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If anybody wonders why this is currently downvoted it might be because it shows a huge lack of understanding of the real issues here. Let me mention a couple:

If anybody wonders why this is currently downvoted it might be because it shows a huge lack of understanding of the real issues here. Let me mention a couple: Who decides people living now are more worthy of living than future generations? Who decides who will live forever?

Smaug123 9y ago
There's not necessarily a "who is more worthy of living" judgment here. Future generations are free to turn off the cooling mechanisms which suspend the bodies or heads of the dying, if they deem it important to have the resources now. In the meantime, it doesn't take that many resources to suspend a head; and the burden would become less if suspension became common enough practice that the "extremely expensive, will either fail or make the rest of your life a hell" procedures were phased out and those resources freed up. The problem I have with your sentences is that they prove too much. They can easily be read, for instance, as advocating that it might be worth abandoning medical science.
wdrw 9y ago
Surely a future generation which has the means to resuscitate cryogenically-preserved individuals, has the capability to decide whether to do it or not? "Who decides" - surely the generation of would-be resuscitators decides, how can it be otherwise? As to whether "people living now are more worthy of living than future generations" - why does it have to be an either-or proposition? I think you may be assuming that overpopulation is a permanent problem, but I think that this is far from certain in the very-long-term...
rayalez 9y ago
1. Every life is precious, everything that thinks and knows itself and doesn’t want to die. 2. Everyone we can save.
JoshTriplett 9y ago
> Who decides people living now are more worthy of living than future generations? That's not an either-or, it's a false dichotomy. > Who decides who will live forever? Once we have the technology, who is going to try murdering people by trying to make them not live forever? The very obvious answer for "who should live forever" is everyone.

Smaug123 9y ago

There's not necessarily a "who is more worthy of living" judgment here. Future generations are free to turn off the cooling mechanisms which suspend the bodies or heads of the dying, if they deem it important to have the resources now. In the meantime, it doesn't take that many resources to suspend a head; and the burden would become less if suspension became common enough practice that the "extremely expensive, will either fail or make the rest of your life a hell" procedures were phased out and those resources freed up. The problem I have with your sentences is that they prove too much. They can easily be read, for instance, as advocating that it might be worth abandoning medical science.

wdrw 9y ago

Surely a future generation which has the means to resuscitate cryogenically-preserved individuals, has the capability to decide whether to do it or not? "Who decides" - surely the generation of would-be resuscitators decides, how can it be otherwise? As to whether "people living now are more worthy of living than future generations" - why does it have to be an either-or proposition? I think you may be assuming that overpopulation is a permanent problem, but I think that this is far from certain in the very-long-term...

rayalez 9y ago

1. Every life is precious, everything that thinks and knows itself and doesn’t want to die. 2. Everyone we can save.

JoshTriplett 9y ago

> Who decides people living now are more worthy of living than future generations? That's not an either-or, it's a false dichotomy. > Who decides who will live forever? Once we have the technology, who is going to try murdering people by trying to make them not live forever? The very obvious answer for "who should live forever" is everyone.