I think the real reason is not so much the sunk cost, but the related, anticipated cost of being wrong. If people are going to die, people want to know that so they can say good-bye and wrap things up properly. Not knowing if I'm going to be woken up in 150 years would cause me a lot of anxiety. A gamble, taking a chance, is something you can comfortably do about something that doesn't really matter. Living longer -- living another lifetime -- is something of such value that people can't feel detached about the possibility.

I bring up the subject of cryonics occasionally to see what people think of it. But I feel distinctly guilty when I bring it up around an elderly person. I'm afraid I'm going to upset them, 'Why are you telling me this? You are shallow and flippant about a topic I must seriously face." Or worse, give them hope in something I couldn't actually guarantee. They will either delude themselves into thinking it's definitely going to work, or they will exist in that anxious not-knowing space I just described.