Traveling to Europe is unrealistic, for several reasons. The difficulty of travel when one is that infirm, for one. Not all european countries are as permissive with what they allow people to do with bodies after death, I haven't looked into it much (as I don't live there), but I've heard there's been a bit of legal trouble in trying to get cryonics organizations set up in several of the euro countries. And finally, my provider (CI & SA) do not do international cases, both due to the cost and due to legal difficulty in transporting the body.
However your comment about Oregon gives me hope. :) If this is still the case when I'm nearing my expected death I will travel to Oregon and make my arrangements there. Thank you!
But arguing against giving up even a few months of your life for greatly increasing your actual chances still seems to do the trick.
I don't argue that. As I mentioned in my previous comment, I would gladly go into suspension a few months early. Even earlier than that in extreme cases.
What I care about with this topic is using the argument as a discriminator to distinguish how much of the belief into cryonics is carried by its actual merit versus how much is based on staving off existential angst.
It can be both. I'm glad it helps me stave off my existential angst, and it does so primarily because it looks to have a chance of working.
People talking up the importance of - autopsy regulations (!) such that it seems like a stop sign, while taking on magnitudes harder problems in, say, FAI, indicate a belief-in-belief.
I posted links to organizations working to make assisted suicide legal. But I do support SIAI more than these orgs because FAI is orders of magnitude more important. My personal death pales compared to human extinction.
(Title is tongue-in-cheek, "preservation" would've been more appropriate but less catchy)
With [news like that](http://news.discovery.com/history/preserved-brain-bog-england-110406.html), how hard can it be when you actually do want to preserve a brain:
> A human skull dated to about 2,684 years ago with an "exceptionally preserved" human brain still inside of it was recently discovered in a waterlogged U.K. pit, according to a new Journal of Archaeological Science study.
> The brain is the oldest known intact human brain from Europe and Asia, according to the authors, who also believe it's one of the best-preserved ancient brains in the world. (...) Scientists believe that submersion in liquid, anoxic environments helps to preserve human brain tissue.
Unfortunately for the poor guy / brain, we killed his survival prospects. He did go with the cheap option of just saving the head. Speculating, if he got found another few centuries from now, he might've been a patient, not "archeological remains".
On a more serious note, I'd like the perspective of someone signed up for cryonics on this:
With people signed up for cryonics nowadays - I hear it even comes with a necklace! - I wonder what role the signalling aspect (to others, more importantly to oneself, feeling safer from death) plays versus the actual permanent-death-evading.
Having been present for (mouse) brain slice experiments done immediately after extraction, being confronted with the rapidly progressing tissue decay, the most important aspect that could easily be optimised - apart from research into other methods of preservation - was the time from the extraction to the experiments. Each minute made a tremendous difference. Not a surprise: as the aphorism in neurology (stroke therapy) goes, "time is brain".
What leads me to somewhat doubt the seriousness of the actual belief in brain preservation, versus the belief in belief that's based on minimising existential angst, is that the obvious idea of "when death is approaching with an ETA of less than X, commit suicide with cryonics on immediate standby" is not an integral part of the discussion. X may be weeks, or even years, based on how serious you take cryonics.
The above incidentally contains a way of betting to indicate the strength you assign to the actual prospects of cryonics, versus the role it plays for you psychologically. Isn't betting on your beliefs encouraged in this community? (NB: the "suicide" is just included to avoid legal ramifications.)
Regardless of future technological advances, orders of magnitude less brain damage will certainly pose less of a problem than the delay caused even by a couple of hours. A couple of hours = your brain tissue is already a scorched battlefield! Both necrosis and apoptosis get started within minutes.
Measuring your actual belief in the success of cryonics (for someone signed up for cryonics), waiting for death by natural causes doesn't indicate a lot of confidence when even a few weeks of life seem to be measured more highly than a tremendous increase in the actual prospects of cryonics working.
Or do you have above mentioned plans in place for when your life expectancy is less than X months/years (for whatever reason)?