Terminally ill British girl wins right to freeze her body

I think resorting to the last practical solution to your medical situation is a perfectly sensible move if you can afford it. Why on earth should you just give up and let your body rot? There is a very good chance that it won't work: maybe the freezing will do too much damage; maybe your body will be dumped in ten years; maybe they'll never bother trying to fix you - but for me, the idea of waking up three hundred years from now and getting to try a new life in an advanced society is fantastic, especially compared to the alternative.

Vast institutions have survived millennia because of people shaking beads, talking to themselves, and expecting to go to magic rainbow land after their brain rots. As much as the odds are against such a wager, at least it is still grounded in the real world and what might later be physically possible, rather than delusional nonsense.

The amount of people in this thread who think of a single potential speed bump to the success of the process and off-handedly dismiss the entire idea as absurd is depressing. How many of you like to imagine granny has gone to heaven, I wonder?

I applaud this young lady and I certainly would like to shake her hand on the moon base one day

ShaShaBear wrote: »

I have two little girls. After demanding that health professionals take any and all parts of me that might give either of them a glimmer of hope for the future, I would move mountains and tell them whatever they needed to hear for a peaceful passing - nomatter how impossible or untrue it was. I don't care how long I'd have to live with that lie because at least I'd get to live.
My dad's full funeral expenses weren't too far off the price this girl's family paid. To fork out a bit extra on what we had to pay anyway to maybe have him walk me up the aisle two months ago or get to meet his grandchildren... well let's just say I wouldn't have to be asked twice.

Would you not have considered having him cryogenically frozen, because by the time they have the ability to thaw out and reboot frozen heads, its hardly going to matter if the head came from a young cancer sufferer or someone who died of any of the normal age related diseases.

Phoebas wrote: »

Would you not have considered having him cryogenically frozen, because by the time they have the ability to thaw out and reboot frozen heads, its hardly going to matter if the head came from a young cancer sufferer or someone who died of any of the normal age related diseases.

It wasn't something that occured to us, but given he died of massive brain hemorrhages (plural), I don't think it would have been very successful Nevertheless, with the minute difference in costs between funerals and being frozen, I can understand why people would consider it. As someone said earlier, worst case scenario its another way to dispose of a body as per dying person's wishes. Coming from someone with a hugely scientific background and being a huge skeptic, I feel much differently about her choices and mother's determination to see her daughter's wishes fulfilled than I might have done 7 years ago when I hadn't lost anyone important to me or had kids.

Phoebas wrote: »

Worst case scenario is that you remain in a weird bereavement process ad infinitum, where your loved one is neither alive or dead, and then when the cryogenics company put the charges up or you reach the end of the contract, you feel obliged to keep paying because otherwise you are 'killing' your loved one for the sake of an additional few thousand dollars.

I'd have serious reservations about these companies who are selling technology which is nowhere near ready for primetime to people who are at their most vulnerable.

There is no on-going fee for someone who is stored already; the dead owe you nothing. You pay a flat fee up front upon death, and I believe there are dues while you are alive, and that fee plus accumulated interest is all that is needed to maintain the body in perpetuity. It is a very robust and low-tech system: they just top up the container with a tiny bit of liquid nitrogen now and then.

I don't understand why people are so happy to assume the worst and just act as though their assumptions are fact. Do some reading, there is no profiteering taking place here. These foundations are run by idealists, futurists, and humanists.

Zillah wrote: »

There is no on-going fee for someone who is stored already; the dead owe you nothing. You pay a flat fee up front upon death, and I believe there are dues while you are alive, and that fee plus accumulated interest is all that is needed to maintain the body in perpetuity. It is a very robust and low-tech system: they just top up the container with a tiny bit of liquid nitrogen now and then.

I don't understand why people are so happy to assume the worst and just act as though their assumptions are fact. Do some reading, there is no profiteering taking place here. These foundations are run by idealists, futurists, and humanists.

I have read the website of the facility this 14 year old has gone to and they mention a number of additional fees on top of heat the call their 'minimum fee'. We can assume that the reported 37k that has been paid covers the freezing procedure and storage, but it isn't at all clear how long freezing is guaranteed for.
If the technology to revive her isn't available for 2,000 years, will the company pick up the tab for keeping her frozen until then, and if so, what financial mechanisms have they put in place to ensure this? These questions aren't answered.

As I've said before, I don't doubt their good motives, but they are selling vapourware here, so I'd be very sceptical about their ability to follow through on delivering anything they are selling.