However, this gets to the scarier possibility—government policies opposed to cryonics. Any ideas about the odds of that happening?
This has happened at least once in British Columbia. See this article. As far as I am aware this is at present the only location which specifically singles out cryonics although there are other areas where the regulations for body disposal inadvertently prevent the use of cryonics.
This kind of stuff makes me boil with anger. Some bureacrat busybody inserts garbage about irradiation into a law at the last second, and there’s nothing we can do to get it out? Is there some kind of international law against defamation? Because that is exactly what this is. And the stuff they prattle on about it taking advantage of patients in a vulnerable state is total nonsense. What they’re doing—pressuring patients into not cryopreserving—is taking advantage, and in a particularly grotesque and unconscionable manner.
Ironically, if I were to send them a letter or call them about this stupid law they’d take it as me being a foreign busybody. This is stupid. They’re the ones harming BC’s global reputation by keeping such idiotic laws on the books.
Some bureacrat busybody inserts garbage about irradiation into a law at the last second, and there’s nothing we can do to get it out? Is there some kind of international law against defamation?
On the contrary—as a general rule, in English-speaking countries, legislators enjoy immunity from any legal consequences of anything they say or write in the course of their work. This is known as “parliamentary privilege,” and goes far beyond the free speech rights of ordinary citizens. In particular, they are free to commit libel without repercussions, as long as they speak in official capacity.
In the U.S., this is even written explicitly into the constitution (“for any speech or debate in either House, [the Senators and Representatives] shall not be questioned in any other place”).
Life is not fair. Don’t expect other people to not randomly screw up our prospects, up to and including causing our deaths.
The solution is for us rationalists/transhumanists/future-oriented folk to become richer, better organized and more numerous so that there are more resources available to prevent more things like this from happening.
This has happened at least once in British Columbia. See this article. As far as I am aware this is at present the only location which specifically singles out cryonics although there are other areas where the regulations for body disposal inadvertently prevent the use of cryonics.
This kind of stuff makes me boil with anger. Some bureacrat busybody inserts garbage about irradiation into a law at the last second, and there’s nothing we can do to get it out? Is there some kind of international law against defamation? Because that is exactly what this is. And the stuff they prattle on about it taking advantage of patients in a vulnerable state is total nonsense. What they’re doing—pressuring patients into not cryopreserving—is taking advantage, and in a particularly grotesque and unconscionable manner.
Ironically, if I were to send them a letter or call them about this stupid law they’d take it as me being a foreign busybody. This is stupid. They’re the ones harming BC’s global reputation by keeping such idiotic laws on the books.
/rant
Isparrish:
On the contrary—as a general rule, in English-speaking countries, legislators enjoy immunity from any legal consequences of anything they say or write in the course of their work. This is known as “parliamentary privilege,” and goes far beyond the free speech rights of ordinary citizens. In particular, they are free to commit libel without repercussions, as long as they speak in official capacity.
In the U.S., this is even written explicitly into the constitution (“for any speech or debate in either House, [the Senators and Representatives] shall not be questioned in any other place”).
Life is not fair. Don’t expect other people to not randomly screw up our prospects, up to and including causing our deaths.
The solution is for us rationalists/transhumanists/future-oriented folk to become richer, better organized and more numerous so that there are more resources available to prevent more things like this from happening.