Sir Terry Pratchett Knight and Adjunct Professor of English at Trinity College Dublin
I've not cried when family members have died but... I learned to read from his books and he shaped my view of the world more than pretty much anyone except my parents.
He was a secular humanist and an incredible intellect.
Recommended:
Terry Pratchetts Richard Dimbleby lecture: Shaking Hands With Death
He was a campaigner for voluntary euthanasia, not because he was in favor of dying but because there are worse things in this universe than death.
His Inaugural Lecture at trinity: Terry Pratchett "The Importance of Being Amazed about Absolutely Everything"
For some reason one of the comments on the story about his death hit me hard:
Pratchett has received a number of letters from terminally ill fans in which they hope that Death will resemble the Discworld incarnation (he also says that those particular letters usually cause him to spend some time staring at the wall). ~ the art of Discworld.
And finally, the last post on his twitter account:
"AT LAST, SIR TERRY, WE MUST WALK TOGETHER."
"Terry took Death’s arm and followed him through the doors and on to the black desert under the endless night."
BBC article
I'm sure I'm not the only one who greatly admired him. The theme of his stories was progress; they were set in a fantasy world, it's true, but one that was frequently a direct analogy to our own past, and where the golden age was always right now. The recent books made this ever more obvious.
We have lost a great man today, but it's the way he died that makes me uncomfortable. Terry Pratchett had early-onset Alzheimer's, and while I doubt it would have mattered, he couldn't have chosen cryonics even if he wanted to. He campaigned for voluntary euthanasia in cases like his. I will refrain from speculating on whether his unexpected death was wholly natural; whether it was or wasn't, I can't see this having a better outcome. In short...
There is, for each of us, a one-ninth chance of developing Alzheimer's if we live long enough. Many of us may have relatives that are already showing signs, and in the current regime these relatives cannot be cryonically stored even if they wish to try; by the time they die, there will be little purpose in doing so. For cryonics to help for neurodegenerative disorders, it needs to be applied before they become fatal.
Is there anything we can do to change that? Are there countries in which that generalisation is false?