[extropy-chat] Wikipedia page and cryonics

[Damien Broderick]

At 11:37 PM 4/12/2007 -0400, Keith wrote:

>I agree that there are people who call themselves
>"transhumanists" who will not sign up for cryonics for one reason or
>another.

Speaking.

>I don't take them very seriously

Oh well.

>and suspect they will be less
>represented in the post human future than those who do sign up, especially
>if they are older than say 50.

The most serious objection, IMO, is: Who in Enron-Cryocorp will keep 
the dewars topped up when the CEO can run off to the Bahamas with the 
insurance money? Eugen is right, that there's no money in cryonics at 
the moment; it's a labor of love by the convinced and hopeful. But if 
it grows a little in popularity? The usual answer is that cryo's 
accounting will be carefully scrutinized by the convinced and hopeful 
who also aim at eventual future resurrection. Sadly, the kinds of 
people likely to get involved in such utopian schemes are hopelessly 
naive (I speak as one) if not Aspergerish. Easy pickings. Either 
that, or the faithful 20th C die-hards will perish one by one and no 
newcomers will keep the home... freezers... freezing.

As a friend commented offlist, "Until it's written as an amendment to 
the Constitution with punishment attached to non-compliance [`It is a 
right to allow one to pursue a cryo-future and a federal crime NOT to 
keep the freezers freezing'], the odds aren't very good." And even 
then I wouldn't be too sure, especially after recent tiresome horrors 
of trying to deal with a major US insurance company (Unicare) who 
repeatedly denied payment of appropriate refunds--and when they 
finally broke down, *paid the already-paid medicos instead of 
providing a refund to the insured*. This is not the kind of 
institutional incompetence one wishes to depend on for one's revival.

Damien Broderick