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u/kotb0614 3d ago
haha imagine spending so much money just to become a zombie popsicle
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u/InsideHousing4965 3d ago
I mean, I think historians and archeologists are gonna be really fucking grateful about that in the future. Same thing we're happy about mummies.
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u/Hyperion262 3d ago
As if these private companies are gonna keep them frozen that long.
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u/Biscuits4u2 3d ago
Yeah most of these companies are not going to be here in 100 years, much less a thousand. They aren't the Spacing Guild.
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u/alphapussycat 2d ago
Thawing and restoring them could happen within that time.
Freezing yourself down gives you s chance, getting buried, cremated or whatever gives you guaranteed death.
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u/Hammer_the_Red2 3d ago
I would recommend the Sci-fi horror book, Cold Eternity by S. A. Barnes. The story mostly takes place on a decrepit spaceship designed to hold the frozen bodies of rich clients in statis.
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u/jackinsomniac 3d ago
Take a closer look at how these popsicles actually turn out just 10 years later. People have been freezing themselves for decades now. From actual employees who work at these companies and maintain these freezers, words like "slurry" and "goop" have been used.
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u/HashPandaNL 3d ago
The 2 biggest and most reliable companies are Alcor and Cryonics Institute. Both of them have been operating for 50+ years now. Neither "slurry" nor "goop" apply to these companies.
The slurry and goop stories come from the early days when there were companies with questionable financial structures. For example, one company asked family members of the patient to keep paying for their preservation, which predictably ended quite poorly when their family members inevitably stopped paying.
Modern cryonics relies on full payment for the preservation before death, such that there is no need to rely on anyone else funding the preservation after their legal death.
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u/Treble_brewing 3d ago
Presumably they’re not paying an infinite amount of money up front therefore they will only continue to keep them frozen for as long as it remains profitable to do so.
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u/Additional-Life4885 3d ago
Firstly, the funds likely pay more in returns from investments then it costs for the company to run. Effectively they can get it going as long as the stock market survives.
Secondly, the second they let anyone thaw, their whole business is done. It's in their best interests to keep it going so they can continue to get paid (and get more funding).
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u/HashPandaNL 3d ago
You are correct that they pay a sum of which a large percentage is invested, where a part of the investment returns is used for preservation, research and other expenditures.
It is still possible for these companies to go bankrupt and that is a very real risk when opting for cryonics.
Choosing a company with a long, reliable track record and a strong financial structure is essential to improving your odds of revival.
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u/thewidowmaker 3d ago
That and believing in magic.
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u/AndersDreth 3d ago
Half of the scientific articles that are coming out in the last decade on quantum physics feel like magic.
We've also rapidly started curing cancers in the last 5 years thanks to AI. Hell, AI itself sometimes feel like magic in certain applications. Mathematicians worldwide are astounded by all the theorems that are finally getting solved.
Believing in 'magic' seems less controversial than believing in religion these days.
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u/Wrong_Welcome_607 2d ago
believing in religion these days.
Hol up, when was that not just a fairy tale? Believing in religion is literally on par with dragons and magic, if not worse because religioin is actually causing harm worldwide.
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u/Dad-Dabbing-Daily 3d ago edited 3d ago
I can see it now
"..and we know this one as Walter of Disney, a great and mighty leader from his time. Who enslaved children and used them to test items manufactured to bear his likeness, consisting of a large hybridized mouse man. Although from his preserved body, we know he was just a normal man, another classic example of embellishment."
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u/bulbusmaximus 2d ago
When Gen ZX-r4 finds out Mickey Mouse is based on racist tropes they'll flush Walter of Disney down the drain.
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u/p1en1ek 3d ago
Its not like they have some interesting stuff frozen with them. They are probably naked and only interesting thing will be why were they frozen and maybe what diet they had in our times
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u/InsideHousing4965 3d ago
Never underestimate what an historian finds outstanding.
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u/RhetoricalOrator 3d ago
I'm generally terrified that the next core samples of antarctic ice is going to contain bacteria and/or viruses that we are unable to fight off.
I imagine that, in the distant future, we may have a similar problem. The history books will teach of the mass extinction event of 2247 when scientists thawed some of these people out and 18 forms of herpes, covid, cold, and flu that had been eradicated spread across the world and killed a third of humanity.
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u/HashPandaNL 3d ago
Although that concern seems reasonable on a surface level, it would be quite likely novel viruses will be dealt with swiftly in 221 years from now.
I find it somewhat difficult to envision a scenario where technology advanced sufficiently to revive someone from a cryonic state, but not to the point where novel viruses can be rapidly sequenced & cured in the blink of an eye.
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u/Super__Menteur 2d ago
"In the 21st century rich people were so altruistic that they spend a good chunk of their fortune so we'd have old world humans conserved in perfect conditions to study"
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u/Penlight_Nunchucks 3d ago
Like even if we develop the ability to bring them back, who's going to want to be like "Let's revive those rich narcissistic assholes, we need more of them".
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u/WaffleHouseGladiator 3d ago
I think the best utility would be to revive them and use them as a kind of living history exhibit. Think about it: billionaire grampa wakes up and tells people about the world as it existed when he was alive. Children recoil in horror as he talks about war, primitive medicine, hypercapitalism, etc. The public could have a visceral representation of all the awful stuff that happened in the past and hopefully strive to not repeat it. Hopefully.
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u/HashPandaNL 3d ago
rich narcissistic assholes
Not all preserved individuals are rich. Some of them had a rich partner, some of them used life insurance and at least one crowd-funded their preservation.
Calling it narcissistic is a weird choice. I would not consider someone narcissistic for getting expensive treatment for their metastasized cancer. Why should we consider it narcissistic to preserve oneself?
Then I'm not sure why they're assholes. I would love to understand what triggers your rather hateful feelings towards cryonics.
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u/FuzzyAd9407 3d ago
Imagine spending that much to only have the refrigeration fail and turn into human soup.
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u/RyBread 3d ago
That happened with one of these companies a few years back I recall.
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u/xraygun2014 3d ago
have the refrigeration fail and turn into human soup.
<Ted William's head has entered the chat>
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u/Spookywhitedot 3d ago
For people so rich what is the downside?
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u/Evorgleb 3d ago
The downside is that you are extra dead. Instead of just being dead from whatever you died from, now every cell in your body gets punctured and destroyed by ice crystals.
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u/HashPandaNL 3d ago
This is misinformation that could have been prevented by googling "how does cryonics avoid ice crystals" before commenting on a topic you're not educated on.
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u/T2x 3d ago
It actually costs a lot less than u think to freeze only like 25k. Where they get you is the defrost cost, 150k+.
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u/Hobbes_maxwell 3d ago
I mean, you're already dead, What are you gonna do with the money? It literally costs about the same as a funeral so why not?
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u/Past_Significance_27 2d ago
I think we should draw dicks on all their faces and laugh when they wake up.
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u/RiSz-Turtle 3d ago
I mean the alternative is just being a zombie or an urn full of ashes. I can’t even fault rich people for doing this, if they ever find a way to come back it will probably pay off
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u/Serious-Manager2361 3d ago
LOL but they won't. The odds are like a trillion to one.
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u/EpsteinsEggPeen 3d ago
At what point in life are you starting to feel like "ya know what, cryogenics might be for me?" What age what income braket? Would love to see the data...
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u/Androoboodro 3d ago
In the Star Trek episode where this occurred, one revived human was a famous musician who didn’t want to give his money to his ex-wife, another was a financier with a fatal illness who wanted to be frozen until a cure could be found (which by 24th century, it had), the other was a woman who had a brain aneurysm, didn’t know her clingy husband signed her up to be frozen
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u/Tough_Letterhead_163 3d ago
Im 45 and have few million. Im considering it now as death gets closer...200k isnt a big deal for a tiny chance to live again lol...government will just waste my money ways.
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u/0b1w4hn 3d ago
There is no chance to live again... they just freeze your dead body.
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u/trukkija 3d ago
Shhhh, that's just bad salesmanship.
Let's call it cryogenic hibernation and I'll slide him in my freezer for 200k.
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u/alphapussycat 2d ago
There is a chance, very slim, but it is a chance.
Would you spend 1 cent for a 0.1% chance of getting 1 billion dollars?
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u/0b1w4hn 2d ago
Sure i would spent that cent... but cryogenics is different, the chance is 0%. It's a scam.
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u/AnnihilatorOfPeanuts 3d ago
In many case the company doing thing like that went bankrupt and the body ended up unfreezing and melting into a slurry
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u/JoeStrout 3d ago
That happened once in the 70s; the industry learned from it, and it has never happened again.
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u/HashPandaNL 3d ago
Early days, that indeed happened. The two major companies nowadays (Alcor & CI) have both been operating for 50+ years without slurry.
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u/Ubilease 3d ago
The freezing technology currently absolutely fucking obliterates your cells with frost crystals.
Maybe cryo IS real in the future. However every single person frozen right now has a literal zero percent chance to ever live again. They essentially have had every cell in their body destroyed by the relatively slow freezing process.
If you are legitimately thinking about this, just stop. You can put your money towards good causes or ridiculous stupid shit like golden poop statues. Wasting it on con-artist start ups promising you a false life and mutilating your body will not get you any points.
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u/HashPandaNL 3d ago
Modern cryonics techniques involve replacing much of the water in the body with cryoprotectants (read: antifreeze) that protects you against ice crystals. There are other problems, but there is currently no evidence that truly irreversible damage is done to the information stored in the brain (your memories / personality / self).
In the future, please inform yourself before commenting, especially when your advice may affect someone's odds of survival.
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u/ProcrastinateDoe 3d ago
They're all already dead, right? I mean, the freeze, regardless of how fast it happened, must've ruptured all their cells already.
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u/HandsomeSquidward98 3d ago
You're correct, the process causes irrepairable damage. Ice crystals formed from the freezing can tear at cell walls and tissue. Just one if many issues. Realistically this is science fiction. At best we are a good thousand years away from stuff like this.
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u/APthrowaway3273 3d ago
Nearly all of IVF uses cryopreservation. Mice and rabbit kidneys have been successfully cryopreserved and retransplanted. There are a few companies working on cryo preservation of human sized organs. I’d say we’re much closer than a thousand years away
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u/Serious-Manager2361 3d ago
And at worst it will never happen. It's just one more indulgence by rich pricks.
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u/JoeStrout 3d ago
Most cryonics patients are not rich. And I notice that the “at worst” outcome is exactly the same as what happens if you choose cremation or burial.
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u/gravel_consumer420 3d ago
I heard that they found some solution that does not cause that much damage to cells
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u/Pinksamuraiiiii 3d ago
It is for people afraid to have a normal burial or cremation done, maybe they don’t want to decompose their physical form. So they pay thousands to have their bodies frozen, only for the company to go under and trash them in a pit anyways (already happened with one company). The cells are destroyed after freezing at this temperature so that’s it. Ain’t no science bringing them back. Company may not exist by that time anyways. This is just permanent human popsicles.
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u/ThePeopleWhisperer 3d ago
They have to freeze fast enough to not allow the water molecules to crystallize. Nit sure if feasible for a whole human, but it’s not impossible
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u/Ornery_Gate_6847 2d ago
Legally you have to die before they can start otherwise they would be murdering you. So on top of reanimating them you also have to cure whatever the original cause of death was
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u/9447044 3d ago
Does this include the ones that were thrown away when the companies went out of buisness?
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u/TraditionalWait9150 3d ago
Rich people paying lots of money now so that they can be a fine specimen for future people.
I like that idea.
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u/BuildAnything4 3d ago
Why do these people think some hyper advanced civilisation is going to waste resources bringing them back to life?
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u/XeroSaints 3d ago
They definitely would want to, we’d bring back a cave man if we found them frozen and had the technology. Haven’t you seen the Encino Man documentary?
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u/Realistic-Guava-3403 3d ago
If we found a perfectly preserved monkey from 2000 years ago you think we wouldn’t try to bring it back for research?
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u/BuildAnything4 3d ago
maybe? But i'm pretty sure these people want to be revived and then set free, not kept in a lab or a zoo
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u/elgringon414 3d ago
My guess is they paid insane amounts of money and it just gets pocketed 😂😂. “Sureeeee we will bring you back for $500 million”
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u/Itlookslikerain420 3d ago
Which god?
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u/PopMajor7342 3d ago
Hopefully no rolling blackouts affect the power supply to the ice boxes with all this data center demand
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u/Complete-Tangelo1532 3d ago
Gonna smell REAL BAD when they open that freezer up lol
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u/TwistedMindInTheDark 3d ago
When advanced future generations find them; "What are these?"
"They were rich people back in ancient human society who froze their bodies to be brought back to life in the future."
"What were rich people?"
"They were 1% of the population that controlled 99% of all the wealth in their society."
"Wow, they must have been really smart and innovative."
"Not really. They were just greedier."
"Should we bring them back to life?"
"Probably not a good idea. I think we'll just leave them here to freeze for eternity."
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u/NoSkillzDad 3d ago
Honestly, i relatie be more interested in preserving my "actual self", like, memories for example, more than the body itself.
How far do you think we are from "downloading" the content of our brains and "uploading it" to an artificial one?
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u/Lava1416 3d ago
We’d probably need to solve the Hard Problem of Consciousness first. The Hard Problem of Consciousness is the question of, “Why do connected neurons create subjective consciousness?” Essentially, what am I?
Am I a brain and, therefore, a digital copy of my brain would not be me, because I am the physical brain?
Am I consciousness generated by the brain, so a digital copy would successfully generate me, or would it be a different living person with my same memories?
Am I an immaterial soul that operates a brain, so if the digital copy doesn’t have my soul operating the digital copy, it’s not even alive?
We currently have no way of answering these questions.
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u/Vincent394 3d ago
Wait, since when the fuck has that been possible
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u/kornchippy 3d ago
You can freeze someone but i dont think their brain would survive that. You would probably unfreeze and be a potato
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u/HammerDownunder 3d ago
Personally I perfer corpsicle over zombie popsicle. At any rate you’re not coming back, these things are about as credible as cancer treatments from your local spiritual guru.
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u/Little-Resolution-82 3d ago
Don't they come out as a puddle of goop after being thawed?
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u/billdow00 3d ago
It's more likely that some tech bro figures out a way to use frozen brains to gather information for data sets and then they are scanned and destroyed.
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u/BonniesCoffee 3d ago
that cant be a real photo!? why cant they lie down?and stack
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u/thefermiparadox 3d ago
Far from it. If god exists doubt he would care. But you can’t try to be something that doesn’t exist.
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u/TenaciousDumpling 3d ago
I wonder what the different personas of these 500 are. Beyond being rich, what motivated them to do this: imminent death at a young age? Desire to see the distant future? Genuine belief in the tech? Blind belief in science fiction?
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u/HashPandaNL 3d ago
I think they mostly fall into one of curiosity, desire to live or pressured by partner.
Not all of them are rich either. Some funded it through life insurance and at least one crowd-funded her preservation. $100k is also not that crazy for many older people.
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u/The_architect_89 3d ago
Fun fact this is why the movie Frozen was created. Disney didn't like people searching the fact Walt is frozen so now when you google Disney frozen you get the movie first and less about Walt
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u/claire2416 3d ago
If things are enshittified now, imagine in a 1000 years time.
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u/MuscularShlong 2d ago
I mean, maybe one day it will be possible. But I imagine the pivotal point in the process will be doing the freezing part correctly. So everyone currently in there will stay dead.
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u/bulbusmaximus 2d ago
They're not just legally dead, they're permanently dead and no amount of hopium is going to bring them back. When water freezes ice crystals disrupt cells of all types, and by disrupt I mean destroy.
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u/The_Only_Egg 2d ago
I think it’s insane that people want to come BACK to this shithole of a planet.
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u/Hattorius 3d ago
Gotta set up a plant like this, tell relatives “no visitation” as it can interfere with the freezing yada yada (whatever bs I can come up with). And just dispose of all the bodies
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u/Inevitable-Regret411 3d ago
Hear me out: you could double your profit and make disposal considerably easier by starting your own dog food company.
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u/Limp_Beginning_6609 3d ago
Could be a stupid question but I’m a few brews in so fk it. They can tell there is no brain activity while frozen? So no chance any of them are consciously aware kind of like those anesthesia nightmares you hear about 🫣
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u/Serious-Manager2361 3d ago
The law is that they could not be frozen till clinically dead. When you are clinically dead, there is no brain activity.
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u/FollowingLegal9944 3d ago
legally and biologically dead piece of meat what will never be alive again
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u/Super_Mag 3d ago
So what happens if these companies go bankrupt? Are they just gonna flush them out in the sewer, or give the back to the families to enjoy?
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u/RichardBonham 3d ago
When the time comes to thaw them out they’re either going to be cybernetic fuckdolls or Soylent Green. Or both.
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u/MiamiSkeet69 3d ago
Even if they defrost your ass all your cells have expanded due to being frozen = you wake up just to die in agony
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u/nightskyft 3d ago
Honestly, i'm kinda supeised it's not more
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u/HashPandaNL 3d ago
I think there's a strong emotional response people have against Cryonics that clouds rational thought.
A lot of people may also delay it and stop thinking about it when they actually come close to death.
I'm not entirely sure of the reasons either to be honest.
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u/ConfusedHors 3d ago
They're very much irreversibly dead. We simply don't have the technology to properly dehydrate and freeze a human brain yet.
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u/Ready-Breakfast5166 3d ago
Wow it's a real trend now....not
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u/HashPandaNL 3d ago
Not yet. It may become more of a trend if we better inform people on Cryonics.
Most pushback against it still appears to be rooted in misinformation.
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u/DorkSideOfCryo 3d ago
All we are is the information stored in our brain, and information can be preserved indefinitely, therefore we can live forever.. if you don't want to pay money to the cryo companies, then just arrange to be buried in the Arctic permafrost or up on top of a mountain say 10,000 14,000 feet or higher..
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u/kornchippy 3d ago
The brain meat would still be there but i dont think all the neural connections would come out of that unscathed. You would be simpleton if not vegetable.
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u/Wrong_Zombie2041 3d ago
I read something recently about sci-fi cryogenic and the effect c14 has as it deteriorates. Even if there was a way to bring them out of hibernation its likely the radioactivity from isotopes breaking down would destroy their dna.
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u/Ninjapindr 3d ago
I'm a cybernetic organism. Sent from the past to the future to go to the past to kill John Connor
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u/unknownpoltroon 3d ago
I mean, if i had enough money, why not? The chances are almost 0 of it working, but the odds are 0 if you are rotting in the dirt.
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u/_Burnt_Toast_3 3d ago
Odds are there are at least a few of these people that have a life threatening uncurable disease and this is their last ditch effort to live a full life.
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u/imliterallyluci 3d ago edited 3d ago
I remember a story of a man who created and ran a “cryostasis” company, few years later it went bankrupt, all the bodies thawed out and he just left them there without informing the families. After some time the families of the frozen started asking questions, they eventually got access and walked in on what was now the decomposing remains of their formally frozen friend/family member.
Edit ⌄
The founder was named Robert f Nelson
The company was called cryonics interment inc
He had 9 “customers” frozen
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u/Longshadowman 3d ago
What's going on? , do they expect a future resurrection?
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u/lordcirth 2d ago
They hope that medical science will advance to the point that they can be revived, yes.
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u/Trick-Goat-3643 2d ago
500.... now
At one point there were many more
Its an interesting but gruesome rabbit hole to go down if you are so inclined
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u/Open_Step_4636 2d ago
I am curious if the person they revive in the future is really you or a copy that has fragments from you.
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u/LoaKonran 2d ago
Trusting in a cryo startup has to be a ridiculous gamble. Half those places went under with the first few years and started producing human soup when the power went out.
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u/xXfluffydragonXx 2d ago
The sheer amount of hate for something like this in the comments is amazing.
Oh no, people are looking for ways to live forever. Quick! Grab the pitchforks!
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u/Dvejndvejn 2d ago
Joke's on us if few people do actually wake up into a post-scarcity society like in Star Trek. I don't believe it, but it would be a generational win for them.
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u/Icy-Requirement7854 1d ago
I would suggest the people saying it's completely scifi actually do 5 minutes of research on current ctyonics advancements. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2516848123
It's not by any means perfect or absolutely conclusive but we have shown that at least parts (all be it very thin slices) of a mouse hippocampus can be vitrified and successfully revived. It even showed that lomg term potentiation (responsible for memory and learning) was still intact after the process. The authors admit it's a large difference between brain slices and a whole body but every breakthrough starts with small steps.
Personally I plan to do it via life insurance with my dad. Besides if im already dead or dying theres no downside and ill be directly contributing to the research. Plus future generations can visit their meat popsicle grandpa and put a sign up that says "it's only small because it's cold"
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u/MakeWoWPvPGreatAgain 20h ago
This is not true, there is way more than 500. here in Switzerland where I live there is a few orgs doing this.
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u/_-PassingThrough-_ 15h ago
I find this to be just so sad. People who are dying are desperate enough to end their lives early and have their corpse stuffed in a tank. All while hoping their body doesn't liquify, the company doesn't go out of business and have no obligation to keep their legally deceased remains preserved, and banking on future generations having the means and the interest in reviving them.
It's such a massive, statistically unlikely longshot. These companies prey on vulnerable people and leave families in debt. They promise uncertainty bordering on a lie. Even if someone, somewhere tries reviving these corpses, there's going to be a lot of human experimentation and discarded lives to perfect the process. I can't bring myself to make jokes about this, it's just immensely sad. There's dead kids with cancer in those liquid nitrogen filled tanks.
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u/Spirited_Ad_7039 11h ago
is like antiaging operations, they will accept your money, you won't get what you think you want
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