[Momquist]

> If you want to advocate cryonics for the masses, think about what you would do if you had to live in a world with the reanimated masses of the 18th century.

Sounds like Riverworld. I think it could be quite interesting. But anyway, whether it's a potential mess or not is something for our future descendants to decide on.

Advocating cryonics today doesn't imply that our descendants, even if they have the technology, will accept the resurrection of masses. We have immigration laws today, I'm sure the same concept could be thought up for "people outside their own time", if it ever is an issue.

[philwelch]

Or I could just accept my mortality and let my corpse go to some productive use, like organ donation or teaching medical students, rather than investing in some narcissistic notion of being resurrected.

[Wh1zz]

As romantic as "coming to peace with mortality" might sound, I enjoy living life too much to idly accept that i will at some point feel the breeze in my hair for the last time, or never again smell a flower's perfume, or gaze on a beautiful view. Sure, if everything fails, i will have to accept it. But why not give my everything in the mission of taking life further, even if i can help it by an atomic amount? What if there were as many great minds working on solving aging as there are working on cancer research? Why not try and bring a contribution? What if everyone else capable would have the same realisation? Why sit idly and wait to be carried by waves to nothing at all?

[philwelch]

That's the most poetic defense of base selfishness I've read since Ayn Rand.

[justinalanbass]

You could do both: organ donation is compatible with brain preservation.

Perhaps some are motivated by narcissism, but I'd like to think my fellow cryonicists are motivated by hope, and a belief that the future will be a warm and welcoming place. If the future is narcissistic, I wouldn't want to be revived anyways.