Early attempts at cryonics facilities have previously failed when the organisations went bankrupt. Several facilities existed in the US starting in the 1960s, which often relied on funding from the living relatives of the cryopreserved, and could not maintain conditions when relatives were no longer willing or able to pay. As a result, all but one of the documented cryonic preservations prior to 1973 ended in failure, and the thawing out and disposal of the bodies.
It may be very bad and wrong or cryo preservation companies to shrug off their responsibilities in this way, but blaming individuals might not be hitting the right target. The standard capitalist company structure is a poor fit for preventing the problem, since they involve no duty to do something forever … the individuals running the company can wind it up, with no personal responsibility.
This is from Wikipedia and doesn’t really explain the full context. Cryonics in the 1960s/early 1970s was an absolute failure, but within the US, they learned hard lessons since then. Alcor and Cryonics Institute are both non-profits and seem like pretty stable organizations. If you disagree about that please let me know why.
From metaculus...
It may be very bad and wrong or cryo preservation companies to shrug off their responsibilities in this way, but blaming individuals might not be hitting the right target. The standard capitalist company structure is a poor fit for preventing the problem, since they involve no duty to do something forever … the individuals running the company can wind it up, with no personal responsibility.
This is from Wikipedia and doesn’t really explain the full context. Cryonics in the 1960s/early 1970s was an absolute failure, but within the US, they learned hard lessons since then. Alcor and Cryonics Institute are both non-profits and seem like pretty stable organizations. If you disagree about that please let me know why.
FWIW I actually recently updated Wikipedia to reflect this fact (that Alcor has been in continuous operation since the 70s).
Actually, I think that organizational cryonics is too fragile, and we need room temperature chemical preservation (or moon storage)