2 replies to this topic

[kmoody]

I suspect that I am not the first one to suggest this idea, but I had not noticed it elsewhere on these forums. A number of people have expressed an interest in cryonics, but there is some concern, especially on behalf of skeptics, that our future generations will have no reason to want to revive us. I certainly would refute that idea on numerous grounds. I cannot imagine a history scholar rejecting the idea of being able to speak with and work with someone from 200 or more years ago, and that by itself would be reason enough to reanimate. However, a financial incentive also came to mind. Might it be practical to put a small amount of money in a high yield savings account and make the winner of the prize the individual who can revive you?

For instance, suppose we took the small, affordable sum of $5,000 and put it in a standard savings account with 3.30% interest. Compounded anually, it would be worth $3.3 million in 200 years. Although in 200 years inflation will certainly decrease the value of the $3.3 million, I suspect it will certainly be enough of an incentive to motivate some qualified medical experts to dedicate some time and effort. Thoughts?

Sources:
http://www.moneychim..._calculator.htm

[bgwowk]

If there is nobody interested in reviving you, then you are not going to stay cryopreserved. I don't know why such a basic idea often gets overlooked.

http://www.alcor.org...aq07.html#today

Q: What would the future want with people from today?

A: If someone is still cryopreserved when technology becomes available to revive them, then they will be revived simply because there are people around who cared enough to maintain them until then. Cryonics is not like beaming messages into interstellar space, or putting messages in bottles, not knowing where they will land. Patients are continuously cared for by people who personally care about them -- friends and family in many cases. In time those people will also be cryopreserved, and their friends and families will remain concerned about their care, and so on. Since the progression of cryonics technology makes cryonics a last-in-first-out process, this scenario will eventually reverse itself. People will be motivated to recover their friends and family, and then those people will be motivated to recover their friends and family as recovery technology improves, and so on.

There is another reason for optimism about future motivation for revival. Long before it ever becomes possible to contemplate revival of today's patients, reversible suspended animation will be perfected as a mainstream medical technology. From that point forward, the whole tradition of caring for people who cannot immediately be fixed will be strongly reinforced in culture and law. By the time it becomes possible to revive patients preserved with the oldest and crudest technologies, revival from states of suspended animation will be something that has been done thousands, if not millions, of times before. The moral and cultural imperative for revival when possible will be as basic and strong as the obligation to render first aid and emergency medical care today.

[Mind]

The way I look at it is that - in the future when cryonics recovery is perfected and cheap - keeping you in stasis would cost money (albeit a small amount) and letting a person thaw would be akin to murder, so the optimal societal solution would be to re-animate you. Obviously, the reasons Brian mentioned would also lead to most everyone being re-animated.