X-Message-Number: 9725 Date: Sun, 17 May 1998 12:43:57 -0700 (PDT) From: Doug Skrecky <> Subject: (fwd) Re: cryonics survey follow-up I received a couple of follow-up posts on my cryonics survey on rec.humor. The tone was surprisingly positive, when one considers the target audience, which reinforces my suspicion that it is the money that is the primary concern for a lot of people. A price within range of "free" company sponsored life insurance might boost the number of signups. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Craig Burley <> Newsgroups: rec.humor (Doug Skrecky) writes: > I was wondering why cryonics is so unpopular. After being frozen there > is at least a theoretical possibility of coming back, without having to > rely on divine intervention. Nonetheless the two alternatives cremation > and burial see virtually all of the unh - business. Then one day an apple > fell out of a tree and hit yours truly on the head. Bong. It's the money. > Here's the approximate cost and percentage of the business for the three > options: [...] > The following is a survey designed to see how cheap cryonics would > need to be, to be competitive. Wow, this really got me to thinking. If and when cryonics becomes cost-effective for the masses, and assuming it then becomes the fashionable thing to choose over burial and cremation, we're going to have a mighty big problem on our hands. Eventually, millions, then billions, of the frozen dead will populate our planet, taking more and more natural resources to keep them properly frozen. For now, these freeze-dried corpses seem to be a cultural and legal curiosity, at best. We don't treat them exactly as still living, or entirely as dead; we neither visit them regularly to see if they've "come out" of their coma, nor do we visit their freezers on occasion, leaving flowers (or, I suppose, flowery refrigerator magnets, children's drawings, and post-it notes saying "remember to refinance mortgage when you come back from the dead"). The general sentiment seems to be "they're dead, and they sure were a bit crazy, though maybe were just playing it safe; besides, it was their money to do with as they pleased". But that will change if more and more people, especially not just crazy rich folk, end up this way. If we think of them as "still alive", we'll have to accord them somewhat the same rights as long-term-coma patients or something. We'll have to make sure their freezers are insulated against power outages and other forms of assault on their continued viability. Think of the thousands, maybe millions, of hospital-like buildings we'll need to build and maintain to house these "freezies". If they're just heads, we'll save some resources, but, let's face it, lots of people don't have heads worth saving, so there'll undoubtedly be a high percentage of "frusen bodjes" in the mix. Worse, if we think of them as "dead", we'll have to treat their highly elaborate, resource-consuming frigidaires as "hallowed ground", miniature pyramids containing entombed dummies, so to speak. This will surely get out of hand, because the population explosion in frozen dead human meat will mean there'll be a huge need for available space and resources. It might turn out Global Warming is actually triggered more by crazy dead environmentalist wackos, who've arranged to preserve themselves for resurrection "after the green revolution", than by greedy oil companies. Well, all the better to thaw them out ahead of their time.... In the future, living people might even make extra money by renting out portions of their homes or offices to house some of these human popsicles, or even pay if the humans in question are celebrities. Imagine being able to work on a PC that shares its cooling unit with the one keeping the head of Bill Gates from becoming toast! "Ctrl-Alt-Del *this*, Billy boy!!" What's particularly disturbing is the inevitable change in language that will follow. Phrases like "cool it", "freeze!!", and "a cold day in hell" will no longer mean what they do today. If the long-sought-after scientific discoveries make cryogenic resuscitation possible, phrases like "nuke it", "wake the dead", and "she's hot" also will undergo significant transformation. Ultimately, there'll be young children wondering how Herod's step-daughter, in calling for the head of John the Baptist, was doing anything wrong, since they'll think she was requesting the frozen Baptist's head for herself and her mother as hosts. (And what quick service she got! "Uncle, I didn't mean *now*!!") Most scary of all is the potential for monopoly control of this industry. Why, just imagine what the penalty might be if you failed to schedule, and pay in advance for, an upgrade for the software controlling your cryogenic container so it runs the 21st-century version of the most popular operating system -- Windows MM! -- "Practice random senselessness and act kind of beautiful." James Craig Burley, Software Craftsperson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=9725