X-Message-Number: 1850
From:  (Nick Szabo)
Subject: CRYONICS Reservations
Date: Sun, 28 Feb 1993 22:25:44 -0800 (PST)

I'm currently considering signing up for cryonics and perhaps 
some folks might be interested in what's going through my mind.
Now, most people in the decision stage probably don't read 
CryoNet, so not all these points are representative.  Also,
I'm at low risk of death at this point in my life, so (rationally
or not) feel I should take some time to sit back and ponder this
radical change before I plunge in.

With those caveats, and apologizing in advance for dwelling
on the negative, here are my reservations:

* The technical status of cryonics.  I've read most of
_Nanosystems_, studied some neurobiology, etc.  Cell
repair machines to restore function seem too ill-defined
at this time to assess the odds.  I'd be much more 
confident if a mammal could be frozen to LN temperatures
and recovered.  This may be well beyond current technique,
but if possible it would be worth $millions in advertising
in signing up new members.
* The organizational risks seem very large.  I've heard some
folks from a now-defunct cryonics group ended up being thawed
out.  Alcor seems to get the main coverage on this list, so 
not to pick on them but it seems rather vulnerable.  Is
the Patient Care Fund immune from lawsuits against
Alcor for non-storage reasons (eg botched suspensions,
angry relatives, etc.)?  If so, there is little chance
that it will be available for storage and reanimations costs
fifty years from now.  If storage could be unbundled from the 
other operations, rendering its legal exposure as low as possible,
this might greatly lower the risk of being prematurely thawed. 
In general an unbundled, decentralize system of cryonics seems far 
less risky than the single, central dominant organization we seem
to have now. 

Many things inspire my confidence as well, first of all knowing
some of the people involved, but what really stands out is Alcor's
reputation for caring about and fighting for their suspendees.
I hope that's a long-lasting cultural tradition that other
cryonics organizations share and can maintain for decades to come.
Some technical progress is also encouraging, eg cryobiology
can now freeze & thaw 50,000-cell Drosophia embryos with 
differentiated muscles, nerves, etc. and damage apparently
low enough to not effect genetics and other biology studies.

In closing, I hope I will owe a major debt to those who have built 
cryonics to where it is today.  Even with the reservations cryonics
seems to be a reasonable version of Pascal's Wager,  and
I most likely will sign up one of these days, as I become
more knowledgeable about the subject.  Cryonics is a quite
exciting possibility, but is so radical I don't want to just
jump in.   My thanks to those doing the hard work, and I hope
I can contribute in the future.

Nick Szabo					

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