Hal Finney has just died.

Hal Finney has not died, he has entered long term cryopreservation . Death is permanent, Hal still could get better.

RIP Hal. You had been dealt a very bad hand, and you made the best of it.

Wired just posted an article about him.

http://www.wired.com/2014/08/hal-finney/

Bioethicists like Wesley J. Smith would probably say that Hal has acted "selfishly" by seeking the benefit of future medical advances that no one has invented and developed yet. I guess, for example, that it took a really selfish prick back in the 1980's who wanted someone to come up with a way to sequence his entire genome for a few hundred dollars to gain some insight into his health prospects or his offsprings', instead of living in ignorance of whatever genetic issues he might have.

But assuming that people living, in, say, the 24th Century, have figured out how to revive and restore cryonauts, and that they have socially normalized this procedure, they won't go around complaining about the "selfishness" of the people who have taken advantage of cryonics. They'll just view cryonics as a medical specialty that some of them might have to resort to themselves in case 24th Century medicine can't help them, and they seek the help of, say, 27th Century medicine. (How dare you selfishly wanting the health care of the 27th Century!)

Reference: http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/24thcenturymedicine.html

I don't recall if I ever met Hal during my Extropian days. Glad to hear that he will go into cryo, however, unlike Timothy Leary, Sasha Chislenko, Roy Walford, Robert Bradbury, Dick Pelletier and a whole lot of other transhumanists who haven't planned ahead.

I've been practically sleeping in the truth mines lately (it is like sleeping under a rock, but more of a desk), and just found out about Hal. I hope that I can contribute to his eventual revival.

Also, good luck, Hal. I hope you read the archives of this LW thread some day and get to smile over it.

:(

I had not heard of Hal before, but I happened to just read this helpful post he wrote.

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2006/11/foxes_vs_hedgho.html

RIP.

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