[ExI] Giving up autonomy for cryogenic suspension

[Gabe Waggoner]

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
> Message: 7
> Date: Sun, 22 Nov 2020 08:40:17 -0800
> From: Adrian Tymes atymes at gmail.com
> To: ExI chat list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Giving up autonomy for cryogenic suspension
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> CALAdGNTS0Lo3raWVbwnVDpN8gY-0o9VpM0ef704AYpxCp8=5ZQ at mail.gmail.com
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>
> It seems certain that reviving us will be expensive, the kind of
> "expensive" likely to be done to finally relieve Alcor or its descendant
> organization from having to keep us frozen.
>
> While it is possible we may be forced to labor to pay off debts (despite
> having prepaid our suspension), that kind of "expensive" can't be paid off
> with simple slave labor - sex or otherwise. Far more likely is that we
> will wake up with few or no resources (whoever wakes us up thinking that
> having done so is a sufficient investment in resources to resolve their
> obligation to us), akin to the modern homeless, and need to labor to
> survive. Either way, it is likely that robots will have taken over most
> menial labor jobs by then, leaving only types of labor that is at least
> mildly intellectually stimulating.
>
> Granted, this is not guaranteed - but no situation where you must trust
> someone else can be. In these cases, the best that can be done is to
> ensure that the outcome you desire is in the best interests of the one you
> must trust, and that seems to be the case in this situation.
>
> On Sun, Nov 22, 2020 at 7:59 AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> > One of my personal nightmare scenarios is being frozen, having my body
> > stolen in the hundreds-of-years interim, and waking up imprisoned as some
> > kind of fucked up slave, possibly a sex slave.
> > I've never heard anyone talk about this but in my opinion it's a huge
> > issue. You are trusting people with your body, not just to keep it alive,
> > but to keep it safe from interlocutors. How is it possible to guarantee
> > safety over these time periods? Who's to say Alcor doesn't go bankrupt, or
> > suffer a burglary, in 70 years or something?
> > Is there any philosophically rigorous solution to this? The only thing I
> > can really think of is some kind of system that would wake you up
> > periodically to check on things and decide if you wanted to stay frozen,
> > but that's likely not possible (at least yet.) Any security can be broken,
> > right?

---
I've often wondered about this. Two fictional scenarios come to mind:

First is Charles Sheffield's 1997 novel Tomorrow and Tomorrow. The protagonist's wife dies, and he arranges to have her frozen and then has himself frozen as well. Upon being revived, he's in indentured apprenticeship to repay the man who arranged for his recovery. After several further rounds of being frozen and brought back, his body deteriorates and his consciousness is uploaded. He witnesses several eras in a transhumanist future and later exists as innumerable copies of himself. I can't do the book justice here.

Second is "The Thaw," an episode of Star Trek: Voyager (season 2, episode 23). To wait out the aftermath of a solar flare, some residents of a colony world put themselves in cryostasis, but their minds are kept active and alert in an interactive mental landscape. Periodically, the preserved people see a readout of environmental conditions to determine whether it's safe for them to reemerge. Unfortunately, an emergent intelligence forms in their reality (manifested as a demented clown, played by Michael McKean, from their fears and anxieties) and holds them hostage in a twisted circus setting for years on end. Captain Janeway (one of my heroes) manages to outwit him.

I'm not qualified to predict the economics of the future. Despite being a pessimist, I have to believe that if recovery becomes possible, the cost will eventually come down enough to make it broadly feasible. As a tall, pale, terminally introverted redhead, I've long accepted that I'm not photogenic and would never find work as a sex slave (unless the gay men of the distant future are more accepting, ha). With current trends of the diminished emphasis on editing scientific text, my existing skills will probably be obsolete -- if English is even recognizable by that point. So here's hoping I can learn/download new skills (or at least be revived into an appealing enough body to make living as a sex slave viable).

Regardless, I live in hope that my enrollment in cryonics will work out. I'd probably settle for existing as a simulation in the Monolith, though I'd love to ascend à la Stargate.

Best to all,
Gabe Waggoner