And yeah, the long-term viability of anything is questionable, but personally I don’t believe the long-term viability of everything is certainly doomed.
For a cryonics organization to have reasonable odds of long-term survival (hundreds, possibly thousands of years), it has to be in the reference class of such organizations. Other than a handful of successful religions, and maybe a handful of financial organizations out of thousands, I cannot think of any. And the latter survived more by serendipity than due to exceptionally good management. Nearly all long-term entities significantly changed their mandate during that time. It is universally agreed that making cryonics into religion is a terrible idea, so what’s left is hoping for luck and for the mandate to not deviate too far from what the founders intended.
There are some things that make historical survival rates an unreliable gauge for our purposes. Religions and other ancient organizations lacked many of various resources available to us currently, and had to cope with more violence and illiteracy than we do. We can keep track of records automatically with computers, and 24-hour surveillance of the organization’s physical properties (including patients) is possible. Eventually, there could be self-sustaining and self-repairing—even self-defending—facilities. Furthermore, if extreme longevity happens in the relatively near term (perhaps mere decades after one’s cryopreservation) this raises the possibility that the stewards of the organization will be very experienced and risk-conscious human beings. The need for an unbroken line of succession across many generations (a huge risk factor) would thus be greatly reduced if not eliminated entirely.
We can keep track of records automatically with computers, and 24-hour surveillance of the organization’s physical properties (including patients) is possible.
Organizations typically don’t fail because their site has been raided by marauders, they fail because of financial or legal problems, or because those who run them lose interests (or retire, or die and nobody replaces them).
Furthermore, if extreme longevity happens in the relatively near term (perhaps mere decades after one’s cryopreservation) this raises the possibility that the stewards of the organization will be very experienced and risk-conscious human beings.
Watching over human popsicles (for decades, centuries, millennia?), without any new subscription and without any need for someone to do the same for them in the future. They are going to need a pretty strong motivation.
For a cryonics organization to have reasonable odds of long-term survival (hundreds, possibly thousands of years), it has to be in the reference class of such organizations. Other than a handful of successful religions, and maybe a handful of financial organizations out of thousands, I cannot think of any. And the latter survived more by serendipity than due to exceptionally good management. Nearly all long-term entities significantly changed their mandate during that time. It is universally agreed that making cryonics into religion is a terrible idea, so what’s left is hoping for luck and for the mandate to not deviate too far from what the founders intended.
There are some things that make historical survival rates an unreliable gauge for our purposes. Religions and other ancient organizations lacked many of various resources available to us currently, and had to cope with more violence and illiteracy than we do. We can keep track of records automatically with computers, and 24-hour surveillance of the organization’s physical properties (including patients) is possible. Eventually, there could be self-sustaining and self-repairing—even self-defending—facilities. Furthermore, if extreme longevity happens in the relatively near term (perhaps mere decades after one’s cryopreservation) this raises the possibility that the stewards of the organization will be very experienced and risk-conscious human beings. The need for an unbroken line of succession across many generations (a huge risk factor) would thus be greatly reduced if not eliminated entirely.
Organizations typically don’t fail because their site has been raided by marauders, they fail because of financial or legal problems, or because those who run them lose interests (or retire, or die and nobody replaces them).
Watching over human popsicles (for decades, centuries, millennia?), without any new subscription and without any need for someone to do the same for them in the future. They are going to need a pretty strong motivation.
“This time is different”.