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A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

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Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

#151

Post by qbrass »

dennisgorelik wrote: post #128
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The chance of successful recovery of frozen dead brain after 100 years is very close to zero (assuming that the recovery process was never tested). Kim Suozzi's “1 or 2 percent chance” is extremely optimistic forecast. While it's impossible to predict whether you'll be able to be revived it doesn't sit right with me that you, and many others, are making predictions about how future medical technology will work. Hon…

Making predictions is the main way to test out theories. > but they're frozen, who cares? That is another problem with cryonics: why would future civilization care about dead brains frozen 200 years ago? Imagine that we already have technology that can unfreeze and revive people. And we just found 100,000 frozen medieval people to unfreeze. So for the same price we can either unfreeze and revive 100,000 people or we…

Bringing back people frozen for two centuries shows that you're both capable and willing to do it. Which makes selling the process to people easier.

Would you pay a company to be frozen if you know they have 100,000 clients they haven't revived, even though they're capable of it?

Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

#152

Post by shabble »

JesperRavn wrote: post #39
lfam wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which Greg Egan story is that?

I can't remember (possibly not Greg Egan). In case someone else knows, the main plot is that the characters have to act as inhabitants of a primitive village, in a computer game/simulation.

Probably neither of these (depending on your definition of primitive), but they're interesting anyway:

The Cookie Monster[1] by Vernor Vinge

Glasshouse[2] by Charles Stross

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cookie_Monster_%28novella%... (WP link, contains spoilers)

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasshouse_%28novel%29

Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

#153

Post by edanm »

dennisgorelik wrote: post #149
edanm wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting there is literally no way to check these things? Remember, this is a company that enters into a contract with you, if they don't do as they claim, they are hugely financially liable. They've been around for longer than many other companies, do you think they would have been able to hide massive fraud for all this time? AFAIK, we're not talking about some "faith-healer" off in a corner somewhere, we…

> Are you suggesting there is literally no way to check these things? I think there is some way to check, but why would anybody do it? Let's imagine that you work for Alcor as a technician and you find out that due to some refrigerator malfunction, dead bodies temporary unthawed. Would you publicly report the incident or would keep silently collect your salary? > if they don't do as they claim, They claim to keep dea…

So, regarding failures, they're actually pretty well documented. See g.. here: http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/suspensionfailures.html. First result from a google search. Not exactly some giant coverup and fraud, I think.

"> they are hugely financially liable

Liable to what exactly?"

Well, the original point made above is that there is no way to verify they do as they claim, which is to freeze bodies/heads, in the hopes that someday in the future someone will know how to do something with it. I'm assuming that if they don't actually freeze the bodies as they say, they are committing fraud. That's what the discussion was about. That's what I meant by "liable".

"[What would it take to] > convince you that it's not a scam?

Successful revival."

Well, since no one is claiming that a successful revival is possible now, or even that a successful revival will be possible sometime in the future, I don't think that's a fair thing to demand.

Again, as long as they're clearly explaining the idea behind this, as long as they're not trying to trick anyone by promising something that doesn't exist, which they aren't, then I don't think it's fair to call it a scam.

I just find it a little sad that, at least as far as I can tell, most of the people involved in this are people who really believe in the mission. They're not lying, not misleading people, giving all the facts, and yet, everyone just assumes it's a fraud or a scam.

Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

#154

Post by cbr »

336f5 wrote: post #78
cbr wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"that your estate will be able to afford the procedure" reads to me as being about revival? Which ALCOR etc don't attempt to cover.

> Which ALCOR etc don't attempt to cover. Maybe you should reread my comment.

Your parent wrote:

"You're essentially making a bet that someone will find something useful to do with a frozen brain -- and that your estate will be able to afford the procedure -- before the company you've entrusted your brain to either makes a mistake or collapses."

The procedure your parent was talking about is revival, not cryopreservation. Your comment talks in detail about why you think ALCOR's corporate structure makes them unlikely to collapse, but the money in ALCOR's trust is only enough to keep people frozen, not to cover revival.

(ALCOR does claim that the patient care trust will be enough to cover revival, but (a) revival could potentially be very expensive and (b) ongoing maintenance expenses have been using up the money generated by the trust and this seems likely to continue).

Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

#155

Post by dghughes »

rue wrote: post #63
dghughes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about medicine if you say death is good why postpone it by eating well, taking medicine and being safe? I don't see why we humans should die I think if all science put their efforts together (as done in world wars) we could extend human life quite a bit. The only concern I have is the difference in culture for example imagine a 20 year old versus a person 200 years old. Even today the generation gap between 20 a…

If music is the biggest generational gap when I’m 200, I’ll be pretty content with things.

Just an example ;)

(But really I bet wars could be fought over it, Bieber vs The Eagles)

Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

#156

Post by bitwize »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #58
amalcon wrote: post #33

Cryonics is one of those things that's hard to evaluate. On the face of it, it seems insane. You're essentially making a bet that someone will find something useful to do with a frozen brain -- and that your estate will be able to afford the procedure -- before the company you've entrusted your brain to either makes a mistake or collapses. Given the near-total lack of progress on the former front (there's been consid…

> You're essentially making a bet that someone will find something useful to do with a frozen brain Something is deeply wrong with this way of thinking: it doesn't value human life at all. Here's another version. Someone comes to you seeking for help. He's dying. He could be saved by some recently devised miraculous medical procedure, which would return him to full health. The catch is, that procedure is relatively e…

See, a preserved person, provided she can actually be reconstructed back to life, is not actually dead. She's mostly dead.

And mostly dead is partly alive. If she were all dead, well, there's only one thing you can do -- go through her pockets and look for loose change.

Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

#157

Post by saalweachter »

amalcon wrote: post #33

Cryonics is one of those things that's hard to evaluate. On the face of it, it seems insane. You're essentially making a bet that someone will find something useful to do with a frozen brain -- and that your estate will be able to afford the procedure -- before the company you've entrusted your brain to either makes a mistake or collapses. Given the near-total lack of progress on the former front (there's been consid…

> ... and that your estate will be able to afford the procedure ...

The concerns about your frozen remains spoiling before anything happens is valid, but I personally suspect that unfreezing will play out like Social Security, but in reverse order. If we're unfrozen, it will be paid for (or prompted, in whatever post-scarcity Star Trek economy exists in the future) by our children and grandchildren, who will be unfrozen by their children and grandchildren, or childhood friend who misses them, or former coworker, and so on down the line.

There's probably no practical or economic reason for future people to unfreeze corpsicles, but there are sentimental ones. So I'm not so much worried about estates needing to pay for unfreezing or some future banks needing COBOL programmers.

Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

#158

Post by dennisgorelik »

qbrass wrote: post #151
dennisgorelik wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making predictions is the main way to test out theories. > but they're frozen, who cares? That is another problem with cryonics: why would future civilization care about dead brains frozen 200 years ago? Imagine that we already have technology that can unfreeze and revive people. And we just found 100,000 frozen medieval people to unfreeze. So for the same price we can either unfreeze and revive 100,000 people or we…

Bringing back people frozen for two centuries shows that you're both capable and willing to do it. Which makes selling the process to people easier. Would you pay a company to be frozen if you know they have 100,000 clients they haven't revived, even though they're capable of it?

I would not pay if the do not revive body they frozen.

I also would not pay even if they do revive bodies they have frozen.

Why freeze myself if revival is available already?

The only compelling reason to freeze the body if unfreezing alive body is a proven process, but some disease is not curable yet.

Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

#159

Post by dennisgorelik »

edanm wrote: post #153
dennisgorelik wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you suggesting there is literally no way to check these things? I think there is some way to check, but why would anybody do it? Let's imagine that you work for Alcor as a technician and you find out that due to some refrigerator malfunction, dead bodies temporary unthawed. Would you publicly report the incident or would keep silently collect your salary? > if they don't do as they claim, They claim to keep dea…

So, regarding failures, they're actually pretty well documented. See g.. here: http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/suspensionfailures.html . First result from a google search. Not exactly some giant coverup and fraud, I think. "> they are hugely financially liable Liable to what exactly?" Well, the original point made above is that there is no way to verify they do as they claim, which is to freeze bodies/heads, in the…

1) How do you know that all body freezing failures are pretty well documented? If they do not test recovery then they register only the most obvious failures.

2) "in the hopes that someday in the future someone will know"

They promote and claim that revival will be possible in the future. Without any proof. So it is a confidence game. Hence "scam".

There is a good chance that successful freezing and revival would be possible in the future.

But it is very unlikely that revival of dead bodies that Alcor is freezing today would ever be possible.

> most of the people involved in this are people who really believe in the mission

You can say the same about any established religion.

> They're not lying, not misleading people,

Sorry, internal belief is not a guarantee that the statements are true and not misleading.

Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

#160

Post by rdl »

analog31 wrote: post #56
amalcon wrote: post #33

Cryonics is one of those things that's hard to evaluate. On the face of it, it seems insane. You're essentially making a bet that someone will find something useful to do with a frozen brain -- and that your estate will be able to afford the procedure -- before the company you've entrusted your brain to either makes a mistake or collapses. Given the near-total lack of progress on the former front (there's been consid…

... before the company you've entrusted your brain to either makes a mistake or collapses. A vastly more likely scenario is that the company is a scam in the first place, and has no particular interest in preserving your brain, given the complete lack of any possible accountability mechanism.

I agree Alcor could improve. It clearly has over the past decades, and will continue to do so. Why not participate in that?

Their conference is in October. I'm going. (I signed up with Alcor after Hal Finney; the only thing worse is dying, and I'd like it to get better...)

$1k/yr between membership and a 20y 500k term life policy seems cheap enough to me.

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