Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!cup.portal.com!mmm
From: mmm@cup.portal.COM (Mark Robert Thorson)
Newsgroups: sci.nanotech
Subject: Whole-Body Frostbite:  Can It Be Cured?
Message-ID: <8905310354.AA19574@athos.rutgers.edu>
Date: 26 May 89 04:28:12 GMT
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I see two problems with cryonics.  I've mentioned the first one before,
the fact that the electrical state of your brain will be destroyed by
freezing.  This should be an experience similar to shock therapy;  expect
memory loss and personality changes.

The other is radiation.  If you're frozen for 50 years, your body will
absorb 50 years of background radiation.  Because your DNA repair enzymes
will be inoperative during that time, it will be like being hit with a
big flash of radiation.

Now, I can just hear the cryo-advocates saying, "If you aren't frozen,
you're for sure dead, but if you're frozen at least you've got a chance!"
Oh really?  What about the rights of the living?  What impact will it have
on society to allow billions of dollars of personal wealth to be tied up in
the estates of people who expect to come back?  Worse yet, what if these
people DO come back, but in damaged form?  Can you imagine what it would be
like if the largest sector of private capital is held by doddering idiots
with major brain damage and radiation sickness?  Things are bad enough with
the capital markets controlled by the doddering idiots in the insurance
companies, S&L's, and mutual funds.

[I think I detect a misconception here.  The majority of people being 
 frozen now, I believe, are kept as heads only; they are relying on a
 technology capable of reconstructing their entire bodies (from DNA).
 
 Currently, the estates of cryonically preserved people are executed
 just like other legally dead persons.  However, if they were kept in
 trust, it would in general be *better* for society, since except for
 real estate, it would be equivalent to savings, and would form badly
 needed capital for society.

 --JoSH]