So, OK, I’ll bite: can anyone point me at a reasonable legal/economic analysis of why I should trust an existing corporation (and its various descendants) to continue preserving my frozen brain for long enough to be revived?
Despite the context, I don’t mean this to exclusively apply to cryonics… I have the same question about why I should expect a cemetery not to dump my body somewhere and re-sell my plot to someone else once N years pass without anyone visiting my grave, as I do about why I should expect a cryonics corporation not to dump my skull and re-sell the storage space.
The board managing Alcor’s trust fund is deliberately made up of people who have relatives or significant others in cryo preservation. It’s structured so that the people in charge have incentives exactly against doing this.
I would imagine that the people involved with cemeteries care more, but I’d
also think that it’d be pretty hard to dig up even one grave without the one relative that does visit a neighboring grave from noticing. But maybe it is pretty common; especially over centuries or longer.
It is in fact very common, at least in some parts of the world. Once the body has decayed to the point that the cemetery’s management doesn’t feel awkward digging them up and that any living relatives have stopped paying attention there’s really nothing stopping them from re-using the plot.
So, OK, I’ll bite: can anyone point me at a reasonable legal/economic analysis of why I should trust an existing corporation (and its various descendants) to continue preserving my frozen brain for long enough to be revived?
Despite the context, I don’t mean this to exclusively apply to cryonics… I have the same question about why I should expect a cemetery not to dump my body somewhere and re-sell my plot to someone else once N years pass without anyone visiting my grave, as I do about why I should expect a cryonics corporation not to dump my skull and re-sell the storage space.
The board managing Alcor’s trust fund is deliberately made up of people who have relatives or significant others in cryo preservation. It’s structured so that the people in charge have incentives exactly against doing this.
That’s pretty cool. Thanks.
I would imagine that the people involved with cemeteries care more, but I’d also think that it’d be pretty hard to dig up even one grave without the one relative that does visit a neighboring grave from noticing. But maybe it is pretty common; especially over centuries or longer.
It is in fact very common, at least in some parts of the world. Once the body has decayed to the point that the cemetery’s management doesn’t feel awkward digging them up and that any living relatives have stopped paying attention there’s really nothing stopping them from re-using the plot.