few generations there would be more humans than could fit on the surface of the Earth.
I'm not part of your downvote brigade, but I don't think letting people die of cancer is the solution. Aside from the very salient fact that there's usually suffering involved, I believe we have a responsibility to one another to advocate opportunities for full, rich lives.
Your comment is also unfeeling (as you suspected), especially in the context of this thread. I think that if you or a loved one were dying of cancer, it's unlikely that your overwhelming emotion would be gratitude that you/he/she are doing your/his/her part to help with the overpopulation problem. That may, in fact, be one point that's earning you the downvotes.
Would a subsequent increase in the population present challenges? Perhaps. But, there are other, more humane ways to deal with the problem than just letting people die of cancer. I mean, where does the logic end? Should we let known carcinogens stay in the food supply? Encourage people to smoke again?
And, the issues you cited (housing, jobs, pensions) are all fixable immediately. That is, we are not suffering from a lack of wealth or resources in these regards, but rather the distribution thereof. So, you happened to pick some really bad examples that nod to implications of economic injustice. That may be another point that is earning you downvotes.
What that doesn't show very well is that the growth rate is dropping fast. It doesn't show this because the year over year growth rate is already small: 1.1% per year between 2000-2005 according to the UN. As such it's a horribly misleading graph.
UN projects the population to peak in 2075, at a bit over 9 billion, with yearly growth rates having dropped to 0.33% in 2050 based on current trends. Post 2075 they project a population drop as many more countries will have dropped below "maintenance" birth rates, like large parts of Europe.
Hypotheses and projections are constantly refined. But in comparison to estimates on things like coal or climate, the population growth models are almost trivially simple, and while the numbers are adjusted up and down regularly to account for actual data, all data we have show the population growth consistently slowing down.
For starters, one of the things that make the population models straightforward compared to a lot of other things we might try to model, is that we can compare countries, and as it happens there are patterns that have consistently applied to countries as they develop, and that we have detailed data on: As life expectancy increases, growth rates drop to near or below maintenance rates.
Unless the remaining countries with rapid growth are somehow drastically different, it would take massive, earth-shattering changes for the population growth not to stop. It's not realistically a question of if it stops, but when and how high the peak will be, and how much the population will fall back afterwards before growth resumes (the expectation is that it will fall back because we get a "bulge" similar to what we're seeing these days due to the baby-boomer generation, and eventually the people in that bulge will start to die off).
Even many developing countries have long ago entered into the phase where it is not birth rates that is the cause of ongoing growth, but improving life expectancy, which means that their growth will eventually stop.
And with countries like China heading rapidly towards contraction as early as 2030 (with net growth now down to around 1/3 of its peak in the mid 80's, driven by a fertility rate far below maintenance), even the remaining high growth countries would have to dramaticall raise their population growth if we are to continue seeing overall growth.
- The growth rate is slowing. The growth in absolute terms is still sufficient to make the line look near linear when you look at it over such a long time span, especially given that life expectancy is also increasing almost everywhere (see my last point below).
- The growth rate is fairly low. E.g. around 2005, the growth rate was about 1.1%, and the decline is slow (e.g. it's projected to get to around 0.33% or so around middle of the century), so seeing the change on a graph that plots billions of people against a period of decades gets tricky.
- There are large temporal distortions due to changes in life expectancy, and the size of generations. To give an extreme example: Consider if a population to begin with was static - births and deaths were perfectly matched. Now consider if this population stopped having children, yet at the same time, everyone started living 40 years longer. In this (totally impossible of course) scenario, it would take 40 years from the birthrate collapsed until the population size would start dropping. While something that extremely obviously would not happen, less extreme variations are. E.g. some areas of China has a birth rate of well below 1 child per woman, and the country as a whole is well below 2, while you need somewat more than 2 to maintain a population (to account for men + people who never procreate), but the population is still increasing because population is still young on average due to the massive population growth in the 50's and 60's coupled with rapidly increasing life expectancy.
This last point means that we're still seeing a combination of the effect of birth rates going as far back as at least 1950's and all increases in life expectancy since, that correctly reflects current growth, but gives us a very distorted idea of where the population size is headed.
I looked at your graph, and I was wondering about that too. I'm no expert, but consider this.
Population growth is usually expected to be exponential. The fact that the graph looks linear we could interpret as a positive sign.
Also, if we check out the Earth's growth rate [1], the percentages have indeed slowed down. The left part (1965 - 1970) peaking at 2.10% looks like Generation X, the children of the baby boomers. The latest datum at 2012 returns 1.15%, and is still trending slightly negative.
The growth rate charts become more interesting as you isolate specific regions and countries. Sub-Saharan is the only region which is mostly trending positive [2]. Japan has received some press in recent years because its growth rate has actually crossed the x-axis[3] .
You have awful situational awareness and empathy skills. This is not the time nor place. Unfortunately, people tried to politely inform you, but you kept at your personal rant.
Many of us in the sidelines have survived cancer, have cancer, or have close family dying of cancer. There is a time and place for personal soapboxes. This is not it. Have some compassion.
This report presents a main scenario with a peak of 9.22 billion in 2075, followed by a drop and slow resumption of growth towards 8.97 billion by 2300. It references older UN projections that indicates a range from 7.4 billion to 10.6 billion for 2050 depending on scenario.
This current report assumes 8.9 billion for 2050, and projects annual increases in population sizes down to 0.33% in 2045-2050, vs. 1.22% in 2000-2005
This comes as more and more countries sees rapid decline in birth rates equivalent to those that the developed world has already seen.
Particularly look at pages 6-8 in the report, where you can get an idea what we would expect to see if cancer was "cured": Life expectancy and fertility mirror each other closely. As we live longer, we put off having children, have fewer children, or opt not to have children at all.
Even if we were to cure all forms of cancer, people would continue to die of other causes eventually. At most a cure would lead the population size to level out at a somewhat higher level because we might have children proportionally earlier in a life span so generations would overlap more. But we have to deal with these population numbers without a cure for cancer too, to deal with the bulge around the peak population sizes expected.
While pension-age might be a problem, if people remain healthier longer there's little reason not to increase the pension age, as some countries have already started doing.
Technological progress is outpacing population growth (especially in first world countries where the population is actually stable.) We will likely get to a technological singularity before we run into serious resource problems. I hope we can keep as many living people alive until then as possible.
Where's your sympathy for the people who don't have cancer but have to go in to work every day because they don't want their family to starve? Should they not enjoy any time with their loved ones? Your viewpoint seems incoherent to me; we can't just support everyone out of common brotherly love.
The same place it's always been. I can't count the number of times that I've wished I could just stay home with my kids and enjoy being with them. But I had to choose between providing for them or being with them. There was no other option.
Given my current condition, I can't return to work. I don't know what tomorrow holds. I could wake up and need to be hospitalized yet again or I could be pain free and enjoying every moment I have with my children or I could be dead. It's no longer a choice as to what I do with my life because it is no longer mine. I am living on borrowed time and for every second I can borrow I will be spending it with my children trying to prepare them for my death to make that process easier. No child should have to lose their parent at such a young age and no spouse should find themselves a widow with young children either. Anyone who thinks this is just another sob story should try living it for just the first week and tell me how it feels. Trust me, your tune will quickly change, mine did.
I'm not saying there's a fix for it... Or that it's even a broken system. I just, out of the kindness of my heart, wish a guy down on his luck could at least have some worry lifted off of him when his life is literally ending. Do I feel for everyone else struggling in the world? In some cases, yes, in others, no. Circumstance dictates my feelings. Tell me another sob story and I'll likely feel for that person as well.
We spend most of our lives, terminal or not, "worrying about" money. That's the beauty (or perhaps tragedy to some people) of a capitalist society. We are driven by our metric for value.
Has absolutely nothing to do with Capitalism. It's core to existence for any living thing. The need to create value, be productive, acquire food, trade for something, and so on, to sustain one's self. No matter what you are, if you're living, you have to do this, or someone else has to do it for you.
If you live in a society where the government, or church, or ... whatever entity, provides everything for you, that still requires someone else to do work for your benefit so you can exist.
> It's sad that when we find out something this devastating (you're dying), that we have to spend our last weeks/months/years worrying about, of all things, money.
I thought nearly the same. But my thought went more along the lines of "it's sad that this person's highest priorities are all about money".
If it's not in the face of death that you set your priorities on your own accord, then when is it?
That said, I can totally understand not leaving the family behind in debt.
On the face of it, yes: it is quite sad that money is priority. But I think it's less that money is a priority, but more that his family's safety and security is a priority. By leaving his wife with this epic mortgage to deal with on her own he'd make her life after he's gone very difficult, so he wants to make it as easy for her as possible.
Reading this makes me glad we both have life insurance that pays off half the mortgage in case of our untimely death. That way, whoever is left behind will only have to deal with half the financial burden.
and in some sense, it is. When you do something as big as buying a house and taking on a huge mortgage, a premature death simply is something you have to think about. You can chose to insure your family against that (live insurance), or you can chose to take the risk. Or you can not think about it, and let life chose for you.
Even now, selling the house and/or car (and worrying less about money) is an option. It's not a popular option, but my point is that there are options, and that means that there is also choice in the order of priorities.
> or he wants money to hoard it or spend it.
That's totally not how I see it, and I'm sorry if it came across that way.
He has four kids. He should have life insurance, and he should have gotten it when he first had kids and presumably was fairly young so that the rates would be inexpensive.
Even if it wasn't for the mortgage or the van, you would want your partner to have sufficient resources to make rent.
A level term policy can often be had for as little as $30/month and it would have been more than adequate to cover the $250,000 in debt and final expenses. The service (assuming 4% and 30/5 years for the house/car) on this debt is probably about $1500, which means he should probably be able to afford an extra $30.
I don't think any country works that way. Either you take the inheritance and that's the whole package with debts, or you get nothing.
Also, that's different for married couples. Of course that depends on countries and whether you have a prenup or not, but married couple usually share their assets and their depts. Which means that if one of the spouse take a debts, the other is responsible for it too.
Either way it's very likely his mortgage was a joint debt. In France you're forced to take a life insurance for a mortgage, so it's unlikely someone will get in his situation. Even when it's not mandatory everyone should take one, because even if dying young sucks, it can happen.
In Netherland, you can choose to refuse an inheritance. If you accept it, you get everything, including the debts; if you refuse it, you get nothing, not even small trinkets with sentimental value.
Though in the case of a mortgage, losing the debt also means losing the house. I totally understand wanting your family to be able to keep the house. Losing your dad/husband and also having to leave the house with all the memories of him, would suck double.
> you can choose to refuse an inheritance...accept [...] and get everything, including the debts...refuse [...] and get nothing, not even small trinkets
why couldn't you (as the inheritee?) "throw away" all assets prior to dying, then let your benifactors refuse the debts (which is all that's left)? Who actually enforces that you can't dispose of your assets (in a way that benefits your son/daughter/spouse), then refuse the debt?
Government enforces it. I don't know how exactly it is in the USA, but in my country there is "land registry", which is maintained and updated by legal courts. Within the registry, every land/house/flat ownership is noted and this registry is also the final instance whenever there are legal battles regarding ownership.
Whenever you take a loan for your house, a bank will want to add a note to the registry that it has first claim to your property in case of not paying, premature death, and so on. So one cannot just give his house to his relatives, as the court will block the transfer when it will see in the registry that the bank has primary claim to it. To do something like that, one must make a deal with the bank that new owner will either pay up the loan or take it on his name.
I believe there's a limit to how much you can give away to your heirs while still alive. Probably if you give more, you have to pay extra tax. And I can imagine that if you gave away a lot just before your death and ended up with a lot of debt, debt collectors may still be able to get the gifts back, but I'm not entirely sure about that; I'm no expert on this.
It seems like in the USA, gifts to a spouse are exempted from the gift tax[1]. I don't know about USA, but here (Finland) any unusually large gifts given just prior to death are considered a part of inheritance.
Not sure what the US reality on that is. In Portugal, you can and do inherit debt, though the monetary value of the inherited debt can never exceed that of the inherited assets.
In the US, debt is generally tied to an entity called your estate (your financial entity post death, basically). Debt - for example let's say you have a big credit card debt - will be paid by the assets of your estate. Different types of debt often have different priorities (when it comes time for the executor or court to decide what gets paid first or last). As your estate is settled, the debts usually get taken care of from the assets (basically a simple subtraction matter). If there aren't enough assets in the estate to pay the debts, then the creditor is almost always out of luck.
There are very simple guidelines that can help prevent melanoma, especially for people at risk:
- Avoid exposing your skin to the sun, especially when it's high. Use high SPF (30+) sun screen (water resistant if you'll be swimming); wear longsleeves, hats and sunglasses. (Good sunglasses are important, as you can have ocular melanoma)
- Obviously, don't use tanning booths.
- Plan a visit with a dermatologist at least once per year. This is very important. Just like you'd get your tooth, eyes, etc... checked every year, take the habit to see a dermatologist.
- If you're especially at risk, regulary check your skin for signs of changes. Nowadays it's easy to take pictures with a digital camera (or phone) so that you can see how the spots and moles evolve.
How do you know if you're in the population at risk? If you have moles, OR are fair-skinned / haired, OR have freckles (all of these are usuall signs of an overall general sensitivity to sun exposure), you are at risk. Obviously, if there are family antecedants of skin cancer, you are at risk. Also, if your work or hobbies expose your skin regularly and for prolonged periods of time to the Sun, you are at risk.
Personal story: I have a friend who has had a mole removed in the knee, and which proved to be ultimately (after testing) malignant. Fortunately this was caught early. And I've had personnally a mole removed in the back, though it was found to be benign.
Skin cancer risk can be greatly reduced by these simple precautions, so please people, try to follow these.
I feel nothing but sympathy for Jonathan. I can barely imagine the pain he and his family would be going through :( What are the medical costs for someone with terminal cancer in the USA? I assume they're pretty astronomical, so I can understand why he'd ask for help (I'm donating myself).
In terms of his house and the like, I was always led to believe that life insurance was specifically for cases like his? Is life insurance a big thing in America? My parents have always had a lot of cover, but I'm pretty sure that was because of my Dad being a civil engineer and foreman, so his work was sort of dangerous. I don't know much about how life insurance works, mind you, so I'm sort of guessing here, for all I know Jonathan doesn't have any or if he did he's not covered for something like this (and to be would require premiums that are huge, or something). Anyone shed some light for me?
Good luck Jonathan. I'm not a religious person, but I can hope for the best to occur, however unlikely.
Thank you girvo. With regards to costs, thus far it is at $285,000 of which I am responsible for $3,000. That doesn't include the cost of the premiums which run us $400 / month and will soon increase as I'll be paying cobra rates instead of the employee rate. The chemo is $11,000 / month and I've been averaging a hospital stay every two weeks as my body breaks down and those average about $20,000 / week if I don't require any kind of specialized treatment. Radiation treatment was $102,000 by itself and insurance would only cover it if the doctor said I had a life expectancy of more than 6 months. There will come a time when I can't get the treatment I need because it's too expensive and not covered by insurance. I'm honestly afraid that time will be sooner rather than later as the average life expectancy for someone with my diagnosis is 9 months.
> In terms of his house and the like, I was always led to believe that life insurance was specifically for cases like his? Is life insurance a big thing in America?
I found the "Pay off our mortgage" part a bit strange. Living in Poland I don't know anyone who managed to get a mortgage without mandatory life insurance which makes the bank the first beneficiary. You die, they get the money, mortgage is paid off, family keeps the house. Pople like to bitch that it's a scam, hidden cost, extra money for the bank etc, but it's designed for situations like this (it protects the bank as well as the customer).
What are the medical costs for someone with terminal cancer in the USA?
From the limited sample size I've gathered with sadness thus far: For serious cancer, terminal or not, the system seems designed for the cost to be "everything you have" whatever that happens to be.
Among a few things, that's why I'm happy to live in France where with a medium wage (35,000$ / year) I'm sure that my wife will get the house ( the loan insurance will pay that) and the hospitalization would be nearly free...
Be in a welfare state is somewhat a good thing even if you pay more taxes.
That is the most fucked up thing I've read for a long time. For a "health" system to be designed to suck everything out of a person of someone who's already dying is vile.
that's what it means to have a "free market" capitalist system. The demand for health is essentially infinite - the person dying of thirst in a desert will pay their entire fortune for just one cup of water.
America hasn't had anything even remotely resembling a free market Capitalist health system in over 40 years. Starting in the mid 1960s, the US Government + states, with Medicare and Medicaid, began to take over a massive portion of the healthcare system, and directly began dictating regulation and costs, while conspiring with insurance companies, big pharma and lobbyists to restrict competition and raise costs. The US healthcare system became a giant political toy, played for votes and milked for crony cash by politicians, lobbyists and corporations in tandem.
Although I'm open to a demonstration as to how I'm wrong about that. Last time I checked, health insurance typically can't even cross state borders due to hyper regulation. I don't think you can get further away from Capitalism than the US health system.
For serious cancer, terminal or not, the system seems designed for the cost to be "everything you have" whatever that happens to be.
For some people this may be true. My mother died of breast cancer at 59 and it really didn't cost her anything thanks to the fact she had health insurance through my father's work. My parents were probably lower-middle-class but the fact that my dad worked the same job for 39 years and had steady health insurance throughout kept them from this fate.
I think the 100% unlimited coverage health insurance plans have slowly disappeared. The OP says he has 80% coverage, which costs him personally $10K per month so far this year.
Life insurance is something that you have to purchase for sums of that magnitude, and a lot of people are too busy buying other things to worry about spending the 10-20 bucks a month that it costs.
Usually an employer will give you an additional survivor's benefit, usually between 10K to up to a year's worth of salary.
Yeah I know you have to prchase it specifically, it's just that my family and family friends all have life insurance to specifically cover their mortgage. I was trying to work out whether that's just a quirk of my family/friend circle :)
Everyone keeps saying this. Where can you spend 10-20 bucks a month and get 100-200k coverage? I pay way more than that for like 50k coverage and I got the plane when I was 23.
When I got my car insurance with state farm I just put on the life insurance because I had nothing at the time. They said it would be cheap to add it now because I'm so young. I got this plan when I was 24 and it's $36 a month for 50k. WTF. I just checked out my employer and I can get 300k on my wife and myself for about $12 a month. The only thing I'm not sure of is if I can keep that plan after if I leave my job.
20 year term life should be <$20 for a "normal" young person. Try Zander (broker) or Amica (insurance company that I recommend). Make sure you get term life.
It seems pretty common for employers to offer life cover in the UK (my wife has critical illness cover as well) - I have 4x annual salary from my employer, my wife has 3x from hers.
We also both have additional personal life cover for at least 6x annual salary.
This doesn't seem excessive cover to me - maybe because we are in our 40s with kids (and knowing people who have died and having close relatives who are terminally ill) makes you worry about these things more - I certainly didn't in my 20s.
A lot of US employers do same. But it is not a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket.
Any case similar to OP will become problematic. When you get terminally ill you will eventually lose your job. Thanks to COBRA you can keep health insurance, but not the life, disability and long-term care insurance plans. And getting new term life policy at this stage is not really an option.
I was wonder about this. Does employer life insurance do anything to terminal illness? I pay extra to supplement my term life. But if I get too sick to work and lost my job, what good is the employer life insurance?
Same: UK too and employer provides life insurance.
But when I bought a house, I was advised to get insurance cover specifically for the amount of debt remaining on the house; the policy lasts the length of the mortgage and pays out whatever is debt is outstanding.
Yeah - there are a lot of different kinds of life insurance available - paying lump sums or income, increasing/decreasing at specified rates, linked to mortgages etc, individual or joint cover etc.
Because the odds of a healthy 30 year old dying in the next 20 years are slim, they can collect $30/mo from lots of guys like me and pay out to the very few who die in that term.
And, yes, they likely make money on that money while it's not being paid out.
Here is an actuarial table that lays out the likelihood of dying and how long you're expected to live at every age.
So, say they collect $7200 from each healthy 30 year old male (when they signed up) over the 20 year term. They just need 70 people to sign up in order to pay out one $500K benefit. Many fewer than 1 in 70 people who sign up will die during the term.
I guess I was assuming it went from 30-Death instead of 30-50. Do the rates start to rise once you reach 50? Or do you have to buy a new plan, because you only buy them in 20 year increments?
I have sympathy for this guy as a human being with cancer, especially with a family and all. But I have no sympathy for this guy as a person and for the financial choices he has made.
Having 4 kids, big house and car, expensive grave, need to travel, meet celebrities screams greed, irresponsibility and entitlement.
You could have not had 4 kids and had 2. You could have rented a place and bought a used car. The problem isn't wanting something better, the problem is that you decided to buy those things without earning it and with money you did not have. All these are choices you made as a person. And to take your family down with you is selfish and irresponsible.
Look I get why people are complaining about the expensive funeral and travel expenses, but don't question his character for having 4 kids. Even more so, if you don't want to donate -- don't, no reason to go all nerd mode about it.
Why is that an illegitimate criticism? Kids cost several tens of thousands of dollars in their first decade. A family which can't afford a $190k house and an old Buick should probably consider well whether they can afford 6 kids. Spoiler: no, they can't. Isn't it better to raise 2 kids in lower-middle class than 6 in utter poverty?
The problem isn't wanting something better, the problem is that you decided to buy those things without earning it and with money you did not have.
What? Most people don't pay cash for a house or save up the full 18-year cost before having a kid. He made these choices before he was diagnosed and they weren't unreasonable given their salaries at the time.
Sorry if i seem to be rude, but even if you're dying, you're still a human being and i will respect you. So, i won't be full of mercy and so on, i'm just going to be genuine. Your story is sad, as the story for million of people dying from this shit.
But, if i help you, maybe i'd be ok with my conscience but this won't change anything for the 999 999 people remaining.
If i choose to give money to fight against cancer, it would be for research and not for a particular case (even if it's sad).
That being said, i truly understand that emotion and love drive me to give you some money, but i have to stay efficient and fair.
I live in Orlando, 30 minutes from all the parks. Please reach out to me if and when you and your family make this trip. I will help in any way I can. I know, from my personal network, that I can help in getting free tickets and an employee rate at one of the park hotels. I'd be more than happy to provide transportation for you and your family to and from the airport as well.
If you make it this way, please contact me, I'd love to help!
Depressing that someone facing death would worry about Disney World and Casa Bonita. I spent a vacation at Disney World when I was 9 years old and recognized it as a plastic mold-injected bore--not in those words at the time, but good god I knew it was a tiresome waste of life, even at that age. Casa Bonita is a South Park episode. Enough said about that.
But hey, you're the one who didn't buy life insurance like a responsible parent, so a non-sad sob story is your only chance of paying off your SUV. Great. Why do I care about your SUV? Also, why do I care whether you get a pricey funeral rather than a county funeral? Also, why are you more important than all of us who are born to die?
Depressing that you wouldn't even bother to take the time to actually read and see what is going on here. If the only thing you can focus on Disney World and Casa Bonita then it is obvious where your priorities towards humanity lie. And the fact that you bring up South Park in relation to Casa Bonita tells me even more about your lack of passion when it comes to your fellow man. I can only hope that you'll find someone who changes your perspective and you find your heart before it withers and dies.
With regards to funeral costs, have you even looked at what these cost now? It's obvious to me that you haven't or you wouldn't have bothered to mention a county funeral.
With regards to importance, I'm no one. I'm not worthy of the attention this has gotten, but I am human. And that's the point. This is about being human and caring about fellow humans, period. There are people who deserve this far more than I but that doesn't change the fact that someone felt this was worthy of attention and to that person, I say thank you.
Thank you for seeing that this isn't about me, it's not about a pricey funeral, it's not about trips. It's about providing for my family as best as I can given the circumstances. It's about giving them peace of mind when they have lost something important.
May you find your heart before experiencing the loss of a loved one. May you realize that this has nothing to do with frivolous capitalism and everything to do with being human and doing everything you can to provide your family even after you're gone.
Dude is dying - who exactly are you to criticize the way he wants to spend his days with his family?
Beyond that, my mom took me to Disneyland when I was about 9 - while I could tell it was a constructed environment, it's a very very pretty one, and I make life experiences I still think about now, some 22 years later.
I'm 31, and while I don't have kids, I dont have life insurance either, beyond a small 10k policy - no one expects to die younger than 40, and really, if you'd read, you'd see he recently changed jobs, hence the lack of insurance - beyond that, if you hadn't noticed its been a hard couple of years recently when it comes to the job market and economy, many parts of the country have only started to recover in the last 18 months.
Very meta of you. Who are you to judge what someone likes? If you don't want to donate, fine, but do you also have to spit on the beggar as you walk past? Your post is vile.
Hi johnathan. My father just passed away from stage IV melanoma. He was 52. Luckily he left us financially sound. But if there is anything I can do to help you out please don't hesitate to ask. I've done my research on any treatment you could possibly have to beat this cancer. Melanoma is becoming more beatable every day and people are living for years even when they are stage IV. If you have questions please email at jreed91@gmail.com
Yet another example why I try not to make any debts, especially when it comes to such large numbers, because you never know what tomorrow holds. Either you have the money or you don't. It really saddens me that it's normal nowadays to live on debts. I rather live my life less luxurious but debts free.
Obviously to be fair, generally people don't expect to get a potentially terminal cancer at 35 either. At worst one might think they have 20 or 30 years to deal with a mortgage taken on at 35.
I can't find a fault with taking on a mortgage at 35 when you have a family. Particularly if you can afford the payments. I'd argue given the historically low cost of mortgage debt today, the cost of renting + trying to save to one day buy a house for your family, is a worse choice.
but if you're smart about what kind of debt you take on, and take measures to not burden your loved ones with your debt, it can be a wise thing to have some debt. Not debt for a vacation or luxury, but debt for investment or growth of money. If the only reason to not have debt is because you fear the risk of dying and burdening your family/loved ones, then you are not making the most of the opportunities available.
This hits a nerve - a neighbour (in the UK) is dying of a brain tumour and the NHS does not have the facilities for effective treatment. There's a fundraising campaign to send Gavin to the USA for specialist treatment which may save his life, and he's just been told he may not be around this time next year without it.
Two years ago, when I was 28, a 20cm large tumor was found between my lungs, after increasing problems with breathing. I was lucky enough to have "the right cancer", and to live in a western nation. As far as scans can tell, it is gone. I wish this guy the very very best.
> Prepare for / pay for my final arrangments : $20,000
I'm not here to bash, but with so much money problem why do people want to spend so much money on their death? If I die I just want people to get rid of my body in the cheapest way possible. Just burn me or give me to science.
It's considered to be a one last sign of generosity to nature when you no longer need your body. Also, it was probably started because the land is too hard and tough to dig up in the mountains of Tibet (a.k.a. cost effective and practical).
Also, your family and friends might want to see you before science does whatever with you, and that will cost more than any of us would like to think it will. Funerals aren't cheap, and I was told when buying life insurance to expect all funeral expenses (viewings, whatever is done with the body) to easily be $20k.
True. However, if the authorities find out you didn't involve them in dealing with a dead body, they may start with the assumption you didn't want them involved for worse reasons than just saving money.
For what it's worth, Jonathan said this on 01/19/2014 (his earliest blog post that was tagged "cancer"):
I have told my children that if I should lose this fight that there will not be a funeral, there will be a party, a celebration with music and cake and ice cream and friends and family and dancing and laughing and singing.
Skip the resting place costs. Get a dirt cheap cremation. Do the funeral at home. It really doesn't matter. My mother passed not too long ago and I inherited half a dozen dead relative's ashes to go throw away. Your family will be much better off with the $20k than with memories of a church and possibly a tombstone to go visit maybe once or twice in their lives.
The #1 reason I limited myself to 2 kids was so that I did not have to drive a mini-van. The #2 reason was my concern I could not adequately provide for them.
This is a little strange to me. Unless he was a freelancer, every tech job that I'm aware of has decent life insurance options that would easily cover this. If you add a few more dollars it covers college as well.
I definitely can't stress the importance of getting life insurance from a reputable company.
About a third blame the guy, as if buying a house at the age of 32 is crazy.
About a third just use his tragedy as a soapbox to knee-jerk blame the American health care system, as if people dying of cancer in other countries don't face a loss of income.
The remaining third give me some hope for humanity.
Good grief...the comments on Hacker News never cease to amaze...
...just to give a representative example, last September my Dad died. 1) We had his remains cremated. 2) We got said remains without anything fancier than the cardboard box they came in. 3) We scattered his ashes ourselves as a family without any visitation, funeral ceremony, or anything.
No gravestone, no casket, no wake, no ceremony, no officiant.
Total cost: $6,000.
$20,000 is absolutely realistic if he wants to be buried with an average casket, average headstone and average ceremony.
Thank you for this. I am giving in to my urge to link it to some of the comments decrying the funereal cost given. I was told to set aside $20k fifteen years ago -- I'd expect now it would be much more.
Well, from our perspective that's all that was done -- his body was cremated and given to us in ash-form. But I'm sure from the funeral home's perspective they did whatever preparations they had to do, processing, helped us put his obituary together and submitted it to publications, administration costs, etc.
If you take the funeral industry's advice and guidance, you can indeed spend 10-20K on a funeral. We spent 10K on my grandma's and she already per purchased her plot of land. Her casket alone cost something like 5 grand.
Of course the funeral industry exists to make money. To convince you you need the expensive casket, the flower arrangements, and even the plot of land and headstone.
Reminds me of the wedding industry as well, which invented new "traditions" that one needs and also needs to spend money on.
Like anything, you don't need to spend 10 or 20 grand on a funeral, just most people want to for some reason. Perhaps a display of status? Social obligation? I don't know.
Personally, it is important for me when I go to be cremated as fast as possible. No embalming or viewing of the body (needless and creepy). If my family chooses to honor me by throwing a party, that would be nice, but that should only be a few hundred dollars. I don't want my body to be there though.
Even though I feel for your situation... Seriously this has nothing to do with hacker news. This is more of a reddit post that has snuck in here somehow.
My dad died from cancer at 36. I was 10 and had a 7-year-old brother and 11-year-old sister. I guess I can relate in some way, being on the opposite end of it. I'm sure I don't need to tell you to spend as much time as possible with your kids, because they will treasure every memory as they grow up. My heart goes out to you and I wish you and your family the best possible.
Tragic as this story is, I would like to raise a point that could make life easier in event of untimely death i.e. term insurance. Term insurance is something that one should always get after getting married (or even before if your family is dependent on you). Multiple term insurances can be bought so you can keep buying more as your liabilities increase.
This really sucks! Does he not have any life insurance? I remember when I was working full time, I had a life insurance policy worth 5x my salary, which should cover the costs for the things he wants to pay off. After becoming a contractor, this was one of the first things I secured. I didn't want my family to be left with nothing when I died.
These title changes are getting ridiculous. The original title was actually descriptive. I have no idea what this article is about without going to the comments or clicking on it. The whole point of a link title is to describe the link.
I hope for the best for you. One suggestion to use as you see fit, the overhead on the donate is quite high - maybe you can create and list a bitcoin address you control on your blog.
Looks like the website might be on the verge of getting hn ddos'd. Can someone inform him/possibly hook him up with mirror/hosting? I think opening up bitcoin wallet will be helpful too.
My father died at 38, from a cancer, and I just had some severely atypical skin removed. This story hits very close to home for me. My deepest sympathies go to everyone involved.
I wish I had enough money to help you out. All I can offer is, a sincere prayer for you and your family. May God help you and your family and ease your the trouble.
Instead of donating to this guy I'd prefer to advocate for a free health system and a system that doesn't fuck up a family that has had enough bad luck to see its father die.
Having someone in his last months of life begging for money to not leave his family screwed up seems like a waste of those precious last weeks.
> Instead of donating to this guy I'd prefer to advocate for a free health system and a system that doesn't fuck up a family that has had enough bad luck to see its father die.
It doesn't appear that health care costs are a major issue in this scenario. Even with universal healthcare, a dead breadwinner is going to significantly impact a family's financial situation.
Jonathan good luck man I have stage 4 Melanoma with tumors throughout as well, been on b RAF for a few months and getting in to til ( I hope) end of month. If you ever need someone to talk life or death with please reach out. Jordan jordangurnzz@gmail.com chemoblog.WordPress.com
Everyone's death is impending. Life is by it's very nature limited. It baffles me as to how some very intelligent people seem to believe that we can "beat" death, that death can be cured! What a curious notion advocated by none other than the director of engineering at Google!
Someone once asked a sage, "Why do we fear death and cling to life so much?" The sage said, "We fear death because we have prepared nothing for it while we have constructed for ourselves a comfortable, familiar life. Why would you look forward to going to something for which you haven't prepared anything and why would you look forward to leaving something for which you invested all of your time and effort?"
How about a Star Trek catan tabletop webisode with OP, wilw, aw and fd. Just film as a regular episode and don't mention the C word. I'm sure someone here could reach out to @wilw...
So the house you purchased and the van you upgraded to are not yours, disposing of your body costs more than a car, visiting family means you have to stay in a hotel, the basic survival needs of your wife and four children are not guaranteed and you want to visit Disneyland and meet celebrities before you die?
Capitalism is beautiful. It's the reason someone built the home that his family lives in. It's the reason why the resources and technologies to build that home were used for that purpose instead of another. It's the reason why people loaned him money to buy that home. It's the reason people built his van instead of something else. It's the reason a stranger is willing to dispose of his body. It's the reason cremation is so affordable if they choose that option.
Capitalism is the reason there will be a hotel with a room available when he goes to visit family. It's the reason there will be gas at the gas stations along the way. It's the reason Disneyworld will still be operating when he gets there.
Most important of all, Capitalism is the reason why so many of his peers are wealthy enough to afford the basic survival needs of themselves and their own families that they are able to donate some of their surplus to help this family in need.
That said, I agree that consumerism and living beyond one's means and not saving for a rainy day and distorted markets are problems.
What Capitalism? America is the largest welfare state in history. Total government expenditures are nearly the size of China's GDP. What we have is corporatism, plunder by a combination of bureaucrats + government protected corporations (see: Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, Exxon, Pfizer, etc).
I wish we had Capitalism. All we have is an extraordinarily misdirected, poorly run welfare state.
Nordic countries only implanted welfare after they developed economy. Welfare State means the goverment can take your money and spent it in what they they think is best for you.
A poorly run welfare state is a bad word, to so speak, and that's exactly what America has.
Some of the worst functioning countries on earth are also very poorly run welfare states. Feel free to point out several poorly functioning, free market Capitalism countries though.
Socialism is what gives rise to Corporatism. The intrusion of government into the economy - rather than the proper separation of the two - through regulation and bribes, opening up a flood gate of protectionism, lobbying and special favors.
I'm well aware of the arguments on the nordic model. Most of them had to reform their poorly functioning welfare models over the last few decades (see: Sweden).
If you acknowledge that "welfare state" is not a bad word, then why not just say "a poorly run state is bad"? Adding the word welfare serves only to confuse and misdirect the reader.
That's not the amount that trickles down to those needing the social programs. Most of it is lost in the skimming off the top done at each of the many layers along the way.
Whenever I hear the word "capitalism", I interpret it as "private ownership" by default. I have to remind myself they probably mean the "Laissez Faire" flavor of capitalism. It screws with me sometimes.
The difference being, to achieve full Communism you have to kill everyone or enslave them completely such that they have no rights. Stalin, Mao, Lenin, Pol Pot, Fidel, Kim il-Sung - they all gave it their best try.
And your comparison isn't accurate at all. There are obvious and often massive differences between America's economic models of 1825, 1910, 1960, and 2014. 2014 isn't in any respect similar to the 1825 or 1910 versions. To argue that America in 2014 is highly Capitalistic, is to argue that Capitalism is compatible with a government system taking 40% of the economy through taxation, massive wealth redistribution, government interference in essentially every sector, nationalization (quasi or total) of core economic segments, welfare programs sprawling to hundreds of billions in cost, tens of thousands of regulations covering every field, and on and on - basically it's like saying that Capitalism can be anything. It can't, it's a specific type of model.
Then you haven't lived in enough places. I can look up and down my entire street and tell you that maybe 1 house could a married couple + 6 extra people, 4 of them being kids.
Not really pointless... guy is dying and worried about the financial security of his family, which I completely understand, but then outlines some financially irresponsible expenses?
How about posting on facebook "I'm dying, here's a fund we started to help support my wife and children in my absence" and leave it at that. This comes across as entitled and unrealistic.
That being said, his situation is extremely shitty and it is probably worthwhile for anyone with the means to help him out for that reason alone.
No, I think it's more we are so selfish. Which has always been the case in history. But now we are better educated and more informed so should be pushing for a more compassionate, logical and less racist society over the current owning stuff society.
It is a philosophy that might be possible for at least part of the population.
Bill Gates is doing it. He's helping the worlds real poor. We need part of the population to start to realise people in the 3rd world are as human as the people down the road even if they seem different.
And for a lot less cost than a fancy funeral one could actually save lives. A family could get to keep their father or mother or child.
For those of you who haven't seen the 'Bucket List' post, here's what it says at the very top:
As I try to deal with the reality that is my impending death I can't help but wonder how many things I might have been able to accomplish given just a little more time. When I was diagnosed, I had only one thing that I wanted; to live long enough to see my children grow up. The reality is that the odds of me living long enough to see my children grow are quite slim. The only available treatment will eventually stop working and then it's just a matter of time.
This is the list of things that I want to accomplish while I still have time. Many of them aren't for me. They are for my family. They are meant to provide security for my wife and kids so that they can celebrate my life instead of mourning my death when that time comes.
My priorities are taking care of my family just as they always have been. Sometimes, we just can't plan far enough ahead to deal with something like this. If you saw the original page you would also note that Trips and meeting celebrities is not high on my list of priorities. Those are things that would provide me with a small boost on an emotional level but I don't consider them something that must happen before I die.
Life Insurance: I changed jobs and don't have any and now that I'm terminal, the cost for obtaining it is prohibitive. I agree that this is poor planning on my part, however, I'm 35 and no one expects to find out that they are going to die at 35. We all think we have plenty of time and the reality is that we don't.
Health Insurance: Thank god that I have this or we would've been sunk from the beginning. Despite having insurance, there continue to be ongoing costs and once I go on long-term disability I'll be paying cobra rates to keep the same coverage. I have no idea how expensive this will be but I don't expect it to be cheap.
This really isn't about me or the money, this is about my family and trying to ease their pain. I know that I'm living on borrowed time right now and I could be dead at any moment. All I want to do is spend as much time as I can with my kids so that they know I loved them. You try telling a 6 year old that her daddy has cancer and will be dead before she turns 8. Hardest thing I've ever had to do and I would never wish it any one.
For those of you that have helped us, thank you is not enough.