Cryonics Institute -- Frequently Asked Questions About Cryonics
cryonics institute - image logo
cryonics institute - what's new
cryonics institute - print logo
cryonics : life solutions for the 21st century
search button
cryonics institute - contents page link
cryonics institute - what's new page link
cryonics institute - faq page link
cryonics institute - comparisons page link
cryonics institute - facilities page link
cryonics institute - resources page link
cryonics institute - research page link
cryonics institute - 'CI list of links' page link
cryonics institute - contact us button
cryonics institute - donations page link
cryonics institute - membership page link

CRYONICS: Why don't we?


Set up a facility in the Arctic? The lower external temperature makes very little difference to the boil off of cryogens. Access, staffing and management would be much more expensive.

Set up a facility in orbit or on a distant moon or planet where it is very cold? Although no cryogen is needed, the technology does not yet exist to make this possible or economic. It is unlikely ever to be economic during the period before reanimation becomes practicable.

Set up a facility in a legislature more favourable than the United States? Although less litigious legislatures do exist, they tend to be less stable and US style litigation is becoming more and more prevalent in the world everywhere.

Set up a facility where I <ie the enquirer> live - I am sure lots of people will flock to it? There are only two major facilities in the world and there must be a reason for this paucity. They are situated in the USA and are widely spaced from each other.

Insist members move to live near the facility, or come and stay there when they are dying? This was tried briefly once by another organisation and it was not successful. Most people are aware that cryonics is not certain to work and it would be silly to give up their existing lives when that is all they have. Most people prefer to die in their own homes amongst familiar surroundings and people. Also it is not easy to immigrate into the USA.

Set up <enquirer suggests a project> and ask members to give money towards it? If the project is inexpensive then the proposer can probably afford to do it himself at his own expense. People often feel that they are spending enough on their life insurance premiums to afford any more. It is usually best for any excess to be given to the cryonics organisation generally for them to decide how to use it. Overfunding the cryopreservation fee is usually the most popular method of providing extra funding. Anyone wishing to give time, expertise or money to CI can learn more about it by clicking here.

Set up a conference at <enquirer suggests a venue> and CI send staff to speak there? Cryonics has been around since the 1960s and has received publicity out of all proportion to those already interested. Despite that, the number involved is still minuscule. By all means have local meetings and conferences, but it is not worth the time and money of CI staff to spend days traveling and speaking. But if you are convinced enough about your venue to offer tens of thousands of dollars, plus expenses, I am sure CI can find a speaker.

Run our own life insurance company? There are very expensive regulatory burdens on life insurance companies. They can afford them because they have thousands, even millions of customers. CI would never have that many, and therefore it would be uneconomic to spend money on compliance with the regulations. The laws are widely drafted to catch similar proposals that may look at first sight not to be life insurance.

Pay a successful public relations company to promote cryonics? Cryonics has an enormous amount of free publicity in relation to the number of people signed up. In fact it is probably the greatest attractor of publicity of any minority activity ever. For an example of publicity in Europe, please click here..

Offer comissions to sell memberships? Comission based selling has a bad name generally with the public. To associate this with cryonics which is viewed with extreme suspicion is not a good idea.

Employ a paid professional Webmaster? A website capable of providing information need not be complicated. Fancy presentation also means slow download times, which are frustrating to dial up readers.

Try and get famous people interested? They are very unlikely be willing to spend the time evaluating cryonics personally, and any assistant is going to find it less demanding on his own time to dismiss the idea out of hand.

Involve the Roman Catholic Church? Jesus healed the sick and raised the dead and told his followers to do the same. Although the Roman Catholics' views on individual life appear very similar to cryonicists', there are plenty of people in that organisation who would disagree. It is unlikely as an organisation ever to agree on something as radical as cryonics.

Involve a controversial but powerful head of state? This would probably not be successful for reasons already stated, but if it was and (s)he was cryopreserved, then the facility would become the target of dissidents.

Euthanase and cryopreserve terminally sick people? At present the legal difficulties outweigh the advantages.

Use freeze-drying or chemical preservation (plastination)? Although this could be better than nothing, a lot of the problems would be similar. Many of the risks of cryonics are at the front end, ie with the law and society and getting the person frozen under best conditions. These risks would be the same with other methods. Once the patient is frozen the risks are relatively slight. The greatest risk then depends on unknowables in the future. However with these other methods the risks of destroying irreplaceable information is a great deal larger.

[For a cryonics FAQ written by CI's current President, Ben Best, see Cryonics -- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) on his website.]

link to contents

Home | Contents | FAQ | Compare | Links | Membership | Contact Us