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ScottMessick comments on The Brain Preservation Foundation still needs money - Less Wrong Discussion
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I think this hypothesis is worth bearing in mind. However, it doesn't explain advancedatheist's observation that wealthy cryonicists are eager to put a lot of money in revival trusts (whose odds of success are dubious, even if cryonics works) rather than donate to improve cryonics research or the financial viability of cryonics organizations.
Maybe it's something like the Egyptian pharaohs putting gold and valuables in their pyramids
The hypothesis "many people are engaging in cryonics as signalling/psychological-reassurance" is not incompatible with the hypothesis "there exist people interested in cryonics on a practical level, eager for potentially falsifying experiments". Indeed, it's even possible for both of these things to be true of a single person.
Many long-shot medical procedures serve similar functions - but this does not preclude them from being legitimate medical procedures. And there, too, I would expect a non-trivial subset of patients (and doctors) to be reluctant to seek out falsifying evidence.
There is likely some truth in your assertion that cryonics is fulfilling many of the same psychological and social functions of burial rituals - but that does not adequately explain all behavior in the cryonics arena.