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comment by Skeeve · 2013-06-28T12:12:11.027Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Speaking from the point of view of someone who wasn't previously completely sold on cryonics, this is a very thought provoking read.

As a brief tangent, I'm a little dismayed at the number of comments on that article that basically boiled down to 'it was too long to read'.

Replies from: David_Gerard
comment by David_Gerard · 2013-06-28T15:52:28.873Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

You'd think BuzzFeed was primarily a source of Internet brain candy with the readership that attracts or something.

comment by advancedatheist · 2013-06-28T15:03:23.289Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I work for Dave Pizer, who gets the last word in Josh Dean's article. When Dean came out to interview Dave last year, he said he wanted to publish his article in GQ magazine; but apparently that deal fell through. Too bad, because I suspect GQ has more readers that BuzzFeed.

I'd like to see the framing of the cryonics idea move away from the traditional "becoming immortal" confusions dating from the 1960's over to something along the lines of: Cryonicists, and brain preservationists in general, want to turn death from a permanent off-state into a temporary and reversible off-state through advanced applied biotechnology and neuroscience.

And I'd also like to see cryonics advocates answer the dumb-asses' question about new bodies for revived head- or brain-only cryonauts by referring to the emerging medical technology of organ printing as a plausible solution which has more going for it than hand-waving about clones, uploads or robotic bodies: Just print a new, functional human body from the neck down.

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Replies from: None
comment by [deleted] · 2013-06-28T16:29:30.599Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Eh, Ken Hayworth's not handwaving when he talks about uploading - he's actively working on the problem. My impression is that the tech you'd need for full repair (handwavy nanotech) is less plausible than the tech you'd need for uploading (slightly-less-handwavy slice/scan/run). Given that there are already active credible projects working on uploading c elegans, it seems more-likely (though probably less intuitive) than physical repair.

Replies from: Taurus_Londono