“I lead a cryonics team and freeze people's brains for a living” • Hacker News Board

Re: “I lead a cryonics team and freeze people's brains for a living”

#21

Post by beloch » Tue, May 12, 2015, 1:03 AM UTC

mhartl wrote: post #16

Mahn wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps I'm too cynical, but if I had to guess I'd say cryonics companies don't give a damn about future ethical and/or legal implications as long as it's a profitable business as it stands today. I very much doubt they have plan on what to do with the brains or bodies they preserve, though I'd love to be proven otherwise.

On the contrary, such concerns are of paramount importance to cryonics organizations. A good place to start is the Alcor Patient Care Trust [1]: At Alcor, patient storage costs are paid from the Patient Care Trust. This conservative funding arrangement is designed to cover the cost of patient storage solely from the income from the Trust, thereby assuring that such funding will continue indefinitely into the future.…

Any respectable cryonics company is going to have to think about this and attempt to plan for the future, but there are just too many unknowns. Will there be major market disruptions that could impact even a conservatively managed fund? What will the costs of revival and integration be? What should be done with those who were imperfectly preserved?

Re: “I lead a cryonics team and freeze people's brains for a living”

#22

Post by zyxley » Tue, May 12, 2015, 1:09 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #17

Cryonics. A tax on people who are bad on biology.

It's not like there's much else to spend the money on, what with being dead and all.

Re: “I lead a cryonics team and freeze people's brains for a living”

#23

Post by deciplex » Tue, May 12, 2015, 1:13 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #18

mhartl wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, such concerns are of paramount importance to cryonics organizations. A good place to start is the Alcor Patient Care Trust [1]: At Alcor, patient storage costs are paid from the Patient Care Trust. This conservative funding arrangement is designed to cover the cost of patient storage solely from the income from the Trust, thereby assuring that such funding will continue indefinitely into the future.…

> On the contrary, such concerns are of paramount importance to cryonics organizations. Legally. Not ethically. Most business owners in this "industry" could not care less.

Do you have some reason for believing this, or are you just being cynical? (Not that I have any particular problem with cynicism, rather I'm honestly curious.) I know of some serious breaches of ethics early in the history of cryonics, however I know of nothing that would besmirch Alcor in particular at least. If there is something I'd like to know about it.

Re: “I lead a cryonics team and freeze people's brains for a living”

#24

Post by zyxley » Tue, May 12, 2015, 1:17 AM UTC

zerooneinfinity wrote: post #15

Could I freeze my brain now and come back in thirty years?

We don't know. The actual freezing can potentially go extremely well even with current technology, but the problem is the unfreezing process. So far there's no good way to unfreeze someone and get all their cells going again.

This is why the cryonics legal trusts are all designed to be financially self-sufficient in perpetuity: it's a long shot, but if you can get somebody frozen, you can potentially keep them as a meatsicle for Long Enough for somebody to invent medical nanites or machine-brain upload interfaces or whatever.

Re: “I lead a cryonics team and freeze people's brains for a living”

#25

Post by Sivart13 » Tue, May 12, 2015, 1:18 AM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #8

pan69 wrote: post #6

What I don't really get from the article is, why? The article seems to be a technical explanation of the procedure to freeze someone's brain. but it doesn't really explain why you'd do that in the first place (probably being revived in the future) and what the actual possibilities of this are.

Insurance. You're betting technology will come far enough to build you a replacement body. You have nothing to lose because your other option is irreversible death.

Nothing to lose except the money you're spending on an icebox that you could've spent bettering the world you're leaving.

Re: “I lead a cryonics team and freeze people's brains for a living”

#26

Post by jdnier » Tue, May 12, 2015, 1:23 AM UTC

That interview reads like it's written by a character out of Gregory Benford's 1993 novel, Chiller -- only here we are in 2015; it's just like Benford wrote about then.

Re: “I lead a cryonics team and freeze people's brains for a living”

#27

Post by rictic » Tue, May 12, 2015, 1:27 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #18

mhartl wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, such concerns are of paramount importance to cryonics organizations. A good place to start is the Alcor Patient Care Trust [1]: At Alcor, patient storage costs are paid from the Patient Care Trust. This conservative funding arrangement is designed to cover the cost of patient storage solely from the income from the Trust, thereby assuring that such funding will continue indefinitely into the future.…

> On the contrary, such concerns are of paramount importance to cryonics organizations. Legally. Not ethically. Most business owners in this "industry" could not care less.

[citation needed]

Re: “I lead a cryonics team and freeze people's brains for a living”

#28

Post by coldtea » Tue, May 12, 2015, 1:27 AM UTC

deciplex wrote: post #23

coldtea wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the contrary, such concerns are of paramount importance to cryonics organizations. Legally. Not ethically. Most business owners in this "industry" could not care less.

Do you have some reason for believing this, or are you just being cynical? (Not that I have any particular problem with cynicism, rather I'm honestly curious.) I know of some serious breaches of ethics early in the history of cryonics, however I know of nothing that would besmirch Alcor in particular at least. If there is something I'd like to know about it.

I feel like I have legitimate reasons, from everything I know about humanity and history, to start from a cynical standpoint, especially regarding certain areas.

E.g. mails that announce me that I won some lottery. Random people offering to sell me cheap "authentic" Rolex on the street. Attempts to bring down some government to bring "democracy" to a country. Cryonics.

Re: “I lead a cryonics team and freeze people's brains for a living”

#29

Post by droithomme » Tue, May 12, 2015, 1:30 AM UTC

Would love to see some articles on statistics regarding the number of people who have been revived after this procedure.

Is it still at 0%, with no scientific basis at all other than the evidence-free religious devotion of the faithful devotees, constantly posting claims without a shred of solid evidence?

Re: “I lead a cryonics team and freeze people's brains for a living”

#30

Post by coldtea » Tue, May 12, 2015, 1:30 AM UTC

rictic wrote: post #27

coldtea wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the contrary, such concerns are of paramount importance to cryonics organizations. Legally. Not ethically. Most business owners in this "industry" could not care less.

[citation needed]

How about you bring me the citations that show that they care about morality in such a line of work?

Or do you think assuming everybody is moral in every line of business is a baseline for how the universe is and everything more cynical is some sort of extra-ordinary claim? If yes, then you'd be surprised.

That's the corollary to what P. T. Barnum said, that "there's a sucker born every minute".

What they do, is sell hope to rich people, working at the inside edges of pseudo-science.