This physicist has never heard anyone talk about cryonics in meatspace, and assumed that the Futurama thing was fictional until reading Less Wrong. (Also, Fry was alive when he got frozen.)
How old were you when you started reading Less Wrong?
For some not-very-large value of “usually”. Where I am, physicists aren't that less likely to be religious than random people the same age and geographic provenance (but it's probably different elsewhere).
That would be surprising. Do you have any reference?
How old were you when you started reading Less Wrong?
24. Why?
That would be surprising. Do you have any reference?
No statistics about that, I'm afraid. You'd have to accept my anecdata. I have met at least a dozen Catholic physicists, many of whom engaged in various kinds of Catholic associations; that's somewhere around half the physicists I know well enough to know their religious stance. (Also, [REDACTED].)
That's less surprising if you know that the person most people where I'm from think of first when they hear "physicist" is this guy.
In the past, the Cryonics Institute has had a policy that said that they would not accept anyone who is not a member. This has changed. The policy now is that someone who has full legal authority over your body can sign you up after you die. It costs $36,250 to be frozen if you are not signed up, which is more expensive. They also will not do anything until you have been on dry ice for 2 weeks after they have been contacted, so not being a member is more risky.
This is very important news for anyone who is currently cryocrastinating. It means that you can drastically increase your chances of survival without filling out any forms. All you have to do is tell a loved one you want to be frozen upon death, and that you would like them to take responsibility for making sure this happens. This takes literally 30 seconds. Do it now!
This news might also be a reason to not sign up right away, if you think something better (like radical life extension or uploading) will come along in your lifetime. We should discuss this in the comments.
Edit: The general consensus of this discussion is that this is a really bad reason not to sign up for cryonics.