Re: Cryonics One Big Scam
Keith F. Lynch
> Cryonics is a huge scam based on people's desire to live as long as
> possible.
Who is profiting? I know many of the cryonic principals, and they
could have made far more money for less effort doing something else.
Only one of them is wealthy, and he didn't make his money from
cryonics; instead, he has donated much of his money to research
projects intended to improve the odds of cryonics working. Also,
they're all signed up for cryonics themselves. They may be mistaken,
but they're not scamming anyone.
> The entire idea is a pipe-dream all based on the remote possibility
> of being able to be brought back at some indefinite point in the
> future. Of course this resurrection in the future is totally
> hypothetical with almost zero proof to back it up.
It isn't "resurrection" unless you're dead. When are you dead? Many
people who would be counted as dead by the standards of 50 years ago
are now counted as merely very sick. With proper treatment, they
can go on to live many additional years of productive healthy life.
Probably many people who would be counted as dead by the standards
of today would be counted as merely very sick by the standards of
50 years from now. That's where cryonics comes in. It's not a
treatment, it's a very slow ambulance, transporting very sick patients
to hospitals not yet built, staffed by doctors not yet born, trained
in techniques not yet dreamed of.
It's true that there's no proof that science, medicine, and technology
will continue to progress as they have for the past few centuries.
It's certainly possible that the last new discovery or invention has
already been made, and that in terms of technology the world of 2109
will be exactly like the world of 2009, just with different styles
of hair and clothing. But I don't think that it's irrationally
speculative to assume that progress will continue for at least a
few more decades, and that it will become possible to cure severe
whole-body frostbite in people who had been treated with 2009's best
cryopreservatives.
> Further if no relatives are living at the point when and if it
> becomes possible who's to say that anyone would bother bringing
> all those frozen bodies back.
The last to be cryopreserved will be cryopreserved with he best
techniques, so they will be brought back first, while their friends
and relatives are still around and still remember them well. And
they will see to it that those of their friends who were cryopreserved
before they were are brought back. And they, in turn, will see to it
that those of their friends who were cryopreserved before they were
are brought back, and so on and so forth all the way back to the first
person to be cryopreserved, 42 years ago this month.
Also, cryonics organizations are contractually obligated to revive
their patients when it becomes possible.
Also, at some point the cost of revival will drop below the cost of
continued storage. And also below what a high school class could
afford as a science project. Or a historian who wants to talk to
someone who witnessed history.
There are many possible answers. The only guarantee is that your
odds of revival after burial or cremation are far, far lower.
> Also consider the fact that who's to say our current freezing
> methods are going to facilitate such a resurrection.
Researchers are doing their best to find that out, and to develop
improved cryopreservation methods. Of course someone dying today
doesn't have the option of waiting for improved cryopreservation
methods; they have to take the best available today or do without.
It's speculative, but I think the odds are pretty good. It certainly
isn't a deliberate scam.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.
Steve Austin
If this is true (and a lot of brilliant people seem to think so), then
cryonics may be totally unnecessary.
We just need to figure out how to hack into the simulation and reactivate
the backups of the deceased.
"Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote in message
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