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Biotech

Video The Cryonics Institute Offers a Chance at Immortality (Video) 254

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Do you want to be frozen after you die, in hopes of being revived a century or two (or maybe ten) in the future? It can cost less than an electric car. That's what the Cryonics Institute (CI) offers. David Ettinger, today's interviewee, is both the son of CI founder Robert Ettinger and CI's lawyer. In this video, among other things, he talks about arrangements that were made for his father's demise, and how they were able to start the cryopreservation process almost immediately after he expired. Is Cryonics the best chance at immortality for those of us likely to die before the Singularity arrives, and gives all of us the tools we need to live forever? David Ettinger obviously thinks so. (This is Video #1 of 2. The second one is scheduled to run tomorrow. It's an interview with CI Director Andy Zawacki, who takes us into the facility where the frozen bodies are stored.)

David Ettinger: My name is David Ettinger and we are sitting here at the Cryonics Institute. Robert Rozeboom: When was this place constructed? David: The Cryonics Institute was established in 1976. We’ve been in our current building about 20 years. It was not constructed by CI. CI bought the building then. Robert: I was going to ask you how you got started in this, but I read that Robert Ettinger was your father, so can you just tell us a little bit about him? David: Yeah, my father Robert Ettinger is considered the founder of the cryonics movement and was also the founder of the Cryonics Institute. He wrote a book in 1964 called The Prospect of Immortality. That was the first widely publicized proposal that people be frozen at death in the hope of future revival. And when he did that I was about 13 so I grew up with the idea. Robert: And you prepare the bodies here? David: CI at its facilities perfuses and freezes and stores patients. Robert: And what does that involve? The perfusion? David: There are many steps in the process. The steps involve gradual cooling from of course body temperature down to liquid nitrogen which is about -196 Centigrade, very cold temperature, and additionally there are steps in the process that involve replacement of the blood with cryoprotective chemicals – chemicals that protect against the formation of ice crystals. Robert: So a patient has to be legally declared dead first, correct? David: The CI only freezes people after legal death. However death is not something like the equivalent of a light switch going off, people don’t go suddenly all alive and then suddenly all dead. In fact, many people have been revived after what used to be considered death - after heart attacks, after lots of catastrophic events. Death is essentially the point at which the doctor gives up. That’s what all the definitions come down to. The definition of death has changed over time, because the doctor gives up later and later as technology gets better. Now the point about cryonics is in the future the doctor is going to give up much later because there are going to be many more opportunities to treat what people die of. And that means someone who is legally dead today, if frozen immediately will hopefully reach a future in which they are revivable. Robert: Right now we can freeze embryos, blood and such things, but has anyone ever actually frozen a whole organism ____3:02. David: I mean there haven’t been any whole mammals frozen and brought back. There have been lower organisms that have been. Of course, part of the cryonics premise is that the freezing damage that occurs by today’s processes will themselves be reversible in the future. So that’s part of what we are counting on future technology to do, but there are many reasons to believe based on research that has occurred that that damage is limited. And so there’s good reason to hope and expect that that damage will be reversible in the future. Robert: So if someone was brought back, since they have already been declared dead, what sort of legal status will that have? David: That is the least of our worries. I am a lawyer, however I’ve spent zero time worrying about what happens when I am revived to my legal status - a future that is able to radically extend life. And that is able to revive people that are frozen is going to have a lot of capabilities. Robert: You think they will be beyond paperwork at that point? David: I think that they will be able to handle the fact that a few people have come back who were legally declared dead. Robert: So who does this sort of thing? Are there a particular group of people you find that ask for this more than others? David: CI has about a 1000 members and they come from all walks of life. I would say though that there are disproportionately people in the sciences, computer sciences among others – people who work with technology and understand its promise in the future. Robert: What is the cost to do this? David: Freezing through the Cryonics Institute is really surprisingly affordable, (it sounds like a pitch in a commercial) but it is true, CI’s price and it can vary some for people at a distance. The CI’s standard price is $28,000. What that $28,000 covers is the initial freezing and indefinite storage. The way the CI can do that is that part of that money goes for the initial cost of the freezing, and much of it is retained and the interest on that money is what’s used to pay for indefinite storage. CI has developed its own storage capsules that are exceedingly safe, very durable, and very economical. The ongoing cost of freezing is that these capsules contain liquid nitrogen and they are essentially like very large thermos bottles and very slowly, the liquid nitrogen boils off, as it has to. So the ongoing cost is replacing the liquid nitrogen, but our units have been improved over time, they are so efficient that that cost is a very small amount per person per year. As a result, our expenses are low in that regard. I should say that when my father founded CI in 1976, the price CI charged was $28,000. Today, the price CI charges is $28,000. You will have to go a long way to find products that can point to that level of zero inflation over a period of almost 40 years. Robert: Yeah, very few. I was talking to Andy earlier about how the Cryonics Institute or the cryonics community is a small community, and we talked a little bit about Alcor and how their price was much much greater than here. What is the reason for that do you think? David: I don’t really want to talk about other organizations. I prefer to be positive about ours. I think in CI’s case we are a nonprofit volunteer organization. We have a very small paid staff. Most of the people who do work for the organization do it on a voluntary free basis. We don’t pay the board, we don’t pay the officers. I am CI’s lawyer and to the extent other people in my firm do work, I need to charge for them, but to the extent I do work, I don’t charge for it. CI exists because its members really want what CI is offering. Nobody is doing it for the money. We are doing it for selfish reasons to be sure, but those selfish reasons are: We want to live longer. We want our families to. And we want to get a chance to come back. So we are able to do this all in a very economical way. Robert: How many people do you have stored here at the facility? David: I don’t have the exact count in my head, I must confess, but upwards of a 110 or 115 people are stored at CI. Robert: And there is a service that will bring them to you? David: There is a company that some of our members have contracted with to provide standby services. I think most of our patients come directly to CI. Of course, for patients living in the Detroit area where CI, that’s pretty straightforward. For patients living elsewhere we help them find funeral directors who will work with them, sometimes to begin the process. The perfusion process is not all that different than what a funeral director does in embalming except it is of course, very different chemicals that are used, for a very different purpose. So funeral directors can play a significant role at the beginning of the process. Robert: I also read that you don’t offer a ‘neuro’ option? David: Yes, CI does not freeze just heads. We freeze the whole bodies – we limit ourselves to that. Robert: What do you see the future of cryonics being? David: Well, my father came up with the idea in the ‘40s; he assumed that it was so obvious that everybody would be doing it soon. When they didn’t, he wrote his book. That created a certain stir but didn’t lead to lots of cryonics organizations. So he founded CI and after that it took CI about 20 years to really begin getting patients to a significant degree, and that’s been accelerating a lot. You know, 110 patients versus millions of deceased people every year is not exactly the majority, but CI has been growing and its growth has been accelerating. I think that it is due to the fact that people are recognizing more and more that changes in science and in medicine are not merely continuing but they are accelerating and they are going to become radical and dramatic. To me, it is very clear, beyond doubt, that there is going to come a time when people are not dying of old age; when lives are indefinitely extended. And it might even be relatively soon. The problem is for a lot of us now living it may not be quite soon enough – it would be really embarrassing if you were part of the last generation to die, and you didn’t try to do something about it. And the best chance we have is cryonics. It is not certain. But it is certain that if you don’t do this, if you don’t get frozen, that you are not going to have that opportunity. Robert: You think advances in cloning, and the fact that we can digitally 3-D print tissues and stuff now, do you think that it is piquing the interest in cryonics? David: Well, I think a lot of things are but maybe most importantly, people are beginning to recognize for the first time that aging itself is simply a defect of the process. And that there will be opportunities to retard aging and maybe reverse aging and cure aging. And there have been some successes recently experimental with a variety of organisms, so people are getting the idea that this most fundamental of things, aging and death, the most horrible of things, that have always been inevitable throughout all of mankind’s history may not be so inevitable any more. And once you start realizing that, you begin to ask more fundamental questions, about what your alternatives are and what your options are. And I think people are doing it. I think there are two reasons why cryonics has not grown more rapidly. One is, I think a lot of people are in denial upon the subject. And the simple reason is because death has always been so horrible and so inevitable people don’t like to think about it and deal with it. And cryonics is new enough that there are not regular institutions to deal with it - you can’t find an ad on television to tell you who to call, your doctor may not know who to call. And so you’ve got to take certain steps on your own. Since it is not easy to do, and since it is confronting something that people don’t like to confront, I think a lot just avoid the subject. Secondly, I believe there are a lot of people who in principle know about cryonics and think it is a good idea but never quite get around to acting in time. CI gets lots and lots of calls from people who say, “My mother died two weeks ago.” “My father died a month ago,” “What can you do?” And it is too late. Because they don’t reach out and make arrangements in advance. I have obviously known a lot about cryonics for a long time, but my father who died about a year ago, and is frozen and is here, died at 92, but we were very concerned; first of all, we were trying to keep him going, and take care of the problems that caused him ultimately to die; but secondly, we wanted to be sure that we were ready so that he could be frozen as soon as possible after legal death, and to make his chances as good as possible. And we spent a lot of time planning and working with hospice and being ready, and in his case, he was pronounced dead, and the cooling process began within a minute. That’s because we spent a lot of time making preparations. Not everybody can be that lucky. People don’t always die in a predictable way.If you can consider that luck under the circumstances, he was lucky compared to what might have been. But the point is, be prepared.

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The Cryonics Institute Offers a Chance at Immortality (Video)

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  • by deadweight ( 681827 ) on Monday August 19, 2013 @03:32PM (#44611119)
    I know a couple guys whose wives have been freezing cold for awhile and still move around and spend money.........
  • Slashvertisement (Score:4, Interesting)

    by maxwell demon ( 590494 ) on Monday August 19, 2013 @03:32PM (#44611121) Journal

    Also, it's not immortality if they freeze you after you die.
    Immortality means not to die at all.

    • by i kan reed ( 749298 ) on Monday August 19, 2013 @03:36PM (#44611165) Homepage Journal

      While, frankly, I'm okay with resurrection, as a backup, there is no way I'm paying for a service I have to die to use. There is zero contract enforceability.

      Also roblimo and his slashvertisements are all so blatant, it's insulting.

      • . . . there is no way I'm paying for a service I have to die to use. There is zero contract enforceability.

        What about life insurance?

    • Also, it's not immortality if they freeze you after you die.
      Immortality means not to die at all.

      Define death.

      It used to be that you died when your heart or breathing stopped. But now we can restart both. We even stop them regularly to repair the organs in question. Even brain death is problematic, when some drugs or conditions like hypoxia can temporarily shut down electrical activity. This is one reason that most hospitals require multiple checks a few hours or even a full day apart before declaring legal death. We are constantly pushing against the boundaries of what death is.

      So, if your body f

  • by TWiTfan ( 2887093 ) on Monday August 19, 2013 @03:33PM (#44611131)

    Okay, I had to say it.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    If they really believe in their technology, they should have no problem with a payment plan that starts when you wake up...

  • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Monday August 19, 2013 @03:39PM (#44611185)

    First, the crude cryonics they use today is not going to work well, and may well not leave anything that can be revived behind.

    Second, why would anybody want to revive some corpses at huge expense when making a few children more is so much easier? Or why would anybody go through the effort of reviving anybody, when the world is over-populated in the first place? Well, maybe if you freeze some truly exceptionally people (like Fields-medal winners), that one may be different, but I doubt it. Everybody else is just going into the trash at some indefinite time in the future.

    And third, why would anybody reasonably want to be unfrozen, when the world is massively changed and everybody they knew and cared about is gone? There are a few SF books that use long-term "storage" as punishment for the criminal, and they have it right.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Your chilled mushy brain will provide a delicious dessert for the people of the future.

      • True.

        On a hot summer's day, the cheerful music and bright bell-ringing of the ice brain truck will bring crowds of happy, yelling, excited zombie children from all up and down the block. It'll be a big part of their fond child-zombiehood memories.

    • They need your knowledge of 20th century football to thwart hot evil alien princesses?

    • by Entropius ( 188861 ) on Monday August 19, 2013 @03:53PM (#44611363)

      And third, why would anybody reasonably want to be unfrozen, when the world is massively changed and everybody they knew and cared about is gone?

      Because they could meet new people and learn a new world?

      Why would people want to move from Europe to America in the 1700's?

      • Imagine someone from the 1500s waking up now. Hey, welcome to the future. All of your morals are horribly outdated, everything you thought you knew about the world is at best laughably incomplete or more likely completely wrong, and the world has changed in every meaningful way. Good luck getting a job, finding a mate, or even crossing the street!
        • Imagine someone from the 1500s waking up now. Hey, welcome to the future. All of your morals are horribly outdated,...

          Welcome to the future. All of your morals are belong to us!

        • Imagine someone from the 1500s waking up now.

          Depending on their walk of life, I would not be at all surprised if they had a better work ethic than the average American. There's no reason why a curious and motivated 14th-century person couldn't learn enough to get along in modern society, especially if they get some initial help.

          If somebody was offering one-way trips to 2500 right now -- assuming that I was convinced that the technology involved would actually work -- I'd do it without hesitation. There's plenty of us without any particularly strong

          • That would be the 16th century, but not much better I would argue.

            1. There are about a million and a half bewildering and contradictory laws that we can't even make sense of. Good luck not getting arrested for doing something you thought was just fine.
            2. Women are not property and have equal rights to vote, hold office, and own property. Mind==blown right there. Blacks are not subhuman mud people, and have equal rights. Animals have legal rights too. People can marry members of the same sex in some pl
            • Yeah, obviously I had a brainfart on translating "1500s" to a century.

              As far as the societal-level changes that you mention go -- there are still a lot of places in the world where attitudes and culture are a lot closer to 1500s Europe than they are to modern society in the US or Europe. But people can and do come from those places and manage to assimilate reasonably well.

              I don't think that the comparison with "elderly" people is completely relevant, given that the original statement was that they wouldn't

        • Thanks for the insight, Brooks from Shawshank Redemption, but some people don't actually mind change, new knowledge, luxuries made possible by technology, and different cultures (especially ones in the future). Who knows maybe a 21th century human might get some novelty points with the opposite sex in the future. Or maybe they can just give you one of their brain implants to quickly bring you up to speed like in the Matrix.

          And if you will remember from the same movie, Red went from "Hope is a dangerous th

    • Nailed it in one. Quack science is for quacks, and no amount of explaining why it's quackery will convince them otherwise.
    • There are a few SF books that use long-term "storage" as punishment for the criminal, and they have it right.

      Maybe they just really enjoy Taco Bell.
    • by Valdrax ( 32670 )

      Two is really the biggest problem. Unless you've done something historically exceptional or somehow racked away money in some sort of structure that won't be immediately raided by your successors, then no one will be interested except maybe some curiosity seekers or people who just want to prove after all this time that it can be done (and is now available for sale to the general public).

      As for three, I would eagerly embrace the chance to see a new world with new advances in science and the arts. It would

    • Second, why would anybody want to revive some corpses at huge expense when making a few children more is so much easier?

      On an impersonal level, they'd do it from curiosity, love of 'impossible' challenges, the urge to use a particular related talent in a new/interesting way, a drive to become famous, greed. On the more personal level, they'd be acting on the wish to preserve/'save' somebody that they already know, care about, and/or admire, whether the individual was "great" in society's eyes or just in the eyes of others around them.

      Also, you'd evidently be surprised how many people have those urges so strongly that it replaces/overrides any interest they may have had in reproducing, regardless of how they feel about children in general; in rare cases, it's so powerful that it takes the place of the drives to find a long-term mate and/or have sex. As I once saw one such person remark: why on Earth would I cast aside someone that has already proven to be an asset to others' lives in favor of spending my time/energy gambling on the crappy odds of producing an individual that, with 20+ years of massive effort & money, *might* turn out to be remotely as worthy?

    • Forgot to close the quote tag...trying again:

      Second, why would anybody want to revive some corpses at huge expense when making a few children more is so much easier?

      On an impersonal level, they'd do it from curiosity, love of 'impossible' challenges, the urge to use a particular related talent in a new/interesting way, a drive to become famous, greed. On the more personal level, they'd be acting on the wish to preserve/'save' somebody that they already know, care about, and/or admire, whether the individual was "great" in society's eyes or just in the eyes of others around them.

      Also, you'd evidently be surprised how many peo

    • And third, why would anybody reasonably want to be unfrozen, when the world is massively changed and everybody they knew and cared about is gone? There are a few SF books that use long-term "storage" as punishment for the criminal, and they have it right.

      What a sickeningly xenophobic statement. Some people enjoy learning about new cultures, such as a westerner spending time in China or Japan. How would this be any different? I find the prospect exciting!

      That said, this is a blatant rip off on par with the scientologists. So I guess I'll pass.

    • Second, why would anybody want to revive some corpses at huge expense when making a few children more is so much easier?

      Why would we assume it is going to be expensive forever? Presumably technology could make such a thing possible and eventually inexpensive.

      Or why would anybody go through the effort of reviving anybody, when the world is over-populated in the first place?

      Why do we need to be revived into bodies that take up the same amount of space and resources? Why would it still be the case that we are stuck on earth?

      And third, why would anybody reasonably want to be unfrozen, when the world is massively changed and everybody they knew and cared about is gone?

      Why would anybody want to exist? It's part of our programming as products of evolution. Even if everyone I knew was gone, I'd still enjoy being alive, especially if I got to see what the future was like. It's not lik

    • Morality? The first few that are unfrozen will insist on a matter of principal that the remainder be revived. Besides, isn't it more ethical to resume an existing life than create a fresh one?

      Or you could use the pragmatic argument that there probably won't be many people frozen. And the handful who are will have very valuable historical knowledge and insight (imagine talking to someone from the 1800s).

  • I'm not seeing an advantage here. If I wake up in an age with a lobster, cyclops, rastafarian bureaucrat and obnoxious robot, I might be inclined to exclaim, "Excellent news everyone!"

    • I'm not seeing an advantage here. If I wake up in an age with a lobster, cyclops, rastafarian bureaucrat and obnoxious robot, I might be inclined to exclaim, "Excellent news everyone!"

      More likely you'll wake up to find you're now Holly, as that process is a tad cheaper than full biological revival.

  • by dtmos ( 447842 ) * on Monday August 19, 2013 @03:42PM (#44611227)

    Ted Williams [wikipedia.org] would roll over in his freezer if he read this. At least, his head would. . . .

  • ...where things are spoiled before they get preserved.
  • by ad454 ( 325846 ) on Monday August 19, 2013 @03:55PM (#44611379) Journal

    Permanent brain damage starts within 5 minutes of not receiving red blood cells with oxygen. So you would have to be frozen before then, and in such a way as to prevent ice crystalization from permanently damaging cells, which is not done with current cryogenic techniques. Otherwise you would lose so much of your personality, intellect, memories, and consciousness from brain damage, that even if they could regenerate all of that grey matter in the future, your brain would no longer be you, but would be someone else. (So what is the point?)

    Aside from that, no matter how cheap it is to freeze someone, it's is likely going to cost a lot more to revive someone who is frozen, and regenerate their body into a functional state. How many people looking at cryogenics are budgeting for revival costs? Maybe they hope the future will be some socialist utopia, which is funny considering the global tend for wealth concentration and reduction of public services, including healthcare for the living.

    • by nbauman ( 624611 )

      Still, they've got a clever answer: given infinite time, we can solve that problem.

      Conveniently, they won't be around in infinite to be accountable if it doesn't work.

    • by Twinbee ( 767046 )
      That's always been the argument that's put me off cryonics. If you were to say, have a heart attack and faint, would 5 minutes still apply? Does that 5 minutes apply as soon as breathing stops basically?

      Have people been resuscitated after say, 30 mins or even an hour, and managed to have their brain functions relatively intact?
      • by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Monday August 19, 2013 @06:58PM (#44612973) Journal

        Have people been resuscitated after say, 30 mins or even an hour, and managed to have their brain functions relatively intact?

        Absolutely. Look up "Mammalian Diving Reflex".

        Brain damage from short-term clinical death happens primarily after revival. The valves routing blood to the parts of the brain that need it stick in the state they were in when the oxygen finally failed.

        Muscles contract with stored energy and require metabolism to relax. "Valve off" is contracted, so when blood flow and oxygen is restored, the valves for regions of the brain that were turned down don't get oxygen and can't reopen - and without the blood flow they can't get oxygen, in a viscous circle. Raising the blood pressure to try to force them just blows the vessels, causing a stroke. The
        nerves die over a half hour to an hour (and kill each other off through glutamate cascade, as dying nerves release glutamate that causes others to fire, deplete their remaining energy reserves, and die in turn.

        Mammals, though, have a reflex related to deep diving. When diving deep, the increased pressure increases the partial pressure of oxygen, keeping things running until most of the oxygen is used up. Then coming back back up lowers the pressure further and can leaver the brain oxygen starved for long enough to produce the "valves stuck" phenomenon. To prevent this, mammals have the following reflex: When oxygen is running out AND the body (I think it's the back of the neck) is cold, the valves all open up, so any that get stuck are in the open position. Once oxygen is restored the blood flows, the nerves survive, the muscle gets repowered, and all is well - if thing hadn't been shut down long enough that too many cells died meanwhile.

        This was discovered when some victims of drowning in cold water recovered just fine, with no brain damage, after half an hour or more of clinical death. I think the time before damage sets in is something between 25 and 45 minutes.

        I don't know how CI's current protocols work. But ALCOR's are designed to include activating the diving reflex, if possible, so the brain's valves stick in the open position.

        (This is more to encourage better perfusion of cryoprotectants than to try to make the brain restartable: As of the last time I looked the thought was that brains preserved - even by the best techniques available at the time - would require rebuilding by nanotechnology, so the idea was to preserve as much as possible of whatever might encode memory and personality.)

        • When oxygen is running out AND the body (I think it's the back of the neck) is cold,

          Face is cold. (Specifically, regions innervated by the Trigeminal nerve.) No other region triggers the reflex.

          (It does other things besides the valve thing, too.)

    • by quax ( 19371 )

      The five minute meme is a common misconception. [huffingtonpost.com]

      From the linked article:

      "Contrary to common perception, brain and other cells in the body can live for many hours after a person dies. There are different estimates on how long cells can survive without a blood supply and oxygen after death: bone cells for four days, skin cells for 24 hours. Although the oxygen and energy supply to brain cells is depleted within four to five minutes, brain cells remain viable but non-functioning for up to eight hours."

  • Let me pull out a rhetorical stick I've been beaten with more than once: "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof."

    Show me the evidence that ressurecting a dead organism of any kind -- even a bacterium, even a plant -- will ever be possible. *Ever.*

    (crickets chirp ...)

    • by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Monday August 19, 2013 @04:27PM (#44611731) Journal
      How 'dead' do you want the organism to be?

      Plenty of organisms can survive nontrivial periods of complete metabolic shutdown, combined with some amount of cellular damage, and rehydrate and go on without significant trouble. Tardigrades are probably the most charismatic ones (survives 10 days of unprotected exposure to spaceflight and looks like an adorable little alien bear!); but extremophilic bacteria are even tougher.

      Even humans will (with odds lousy enough that you don't want to try it; but good enough that documentation is available) survive short periods of total circulatory shutdown or longer ones of inactivity in very cold water.

      'Resurrection' of an organism in a more advanced state of damage (or an organism for which precise brain configuration is considered important) is likely more fundamentally problematic. Even if you had indistinguishable-from-magic nanobots and the option to rebuild atom by atom, if you don't have somebody's 'correct' neural state on file, there are any number of configurations that would work; but wouldn't be the person you are trying to revive.
      • The last point is arguable. The nanorobotics would be permanent nanoscale fixtures built into a large machine, they would not wander around freely like in science fiction. Given that micromachined parts work today (a common example is the mirror array in certain kinds of projectors), nanomachined parts seem probable in the future.

        Furthermore, your brain has an awful lot of redundant circuits and connections. If you were rebuilt atom by atom, it is possible that the person revived would be "close enough"

    • by cusco ( 717999 )
      There are a dozen or more species of frogs which can freeze solid in the winter, which is about as dead as dead can be, only to thaw out and revive in the spring. Seventy percent of the water in their body turns to ice, and yet a few months later the frogcicle is merrily eating your crickets.
  • Or you'll like what you fine when you thaw out? Corpsicles in Sci Fi [jessesword.com]

    I specifically remember reading Larry Niven's "Rammer."

    Cheers,
    Dave

  • That book might give you an idea why cryonics might not be a good idea. Even if it works.
  • I put a fly in the freezer for a week, let it unfreeze on the table at room temperature after that. After an hour or two, it flew away.

    The weird thing is, a week later I received a job offer from Veridian Dynamics.

  • Turn your preservation into a local tourist attraction and party: Frozen [frozendeadguydays.org] Dead [wikipedia.org] Guy [frozendeadguy.com] Days [nederlandchamber.org].

    Cheers,
    Dave

  • Please people, I mean... really. We've heard this crap before, we know it doesn't work. So, just stop. Really. These people are snakeoil salesmen, parasites. Yeeesh.
  • Hmm, I'd rather not be the frozen corpse they try to resurrect for grins long after sentient immortality is achieved, instead just scan me in [youtube.com] and utilize me as a blueprint now. [wired.com]

    I mean, I'm a hacker and researcher of cybernetics and neuroscience, so folks like me would be the best canditades since we could help you wake us up from the inside if we catch a glimmer of awareness. That is: We could escape the "Chinese Box" if we found ourselves in it. I've got so many things to do, but not enough life-span t

  • Doesn't the freezing process done by modern cryogenics still destroy the body quite considerably? I was under the impression the idea of reviving you would not only be curing your initial reason for death but also repairing all the damage the ice crystals that formed caused to your body, which would almost mean giving you a whole new body.

    Will we ever reach a position medically where that much damage can be repaired?

  • by tsa ( 15680 )

    I clicked on all the links but I didn't find the bloody video. Where is it?

  • by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Monday August 19, 2013 @06:29PM (#44612723) Homepage Journal
    No I don't. The quest for immortality has been around for thousands of years. Kings build pyramids for it. Alchemists sought after it. Exploration of the New World was often fueled by the quest for the fountain of youth. In the end all those people died. As will I, and as will you. Accepting your mortality is part of growing up. Shedding your fear of death enables you to really live! You can spend your entire life in fear of that moment and scheming for ways to avoid it, or you can embrace it and laugh in Death's face when he finally gets you. Either way you're going to end up in the same place in the end. Yes, even if you freeze yourself (And I can make that statement with near-absolute certainty that it is correct, much as I can state with near absolute certainty that any reader of this post will never win a lottery jackpot.)
  • How many times must people be told, when the cells are frozen, they are destroyed by ice crystals. Ask any chef (Ramsey says it constantly and can tell by taste).

    It's a scam.
  • A bunch of Walt Disney wannabes. It still amazes me that people actually believe that this kind of technology holds any promise unless your trying to create zombie armies of the undead.

"If you want to eat hippopatomus, you've got to pay the freight." -- attributed to an IBM guy, about why IBM software uses so much memory

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