Techies On Ice: The Coming Age of Cryonics

Frozen dinner writes: "SiliconValley.com is running a great article about technology workers' fascination with cryonics. From the article: "[the] otherworldly possibility of life after death [tantalizes] techies of all stripes -- mathematicians, physicists, software developers, computer programmers -- who make up a vast majority of those who have signed up for cryonics suspension. The family feud over deep-freezing baseball slugger Ted Williams has only intensified interest in cryonics in Silicon Valley and in the greater Bay Area, already a hotbed for the experimental and controversial process.""

Comments

The bit I don't understand:

[Skyshadow]

So let's pretend that a century from now they come up with a technique for reanimating people and repairing the damage done by disease, death and freezing.

What possible motivation would any future society have to thaw these people out? Why would we need more people, especially those who can't accept their own mortality?

Sure, you'd thaw out one or two just to show you could, and you'd probably thaw out the interesting people like Walt Disney. Hey, you might even pull a person or two out of the fridge every so often to do historical research (wouldn't that be great -- you wake up in a room with a history grad student who asks you to explain why your generation felt it necessary to fuck the planet seven ways 'till Sunday and leave it for later generations to clean up).

Getting back to my original point, I don't see how this sort of thing would ever effect more than a few tens of people over a long timeline. Simply put: the future doesn't want you.

Personally, I believe that the cycle of life is the only thing that drives social and technological evolution. The greatest mistake we could make as a species would be to short-circuit this cycle for the sake of our own greedy, short-sighted interests.