A lot of the recent discussion of cryonics in the blogosphere is about others' basis for rejecting it. If you want it to become more available that's probably one of the steps to take. But grossly selfish? Or ghoulish, or an affront to nature, or any of those things? Much of medicine today would seem that way to someone living two centuries ago. For my part, I don't oppose it if others want to do it, and I applaud anyone who wants to use technology to improve their lives even if I think they're barking up the wrong tree; I don't plan to do it myself. I'm puzzled as well why people would react so negatively to the idea. In many married couples, one spouse significantly outlives the other. Is that so disturbing to people?

My questions for cryonicists are outlined in a post on my blog (link below) but the main issue is: if you think that you'll one day be thawed out and cured, so that you'll feel better in a better world, a) why wait until you're dead? At worst, there will never be a technology to repair the damage to your brain from the time oxygen stopped coming at death until you were frozen, and at best, it will make it harder for your doctors to revive you. If you really believe this, get frozen while you're still alive. (Think of the people who are currently frozen. No doubt today, less than a half century later, we're already better at treating whatever it is that killed them. But even if we found a way to thaw people out without causing further damage, we still can't cure death.)

Second, if indeed it's centuries before a cure for your terminal disease is found, who's going to be checking on your behalf? Nobody remembers what you look like or your name; nobody loves or cares about you anymore. (This would have to be contractual, but of course if you break a contract with a sleeping person that no one cares about, I think you're safe from consequences for a while.) And when you're revived, what are you going to do in this future economy? Where are you going to live? That's a separate objection but it's one of the reasons I wouldn't want to do it.

My original post: http://speculative-nonfiction.blogspot.com/2010/07/why-do-cryonicists-wait-to-be-frozen.html