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Comment by brey | Hacker News Reader

It sounds from the language used ("he did not want his vital functions supported any further but should be allowed to cease functioning and promptly be cryopreserved") that he didn't regard this moment as death at all - merely pausing his life until a) ALS is curable and b) we have the technology to reawaken cryopreserved people.

To him, all that was worth announcing here is the cryopreservation.

Who's to say he's wrong?

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Personally, I think cryonics is a pipe dream right now. But I completely respect and empathize with the wishes of Hal Finney to put hope into a future life, possibly without the burden of ALS that he was forced to deal with for a significant portion of his life.

If he had the means to do it, and it gave him something while he was still alive, than I would say it was worth it to him.

You're probably right, but I just thought about it from the point of view of someone dying from a (currently) incurable illness.

On one hand, you can die, and that will probably be it for you.

On the other hand, you can become cryogenically preserved. In that case, there are two outcomes I can see. One, you're never revived (which is functionally equivalent to death). The other, you awake (in what feels like an instant) in a world where you can continue living. That certainly makes it seem tempting for me.

another possibility is you wake up, disembodied, in a jar and live an eternal life of torment.

I hope if civilisation has got to the point of reviving the long dead that they'd have better uses for the revived than tormenting them.

For the downvoters: I think pron is referring tongue-and-cheek to Futurama, not a literal torture. :)

It seems strange to me to place him into "cold storage" after he was completely ravaged by ALS and had died. Wouldn't there be more hope for a recovery if he had been placed into a frozen state before his physical form had died? No doubt a dicey area of law but surely a treatment for ALS will be reached for those still living before we discover a treatment of ALS for those who are already terminal.

The hardest part of that equation still remains revival from the cryo-preserved state, not treating the ALS.

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