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Comment by wdh505 | Hacker News Reader

I'm having visions of old people freezing their bodies and inducing "dormancy" so they can wake up when the world is a better place. I would invest in that company.

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The real trick is being somebody that a future generation will go to the trouble of defrosting.

That's a fool's errand. The trick is to make sure your body is continually controlled by some kind of computer that will wake you up when a set of conditions is met, so you don't need to rely on future humans. You also need to make sure your cryopod is stored someplace where troublemakers won't find it and turn it off.

The best thing I can think of is putting your cryopod in a lava tube on the Moon, powered by a small nuclear reactor or maybe a large RTG.

"The best thing I can think of is putting your cryopod in a lava tube on the Moon, powered by a small nuclear reactor or maybe a large RTG."

And then hope nothing critically fails for centuries ...

Unless we have perfectionized robots by the time you go into the cryopod, you might as well bet on humans. And if we "perfectionized robots", that do not fail all the time, we already would have a very different world.

You could have multiple failsafes, and after a part of them fail, you dehibernate automatically. We have systems that work well with such approach - planes being the most notable example - multiple redundancies, and when sth critical fails, you land asap. Works most of the time.

And then you wake up on the moon in a lava tube too early with a partly failing system and hope that everything else still somewhat works? With current technology level I definitely would rather bet on humans.

Looking at current human society, I don't think that's a very good bet.

If you wake up too early in a lava tube on the Moon, you then use the tools and spare parts you hopefully were smart enough to pack and repair your cryo-pod and then go back to sleep.

> you dehibernate automatically

You what now? :) I think you watched too many scifies and started to believe that the plot devices are reality. “Hybernation” is a thing in movies because the writers wanted to write stories involving humans and long space travel. It is not a working technology in reality. It might become one day, but your RTG powered cocoon is not going to invent and perfect it for you while you are asleep.

Robots? We're talking about cryopods here, not something that needs a robot where you need to operate accurately in 3D space. It just needs an electronic control system to monitor conditions and control some machinery, similar to a washing machine or microwave oven.

We already know how to make redundant computer control systems, like for aircraft. It's not that hard. They don't "fail all the time" either. Sure, your crappy Windows computer does, but no one with a brain uses that for anything safety-critical.

And you would trust that thing "similar to a washing machine" to run perfectly well for centuries?

And not that hard? Are you aware of Murphy's law?

Basically, give anything enough time and all the possible things that can go wrong, will go wrong. So your windows powered cyopod breaks after 1 year at most. And your embedded tiny verified OS manages 100 years, hurrey. But dead is dead.

You wake up in the middle of the moon and then what?

If we found a crypt of a hundred well-preserved mummies from a few thousand years ago who for all we could tell were basically peasants in their lifetimes, not grand or interesting people, and we had the ability to revive them into the modern world, I still think we would. The "interest" factor of future generations reviving cryonics customers when it's possible to do so is like the weakest factor in trying to predict whether cryonics will work at all.

Because one crypt and some humans would be a curiosity. But a cluster of crypts containing thousands or even millions of those old weird people who will be likely just a burden to a way more advanced society? I am sceptical.

That's probably a motivating factor for defrosting your first few hundred/thousand mummies, but would the "interest" factor still be there for the millionth mummy?

I think it would. No, probably not the highest priority for the society doing it, but something that would continue along regardless. A quick google tells me that over 11,000 dinosaur fossils have been found so far, people still seem interested in finding more. But there are other reasons besides direct interest of the present society, especially at that scale. A few: interest of those having been revived now wanting to revive their waiting friends/family/time-mates, humanitarian reasons (Europe alone has absorbed millions of refugees in the last several years), and, turning a little from pure thought experiment of mummies to currently frozen people, potential contractual reasons. (Though notably Alcor only has a couple hundred frozen corpses/brains, and less than a couple thousand members signed up for the procedure.)

> were basically peasants in their lifetimes, not grand or interesting people

What are you saying - the lives of ordinary people are the holy grail in archaeology and history as they are more difficult to investigate and construct. A king's remains and belongings tell you little about the actual society.

We're not talking about remains and belongings, we're talking about people. Bringing back a king, who was likely literate and learned, would be more valuable to me than a random peasant or slave, though I'd still want to bring them back too. I'd also have someone like Archimedes over a king. But anyway, it sounds like you don't disagree that there'd be plenty of motivation to bring even the peasants back.

(You're probably familiar with the book Montaillou? For passersby, it's a neat insight into the minds of ordinary people from hundreds of years ago.)

> Bringing back a king, who was likely literate and learned

A king would know about his society as much as how much do the Ivy League educated, WASP US presidents would know about the actual US society.

Large groups of people in society already hate immigrants. What makes you think they would welcome useless old and sick people from long ago? They're like immigrants, but worse!

Face reality: when you've been on ice long enough that your friends and immediate family are dead, nobody wants you anymore. You will never be defrosted, and if you're lucky at some point your remains will be given a burial. It's more likely you'll be unceremoniously cremated like medical waste.

The real trick is the world being a better place.

I mean, it's been going on for over fifty years[0].

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcor_Life_Extension_Foundatio...

If too many not so old people would use it, the effects might be not great:

https://xkcd.com/989/

I have a feeling most people rushing to be first in line to freeze themselves for non-terminal-illness-reasons are probably not high productivity individuals.

Possible. And the interesting question will be, why anyone would want to wake them up one day and care for them? Because they signed a contract today with a company that might go out of buisness in 10 years? Good luck to them, I guess.

It's still sci-fi I think but we're getting a bit closer. This came out the other day. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40400591

What if they wake up and the world is a worse place?

You're making a big bet that people in the far future will look at your preserved body as a resource to cherish, not one to be exploited.

I recall reading a Jack Vance novel where cannibals used cryogenic sleepers as a convenient supply of preserved food.

It won't be very useful if you're already old, more practical approach would be to freeze yourself in your youth until they find a way to stop ageing.

You could unfreeze yourself when they figure out how to reverse aging.

How does one unfreeze oneself

Very slowly, to avoid the crystals forming suddenly.

I think microwave is the answer. Though you may end up with a cold heart.

Reversing maybe harder than slowing and you would have to wait longer.

What does science say? I strongly believe what freezes the body will (not just figuratively) pull the plug on the brain.

You don't need to freeze yourself, you just have children, that is how life goes on.

That's completely different?

sadly not as much as you think. if you have siblings with children and they get older hang out with them. the similarities will worry you

Part of life, yes. Just not the part we care about.

Just ask any parent who had worthless kids how well that works out in practice. Sure, you might get lucky and have good kids, but lots of parents don't, and it's not always their fault.

Their kids might be really nice?

Sure, they might be. But they also might not be. The odds really aren't that great, from what I've seen in my life.

Imagine you had an opportunity to make an investment. The performance odds of this investment are: 1) a 10% change of making 10 times your money, 2) a 60% chance of doubling your money, and 3) a 30% chance of losing ALL your money (not just the investment amount, but going completely bankrupt) and having your life completely ruined. Would you take that investment?

Of course these numbers are made up, but from what I've seen in life, it's probably not that far off: there's a non-zero, and fairly significant chance, of having a really awful kid that really screws up your life. If you're highly risk-averse, it's understandable I think why you might want to pass. Remember, estimates for sociopathy in the general population are 5-10%.

I think any parent who thinks of their child as "worthless" has got to be at least partially at fault for whatever pathologies follow from that kind of attitude.

My concern is more with my life, not life itself.

Well, it's not a permanent thing apparently.

I'd short it.

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