[extropy-chat] cryonicist's nightmare

[BillK]

On 9/4/06, spike wrote:
>
>
> http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,212008,00.html
>
>
> Oy vey, damn.  {8-[
>

This has already happened to human bodies.
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1732947,00.html?>
Freezer failure ends couple's hopes of life after death

Raymond Martinot and his wife were the toast of the world cryonics
movement. For years they were France's best preserved corpses, lying
in a freezer in a chateau in the Loire valley, in the hope that modern
science could one day bring them back to life.

But the French couple's journey into the future ended prematurely
when, 22 years after his mother's body was put into cold storage,
their son discovered the freezer unit had broken down and they had
started to thaw.
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This is another point that worries me about cryonics companies. If
they did get a freezer failure there would be a very strong temptation
to just refreeze the bodies, keep quiet about it and carry on taking
the maintenance fees. After all, nobody is going to find out until
long after the present company employees have died themselves.

BillK