[HN Gopher] Cryostasis Revival
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Cryostasis Revival
Author : abecedarius
Score : 26 points
Date : 2024-02-12 17:25 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.alcor.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.alcor.org)
| chasil wrote:
| Have there been any new developments since the rabbit kidney?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryopreservation#Vitrification
|
| "Mixtures of cryoprotectants and the use of ice blockers have
| enabled the 21st Century Medicine company to vitrify a rabbit
| kidney to -135 degC with their proprietary vitrification mixture.
| Upon rewarming, the kidney was transplanted successfully into a
| rabbit, with complete functionality and viability, able to
| sustain the rabbit indefinitely as the sole functioning kidney."
|
| EDIT: I will pull the PDF for the book later today.
| porejide wrote:
| Here is a timeline of developments in the space over time,
| created by Mati Roy:
| https://timelines.issarice.com/wiki/Timeline_of_brain_preser...
| jdc0589 wrote:
| > revival from human cryopreservation, using medical nanorobots.
|
| lets just hope that every scifi franchise got the eventuality of
| this tech wrong....
| riffic wrote:
| welcome to the world of tomorrow!
| api wrote:
| Medical nanorobots still seem incredibly hand-wavey. I'd stop
| laughing if I saw one good example of this technology such as a
| tumor being successfully neutralized with nanorobotics. That'd be
| the obvious place to start since you're just destroying cancerous
| cells not repairing or constructing anything.
| Animats wrote:
| Yes. I knew Eric Drexler when he was touting nanotechnology, in
| the form of atomic-scale programmable robots. There's been very
| little progress on that in the last twenty years.
| Microtechnology, mechanical things made with IC fab technology,
| has made some progress. But that's several orders of magnitude
| larger than atoms.
|
| What's called "nanotechnology" today is mostly surface
| chemistry.
| nottorp wrote:
| I thought it was about a remake or something for this game:
|
| https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/cryostasis-review
|
| So I clicked :)
| krunck wrote:
| Lots of freezer burnt bodies out there. And a few very wealthy
| people.
|
| How do you keep a cryostasis business honest when you - the
| customer - are dead and there is no profitable reason to keep you
| from becoming like that loose frozen hamburger at the bottom of
| my freezer?
| porejide wrote:
| > freezer burnt
|
| Freezer burn occurs when moisture escapes from frozen
| biospecimens due to slow freezing and temperature fluctuations.
| It's not an issue during storage in liquid nitrogen, which
| causes much faster freezing and has a much colder storage
| temperature level.
|
| > And a few very wealthy people
|
| Cryonics is not only accessible to the very wealthy. There are
| options available that are equal or less expensive than an
| average funeral.
|
| > How do you keep a cryostasis business honest when you - the
| customer - are dead and there is no profitable reason to keep
| you from becoming like that loose frozen hamburger at the
| bottom of my freezer
|
| 1: The companies are non-profits so profit is irrelevant. 2:
| You look at their long-term reputation which is important for
| them to get new clients. This is why Alcor has been around for
| 50 years without thawing a single one of their patients.
| tln wrote:
| So... how long have you worked for Alcor?
| porejide wrote:
| I don't work for Alcor, never have, and I have no financial
| relationship with them.
|
| More importantly, what makes you ask that? Are you
| attempting to imply that my statements are factually
| incorrect?
| mass_and_energy wrote:
| Is there a fallacy or lie in the parent comment you'd like
| to expand on, or are you just assuming OP is a shill?
| Because these are basic facts that apply to any cryonics
| company so I'm confused as to where your accusation is
| coming from.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > The companies are non-profits so profit is irrelevant
|
| They still need to be able to keep the fridges on.
|
| > This is why Alcor has been around for 50 years without
| thawing a single one of their patients.
|
| Which means "without proving they can actually deliver what
| clients expect".
| TheBlight wrote:
| My biggest concern with this idea is not having control over who
| wakes you up and how. Who knows who eventually owns/operates
| Alcor? What if their interests become misaligned wrt customers?
|
| As one hypothetical example, imagine Meta buys Alcor. Maybe their
| lawyers work it out that importing customer consciousness into
| the metaverse is legal and fulfills the contract. But when this
| happens the metaverse has safeguards that don't allow you to kill
| anyone including yourself. And now your consciousness is in the
| metaverse for an effective eternity. Maybe that sounds nice to
| you but maybe the thought makes you a bit uncomfortable as it
| does for me.
| porejide wrote:
| > Who knows who eventually owns/operates Alcor?
|
| Anyone who looks them up online can find this information
| easily. It is required to be public since they are a 501(c)(3)
| non-profit. Here are their current board of directors:
| https://www.alcor.org/library/alcor-board-of-directors/
|
| > What if their interests become misaligned wrt customers?
|
| Anything is possible but this seems extremely unlikely given
| their governing structure and requirements for being on the
| board of directors. Alcor has been criticized in the past
| because they fall very far in favor of protecting their
| existing patients in cryopreservation rather than making
| accommodations for prospective patients, leading to them
| turning away prospective patients for a variety of reasons.
|
| From: https://www.alcor.org/library/alcors-self-perpetuating-
| board...
|
| > A fundamental rationale for selecting the self perpetuating
| Board structure was its ability to provide continuity of
| purpose over a long period of time. Existing Board members
| select those new Board members who they believe are best able
| to preserve Alcor's core values and carry out its mission. All
| Board members are required by Alcor Bylaws to be Alcor members.
| While not required by the Bylaws, we also find that Alcor Board
| members are cryonicists of long standing and are well known
| within the cryonics community. By tradition, new Board members
| are usually sought from the ranks of Alcor Advisors, although
| the Board can and has selected Board Members who have not been
| Advisors. Board members have a strong incentive to choose
| carefully because the success of Alcor and the survival of our
| members -- including our Board members -- is heavily dependent
| on the abilities and character of future Boards of Directors.
|
| BTW, I'm not a shill for Alcor. I think some aspects of their
| operations are worthy of criticism. But this is not one of
| them. If you disagree, feel free to state why, but I would
| recommend at least learning the basics about them before doing
| so.
| TheBlight wrote:
| >Anyone who looks them up online can find this information
| easily.
|
| The specific concern is about who operates it _eventually_
| (perhaps centuries from now.) I can look up who is on their
| current board and what their governance structure happens to
| be now but it isn't relevant to my hypothetical concern. Lots
| can happen in relatively short periods of time and the well-
| meaning intent behind their current governance structure can
| surely always be subverted by sufficiently incentivized and
| devious humans. I also don't mean this as a specific critique
| of Alcor. My concern is about the general concept of "freeze-
| now and wake-in-100s-of-years."
| Terr_ wrote:
| I think the legal issues start occurring even sooner than that.
| If the person is dead, they can't enter into contracts, and the
| US has a rule against perpetuities, so at some point it's not
| clear exactly who can keep the company from during away all
| their biological samples.
|
| If the person is not dead, then at what point have they
| effectively been kidnapped if the company chooses not to revive
| them? (Maybe someone says the technology is ready, maybe
| someone else disagrees.)
| sneak wrote:
| Copies of your consciousness aren't you.
| rbanffy wrote:
| I would be very sad for them, but, then, if my brain is
| vitrified, I am past the ability of feeling sorry for anyone.
| TheBlight wrote:
| You're making assumptions about the nature of this
| hypothetical future consciousness transfer system.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > not having control over who wakes you up and how.
|
| I wouldn't worry about that at all. The odds of someone waking
| you up from cryostasis are very low.
| cjohnson318 wrote:
| The probability of waking up is low, but it still represents
| 50% of all possible outcomes at that point.
| NBJack wrote:
| This is actually the first act plot for We Are Legion (We Are
| Bob). Turns out cryo preserved brains are a decent starting
| point for subservient AI smart enough to perform tasks. A fun
| read, but a serious possibility.
| sneak wrote:
| Reminder: sign up for cryopreservation _before_ your terminal
| diagnosis, while you are still healthy (ie NOW)! It is funded by
| a life insurance policy, which becomes way more expensive by the
| time you know you're going to need preservation soon.
|
| Do it now, not later. I waited too long and now there is no
| affordable life insurance available. :(
| rbanffy wrote:
| I find it a big stretch to call it a medical procedure when they
| don't have a clue as to how to revive the patient. We could call
| it "desperate measure", "Hail Mary", or something similar that
| acknowledges the odds of someone undoing the damage at some point
| in the future are vanishingly low.
| bigfryo wrote:
| Cryonics is simply the best way to carry out God's mission of
| raising the dead and defeating death, all as written in the
| Bible...
|
| See here:
|
| http://www.churchofcryonics.wordpress.com
|
| And here:
|
| http://www.youtube.com/@CryonicsChurch
| colonwqbang wrote:
| In the video game "Rimworld", humans explore space using sub-
| light spacecraft piloted by AI carrying people frozen in
| cryosleep. A trip to a different star may take thousands of
| years, and you don't necessarily know where you'll end up. Of
| course the idea has been explored in many sci-fi stories. (If
| someone knows which was the first, it would be interesting to
| know)
|
| Such technology always seemed much more reasonable than warp
| drive or other similar science fiction. I can believe that in a
| few centuries we have figured out how to revive a person from
| cryostasis.
| NBJack wrote:
| There is a lot of issues with this whole process. Never mind the
| thawing part; unless you can guarantee a timeframe, there is
| always the ongoing maintenance costs, what happens with a seismic
| event (frozen lattice + kinetic energy), scarcity of key
| components during an economic recession, and so on.
|
| Then there is the past record of, ah, interesting developments.
| https://bigthink.com/the-future/cryonics-horror-stories/
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(page generated 2024-02-13 23:01 UTC)