[ExI] What is Grace?

[Damien Broderick]

At 06:44 PM 3/10/2009 -0700, Spike wrote:

>Criminals convicted of capital crimes should be frozen,
>and reanimated at such time as we understand how to cure the condition which
>led to the capital crime.

Two problems (at least, beyond the "don't be bloody ridiculous" 
objection from almost everyone else out there):

This "medicalizes" crime. That might be justified, but many will see 
the suggestion as an affront.

And this is a really powerful memetic way to contaminate cryonic 
suspension with the taint of punishment and murder.

You might, though, get away with doing it *after* cryonics is 
accepted widely, *then* conscripting it as a replacement for judicial 
life-taking.

Other than that, it's a quite elegant way to use cryonics, since for 
many pro-execution people it can be sold as the moral equivalent of 
death and for anti-execution people the moral equivalent of life 
imprisonment. But the former might balk at paying indefinitely for 
someone they want snuffed out, while the latter might see it as 
either judicial murder in disguise or as a sort of soft option once 
recovery has been demonstrated.

And if you can't afford suspension, hey, just murder someone and get 
frozen for free in a government facility...

Damien Broderick