Careful, someone else just gave me the "dumb question" lecture. For what it's worth, I think your analogy is the right line of inquiry. I agree that the two analogues (cryogenics and burial) aren't strictly analogous though, cryogenics does take more resources.
For what it's worth, here's what the Cryonics Institutes gives in (their FAQ)[http://www.cryonics.org/prod3.html]:
Q: Why would people in the future want to revive us?
A: Why are scientists talking about cloning from the DNA of the pharoahs or the frozen sperm of prehistoric animals? Because the past interests people. Why do people donate to charitable hospitals? Because people care about one another. Complete indifference to human life isn't as common as we sometimes let ourselves think.
Mind you, we aren't depending on that sort of help in the least. We hope to be revived — and helped in leading new future lives — not by some featureless "them", but by the efforts of our own cryonics organizations. After all, it's their — and our — job.
CI has a legal and moral obligation to do its best for its patients — some of whom will be friends and relatives of future CI officers and directors — and we are confident those obligations will be respected.
This answer doesn't inspire me with confidence at all. It's true that the past interests people, but this isn't the same as wanting hundreds or maybe thousands of members of this past living with us. It would look more like an immigration from the past, and we all know how immigrants are traditionally treated.
It's true that we're not completely indifferent to human life, yet I don't think this extends to people who are technically dead. This is more of an unknown problem--will society treat preserved human beings as potentially alive human beings? Much hinges on this.
CI's legal and moral obligation is factual at present, but this will become less certain the further we have to project into the future. Will the CI become one of those few seemingly immortal institutions like the Catholic Church, or will it degenerate? I guess there's a good case for its own immortality if a few important thresholds are reached. For one, the revival process on a human being has to be demonstrated. This would be enough to put human interest into the preservation of this, or similar, institution.
(their FAQ)[http://www.cryonics.org/prod3.html]:
I used to have trouble remembering the exact Markdown syntax for links. It's easier to remember when viewed in light of Markdown's intent of being as close as possible to normal human-readable text:
So, apparently appsumo is having a custom reddit bundle, a bundle meant to appeal to redditors, and 10% of the proceeds get donated. On the surface, doesn't sound _that_ interesting, except...
Take a closer look: http://appsumo.com/reddit-special-deal/ and find that the recipient of the donations will be... SENS!
I find this to be an interesting development. It wasn't the "custom transhumanist bundle" or "the custom sens bundle" but "the custom reddit bundle". Yes, "reddit" doesn't, in and of itself, count as extremely mainstream as such, but I'd say it's still an interesting development.