Maybe we should ignore the technique details (cryopreservation), which may change in the future, and talk about the real purpose.
Skip a century.
Ticket to the future.
Go to slow time.
Cryonap. [Edit: on reflection I like this one best. It’s one word, and it emphasizes the presumption of waking up again. By contrast, “cryopreservation” evokes “preservation (of the dead body)”, like mummification.]
Or maybe we should encourage longer, more varied expressions because they sound less like euphemisms. There’s no reason we should use always just one name (which is “cryonics” anyway).
This is boring. Wake me up when you’ve solved P=NP.
Tomorrow morning I’ll be shopping for a personal jetpack! Aren’t you jealous?
I’m putting myself in a time capsule.
Going to the future KTHXBIE!
By the magic of compound interest, I’ll wake up so rich I’ll be able to simulate myself living on immortally from today on without being frozen!
Sure, these are “irreverent” and so people may dislike them. But here’s what I’m thinking of—I’ve no clear idea if it’ll work but I think it might.
People have this horrible tendency to try to paint death as a positive thing, right? If we can’t stop that, let’s coopt it. Let’s make people talk about cryopreservation as a positive thing. [Edited here for clarity] If a loved one is due to be cryopreserved tomorrow, you should act afraid-but-happy, like you would about his undergoing any other life-saving new medical treatment.
There are traditions that very explicitly paint death as a good event. Like those were you go to heaven. Or those where it’s the “necessary and proper” completion of a life well lived, providing catharsis and resolution to yourself and others (seen in traditions that don’t have specific beliefs about the afterlife, just that it exists).
I have a particular example in mind: Tolkien’s writings. In Middle-Earth, the very best (most pious, worthy and good) men are said to one day “lay down their lives” voluntarily while yet sound in mind and body, and this is one of the most moral and “in alignment with nature as God intends it” acts that someone can perform. In contrast are depicted those who live as long as they can, until “death takes them unwilling”—and before that they are punished with “dotage”, i.e. mental decrepitude.
This isn’t generalizing from fictional evidence. My point is that this writing resonates with a lot of readers. Even when some few people object to the general tone of Tolkien (like David Brin does), his pro-deathism isn’t one of the things I’ve ever seen them complain about (and I used to read quite a lot about Tolkien and his writings).
So, why can’t we have a tradition that upholds the ideal of voluntary cryopreservation? Perhaps as soon as someone begins to seriously slip mentally and other treatments have failed—as in the OP story.
I think there is a ton of untapped potential in emphasizing the more non-obvious paths to cryonics-positive attitudes. However one obstacle worth considering is that the reasons people are comfortable with death are likely to be the same reasons they find cryonics to be shady and uncomfortable. Consider the following articles of wisdom:
Cryonics is an open ended exploration of the future.
… Death grants “closure”, as long as we can accept it and move on with our lives.
Cryonics cleverly leverages economics and technology to escape death.
… Death is the “great leveler” that inevitably comes for rich and poor alike.
Cryonics is a heroic intervention to save lives.
… Death comes for us all without our seeking it, and by accepting it we attain inner peace.
Cryonics represents hope for a future devoid of death.
… Death has been with us from the beginning, and unites us with our ancestors.
It seems many of the things that make people feel good about cryonics are basically the things that make people feel bad about death and vice versa, depending largely on the framing of the issue and how they are willing to think about it.
It’s all in the framing. Everyone is happy to celebrate life in other contexts (i.e. when people aren’t dying from old age): they celebrate all the things you list—exploration of the future, clever technology, heroic interventions, hopes for a better world.
the problem is they don’t believe in cryonics. If people perceived cryonics, on a gut level, as having some non-negligible chance of successful revival—rather than at best a Pascal’s Bargain that any odds are better than none—then I think some of those people would be able to switch to viewing cryonics as bravely taking a risk for a chance of a better life.
There’s confirmation bias and priming, too. If the person going cryonapping acts cheerful about it, all the way through (not like the one in the OP article), he might help others feel cheerful about it as well.
Maybe we should ignore the technique details (cryopreservation), which may change in the future, and talk about the real purpose.
Skip a century.
Ticket to the future.
Go to slow time.
Cryonap. [Edit: on reflection I like this one best. It’s one word, and it emphasizes the presumption of waking up again. By contrast, “cryopreservation” evokes “preservation (of the dead body)”, like mummification.]
Or maybe we should encourage longer, more varied expressions because they sound less like euphemisms. There’s no reason we should use always just one name (which is “cryonics” anyway).
This is boring. Wake me up when you’ve solved P=NP.
Tomorrow morning I’ll be shopping for a personal jetpack! Aren’t you jealous?
I’m putting myself in a time capsule.
Going to the future KTHXBIE!
By the magic of compound interest, I’ll wake up so rich I’ll be able to simulate myself living on immortally from today on without being frozen!
Sure, these are “irreverent” and so people may dislike them. But here’s what I’m thinking of—I’ve no clear idea if it’ll work but I think it might.
People have this horrible tendency to try to paint death as a positive thing, right? If we can’t stop that, let’s coopt it. Let’s make people talk about cryopreservation as a positive thing. [Edited here for clarity] If a loved one is due to be cryopreserved tomorrow, you should act afraid-but-happy, like you would about his undergoing any other life-saving new medical treatment.
There are traditions that very explicitly paint death as a good event. Like those were you go to heaven. Or those where it’s the “necessary and proper” completion of a life well lived, providing catharsis and resolution to yourself and others (seen in traditions that don’t have specific beliefs about the afterlife, just that it exists).
I have a particular example in mind: Tolkien’s writings. In Middle-Earth, the very best (most pious, worthy and good) men are said to one day “lay down their lives” voluntarily while yet sound in mind and body, and this is one of the most moral and “in alignment with nature as God intends it” acts that someone can perform. In contrast are depicted those who live as long as they can, until “death takes them unwilling”—and before that they are punished with “dotage”, i.e. mental decrepitude.
This isn’t generalizing from fictional evidence. My point is that this writing resonates with a lot of readers. Even when some few people object to the general tone of Tolkien (like David Brin does), his pro-deathism isn’t one of the things I’ve ever seen them complain about (and I used to read quite a lot about Tolkien and his writings).
So, why can’t we have a tradition that upholds the ideal of voluntary cryopreservation? Perhaps as soon as someone begins to seriously slip mentally and other treatments have failed—as in the OP story.
I think there is a ton of untapped potential in emphasizing the more non-obvious paths to cryonics-positive attitudes. However one obstacle worth considering is that the reasons people are comfortable with death are likely to be the same reasons they find cryonics to be shady and uncomfortable. Consider the following articles of wisdom:
Cryonics is an open ended exploration of the future.
… Death grants “closure”, as long as we can accept it and move on with our lives.
Cryonics cleverly leverages economics and technology to escape death.
… Death is the “great leveler” that inevitably comes for rich and poor alike.
Cryonics is a heroic intervention to save lives.
… Death comes for us all without our seeking it, and by accepting it we attain inner peace.
Cryonics represents hope for a future devoid of death.
… Death has been with us from the beginning, and unites us with our ancestors.
It seems many of the things that make people feel good about cryonics are basically the things that make people feel bad about death and vice versa, depending largely on the framing of the issue and how they are willing to think about it.
It’s all in the framing. Everyone is happy to celebrate life in other contexts (i.e. when people aren’t dying from old age): they celebrate all the things you list—exploration of the future, clever technology, heroic interventions, hopes for a better world.
the problem is they don’t believe in cryonics. If people perceived cryonics, on a gut level, as having some non-negligible chance of successful revival—rather than at best a Pascal’s Bargain that any odds are better than none—then I think some of those people would be able to switch to viewing cryonics as bravely taking a risk for a chance of a better life.
There’s confirmation bias and priming, too. If the person going cryonapping acts cheerful about it, all the way through (not like the one in the OP article), he might help others feel cheerful about it as well.