You know I love the idea of cryostasis, and the idea of reanimating people after death is great.
But why the fuck would future humans bother bringing all these people back, even if they could? Even if they have a utopian society free of scarcity and inequality, they would be bringing back mostly rich people who lived in a super different and bad time and have literally nothing positive to contribute to the utopian future, since they were a large part of the problems of today in the first place. Plus the vast majority of them are almost certainly elitist assholes who nobody in a utopia would want to be around.
Maybe it would be a humanitarian thing, but if these people are dead and frozen there’s no real imperative to do this to end suffering or something. Or I guess maybe bringing them back to try and figure out what the hell their damage is that they felt ruining everything was a better option than working toward the betterment of all… but they’d only need a few brains in vats for that, no bodies, so sucks to suck, cryofolks.
If future humans don’t have a utopian society, the only real use for people from so long ago that I can come up with would be research subjects or slaves. And frankly there are easier ways to go about getting those…
So I see no possible future where people who cryopreserve get brought back en masse. Even if it’s entirely possible to surmount the technical hurdles.
To answer the questions of archeologists, obviously
And historians
And kindness.
why would future humans bother bringing all these people back
i think it’s worth reminding why doctors treat people now, in this time and space. they do it mostly because they want to save people. maybe a few do it for money, but past a certain point, the money isn’t why you do it. i think it’s a safe bet that doctors of a future would see these corpses as patients, and act accordingly. an analogy - think how we see heart attack victims as patients, and not how our medieval ancestors would have seen them (as corpses)
…literally nothing positive to contribute to the utopian future…
true, but, a good chunk of patients in hopsital today have nothing to contribute to society, and cannot contribute any more, whatsoever. we treat them anyway, because that’s what we do. humans have consistently cared for others that are sick and have “nothing to contribute” throughout history, and that shows no sign of going away anytime soon
Lmao, remember that revived 80’s douchbag business man on star trek TNG?
He actually appeared
again in a later episodein a couple TNG novelizations.He managed to adapt and fit in to Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism, but eventually was called on to use his 1900s business prowess in
negotiationsbecoming Earth’s Ambassador to Ferenginar, and then eventually was named the Secretary of Commerce for at least two different Earth Presidents.*edit, I lied. I’m sorry for misleading you all, you gave me your trust and I squandered it.
that’s so based hoo lee I must’ve missed that one gotta do a rewatch
Medical research from before whatever plague or virus infects everybody.
Don’t they have problems today studying effects of microplastics because they can’t find a control group of humans who don’t have microplastics in them?
Though that’s a pretty grim future for the rich frozen elite.
But why the fuck would future humans bother bringing all these people back, even if they could?
Because they don’t have rights, so no one will care when we upload their brains into street sweeping robots. If you’re lucky, you’ll get uploaded into an interstellar probe.
Someone should write a book about that, or even a series of books. A series I should reread before the 5th book comes out.
Oh sweet, 5th is confirmed
we’d do it cause it’d be funny even if they weren’t tortured or nothing. can you imagine a little asshole running around the utopia being like “no, no, I’m supposed to own things, where are my stocks, where are my numbers, no!”. probably it’d suck that all their friends are deade though. I’m sure you thaw a couple cause the have rare diseases or certain kinds of DNA though.
Deade
Ever read Transmetropolitan? It has a whole sub-arc on just the absolute lack of concern that a future society would have for this resurrection obligation/burden imposed on them.
I think they’re frozen before they’re dead, so the reason to bring them back would be to not do that murder thing, and also to fulfill contractual obligations, and as a business showcase to the world that you’re ready to receive more customers for a freeze and bring you back service instead of a freeze and kill you service.
Admittedly I don’t know much about cryopreservation (looked into it many years ago as a curiosity) but my understanding, and the article says the same, is that they clinically die first and then it’s a rush to preserve them before too much breakdown happens. Since it’s quite expensive, most people only preserve their brain or head, which is removed before being frozen. I’m not sure legally they would be able to do this pre-death, since the harvesting/preserving would directly cause death as we currently understand and classify it, and assisted euthanasia of any flavor is illegal in most places.
I once read a sci-fi story (I don’t recall the title) that posed the same question you are asking. The short answer is “Historians would want to revive at least some of the frozen”.
Also, assuming mass media entertainment still exists in the future, I can see a reality show being created where someone is revived and cameras follow him around as he tries to adapt to the future.
To try them for crimes against humanity?
I’m for reaimmating them to have them stand trial for their crimes. I’m hopeful for a brighter future, but I’m also hopeful people won’t lose their unrelenting pettiness. It’s part of what makes us human.
Star Trek episode, Picard was pissed they got thawed
Humans are particularly difficult to preserve because of the delicate structure in (most of) our heads.
Nonsense. We are just too big to be frozen quickly enough that no ice crystals emerge. Every living thing turns to slush if frozen normally.
Yea. Turns out the biggest creature you can freeze and thaw again (in strict lab conditions) is a hamster, anything bigger just dies.
Ever seen DMSO solidify upon cooling? I wouldn’t even call it vitrification, it obviously has macroscopically large crystalline domains. It would be like putting rocks in your veins. I mean it kind of works fine for single cells because the failures* can be treated as a statistic, but anything on the scale of organs will become damaged just too badly.
* See e.g. what happens to frozen sperm cells: “chromatin disruption through protamine translocations, DNA fragmentation, and lesions to genes involved in fertilization capability and embryonic development […] are known consequences of the cryopreservation process.”
A couple days ago my milk was all chunky when I tried to pour it in my cereal, because refrigerated air that was supposed to go to the fridge got blocked.
Milk wasn’t expired, just went bad due to a random mechanical issue over the course of the length of time the milk was being preserved.
Anyway, what’s all this about cryogenics?
Rich people are truly fucking insane.
Everybody’s insane rich people just have the ability to act on it.
Fair.
Forbidden soup
They paid good money for those soup tubes.
Gazpacho, non-vegan.
But eating the rich is vegan, no?
Normally yes, because you can’t do more for nature & people than that.
But in this case it’s just too late, the rich already turned into regular (tho toxic) meat as it neared the end of its life.
Now, if you get a regular not-about-to-die rich and turn it into a smoothie, then yes, vegan gazpacho.
As long as Simon Phoenix doesn’t get defrosted I’m good
Everybody wants to be a Bob
Is it an expensive thing to do ? Can only rich people do it ? I want to buy freezers and sell people into being cryogenically frozen, but affordable
