Cryonics

[ciphergoth]

I'm considering signing up with the Cryonics Institute. Are you signed up? I'd be interested to hear your reasons why or why not. It does of course sound crazy, but when you press past that initial reaction to find out why it's crazy, I haven't heard a really satisfactory argument yet, and I'm interested to hear what people think. There are many reasons it might not work, but are there reasons to think it's really unlikely to work? How likely does recovery need to be for it to be worth it?

Comments

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

I can't work out if you're serious :-) Why might you think that? I have the impression most people die in hospital beds, and most of the rest die in their beds at home - is that mistaken?

[lovingboth]

Partly serious, he says in a long delayed reply.

I am slightly worried (in a selfish, 'Paul is a good person to be alive around' way) that you'd commit suicide 'early' in order to get a cryonic-favourable death.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Thanks :-)

I want to say simply "no fucking way dude" but honesty demands that I be more precise: I wouldn't consider it unless either

- I had the sort of terminal illness where you think about assisted suicide anyway *and* cryonics was popular enough that I could afford to do it without bringing the whole field into disrepute, OR

- Zillions of other people had already been uploaded and were clearly doing fine, but in order to opt for it I had to allow destructive scanning of my brain.

As I think Ralph Merkle first said, cryosuspension is the second-worst thing that can happen to you. If you want to see the far future, your first best bet is to stay in as good health as you possibly can for as long as you can.