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on all the reasons I think Alcor is kind of shadyIf Alcor actually is doing shady things, then I would certainly agree with you. I read up on them quite a bit around 10 years ago, but I haven't really kept up since then. But my impression was that they weren't giving false hope, and were telling people that the chances were slim that they'd ever wake up again. I also didn't read anything to suggest that their post-death care is something other than what they promise, and I thought it was sensible how they require patient care to be funded. But admittedly I didn't dive as deeply into third-party criticism as I probably should have (instead I just lost interest).
> I really just want to chime in to push back on the idea that "modern" cryonics have the problems worked out
I don't think anyone is saying that, though? If I've said something that made you or anyone believe that, my apologies, because that's certainly not what I believe. Certainly modern cryonics is more advanced than simply "lower body temp slowly until it seems like it might vaguely be safe to bring in the LN", but "advanced" in this case doesn't mean "it works". No one knows, still, of course, and I would strongly expect that it doesn't work.
> I think it's kind of likely that the insurmountable problems here are fractal.
The promise of only-in-sci-fi "suspended animation" or "stasis" is, well, just that: sci-fi. I certainly would hope that these problems aren't insurmountable, and that we can actually find a way to more or less press the "pause" button on organic degradation. Certainly the current cryonics tech is nowhere near that; the hope is that any damage done by the cryonics process could eventually be reversed with sufficiently-advanced technology, and then eventually the cryonics process gets good enough that little to no damage (beyond the cause of death) ends up being done.
Who knows if that's possible, eventually, but I'd like to think it is.