a cryo-grave high in the mountains of northern Canada, buried under a protective shell of 10 meters of earth and 3 meters of reinforced concrete.
Putting a big gravestone on top would be a good idea. If the cryo organization fails, it’s too easy for all paper and digital records of the grave to be lost. In that scenario, a gravestone will make it more likely that the grave will be rediscovered before the liquid nitrogen boils away.
It’ll still be safe from random vandals if it’s underground in a remote location, and in the case of anti-cryonics fanatic vandals, there’s nothing you can do to keep them from finding out where all the graves are.
If the cryo organization fails, it’s too easy for all paper and digital records of the grave to be lost.
Well… maybe. That’s an interesting problem. One solution is to just expect that as technology increases, ability to find stuff increases.
Another is to make some kind of hint or signal that only a highly advanced civilization would find, like writing a message down in atomically small writing on many tiny pieces of metal, and scattering them around the planet, or encrypting the location with a very strong encryption.
Another is for the grave to be “smart” and to broadcast that it is getting to the end of its lifetime.
Even better, just people reading this discussion in the future would think “hey, let’s check Canada for cryonauts”
Hello, people of the future! Please unfreeze us, and give us warm soup! We’ll be very grateful! Thanks much.
Seriously, though, I wonder about the ability of future archeologists to dig through historical Internet information. At the moment, the only attempt to create a thorough historical archive of the Internet is the Wayback machine, and since (I estimate) that the growth of the Internet is accelerating faster than the cheapness of reliable long-term storage, they’ll either have to get lots more funding or start being more selective about what they archive.
In terms of the ability to maintain information of interest to future archaeologists through a straight-up global disaster, the Internet isn’t any better than paper. Maybe we need to start looking into cuneiform printers...
I think that getting the grave found at the other end is a less serious problem than building it to last. If they have nanotech, they can explore the entire surface of the earth in great detail, including doing an ultrasound scan of the entire crust. Also the thing would have a magnetic signature, being metallic. And if you were really concerned, you could build in a powerful permanent magnet, which would make it even more detectable. You could even use temperature differentials to power a weak radio transmitter, but honestly that’s probably making it too easy to find. Better to have a whole host of slight anomalies.
If the cryo organization fails, it’s too easy for all paper and digital records of the grave to be lost.
You could handle this by having each separate cryonic organization exchange data about locations of grave sites. The probability that they will all fail is much lower than any single one failing. Moreover, the most likely situations resulting in such large scale failure will be situations where the human economy is so damaged that replacing the liquid nitrogen will not be feasible.
Putting a big gravestone on top would be a good idea. If the cryo organization fails, it’s too easy for all paper and digital records of the grave to be lost. In that scenario, a gravestone will make it more likely that the grave will be rediscovered before the liquid nitrogen boils away.
It’ll still be safe from random vandals if it’s underground in a remote location, and in the case of anti-cryonics fanatic vandals, there’s nothing you can do to keep them from finding out where all the graves are.
Well… maybe. That’s an interesting problem. One solution is to just expect that as technology increases, ability to find stuff increases.
Another is to make some kind of hint or signal that only a highly advanced civilization would find, like writing a message down in atomically small writing on many tiny pieces of metal, and scattering them around the planet, or encrypting the location with a very strong encryption.
Another is for the grave to be “smart” and to broadcast that it is getting to the end of its lifetime.
Even better, just people reading this discussion in the future would think “hey, let’s check Canada for cryonauts”
Hello, people of the future! Please unfreeze us, and give us warm soup! We’ll be very grateful! Thanks much.
Seriously, though, I wonder about the ability of future archeologists to dig through historical Internet information. At the moment, the only attempt to create a thorough historical archive of the Internet is the Wayback machine, and since (I estimate) that the growth of the Internet is accelerating faster than the cheapness of reliable long-term storage, they’ll either have to get lots more funding or start being more selective about what they archive.
In terms of the ability to maintain information of interest to future archaeologists through a straight-up global disaster, the Internet isn’t any better than paper. Maybe we need to start looking into cuneiform printers...
I think that getting the grave found at the other end is a less serious problem than building it to last. If they have nanotech, they can explore the entire surface of the earth in great detail, including doing an ultrasound scan of the entire crust. Also the thing would have a magnetic signature, being metallic. And if you were really concerned, you could build in a powerful permanent magnet, which would make it even more detectable. You could even use temperature differentials to power a weak radio transmitter, but honestly that’s probably making it too easy to find. Better to have a whole host of slight anomalies.
You could handle this by having each separate cryonic organization exchange data about locations of grave sites. The probability that they will all fail is much lower than any single one failing. Moreover, the most likely situations resulting in such large scale failure will be situations where the human economy is so damaged that replacing the liquid nitrogen will not be feasible.