Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

I still don't see how "it's not natural" means "we shouldn't do this". The whole point of technological progress is to do things that aren't "natural".

My own point of view is that nothing is unnatural. We are creatures of the Earth, and the materials we use are materials of the Earth. Given that we are natural beings (with natural brains) and use natural materials, nothing we can do is "unnatural".

- Kef

I think Marshmallow Roast is okaying the use of cryogenics for medical purposes (such as someone inflicted with a disease for which we don't yet have a cure), but not for liesure purposes. If cryogenics is seen strictly as a medical tool, then someone freezing themselves to see the future would be as ridiculous as someone getting a glass eye to replace a perfectly-healthy eye--it would be using medicine to serve their own vanities and whimsies instead of serving someone who earnestly NEEDED such treatment.

However, again, that's viewing cryogenics as strictly medical. If it's seen as something that can serve for both medical AND leisurely uses equally, then I guess one would simply have to weigh the pros and cons on their own individual terms if they wanted to freeze themselves for non-medical purposes. Would someone be willing to give up their life as they knew it, risking being awoken in a world that could be so drastically different (or perhaps rather the same as the world in which they were initially frozen)? Would they be ready to potentially say goodbye forever to all their friends and loved ones? Would they be ready to accept the possibility that the method in which they are frozen is found scientifically irreversible later on, thus condemning them not to longer life, but an early death? There's a lot to consider, and as long as people make a fully-informed and well-weighted decision, then I think it's their own business whether or not they actually go through with it.

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

all 'yall: crogenics is the study of life under extreme temperatures. you're thinking of cryonincs.

okay, that's over.

think this: once a person wakes up, they probably won't know anyone, or recognise anything. plus, everything else is in the past.

I see this thread and all I can think about is Futurama. I need a life.

Anyway, I agree with Myrrh and PMG. Doing it just for the sake of doing it is kinda like (as PMG said) replacing a perfectly normal eye with a glass eye, or replacing a perfectly functional liver with a new one. Yeah, it'd be cool to see the future and all, but you couldn't go back. It's not like visiting another country or something. It's permanent. You'd be frozen (no pun intended) in the future, trapped there. If you were frozen for long enough, your loved ones might all be dead--think of how awful THAT would be. Like waking up and discovering that everyone you care about has died.

Not to say there aren't some legitimate uses for it, just saying that it's not the kinda thing one should take lightly.

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As shippinator said, if you woke up in the future and all of your loved ones were dead, life would probably suck.
But what if someone who's life was in the crap in this time wanted to use it to start anew in the future, 'ala' The Many Coloured Land'?
Where does the moral ehics of it apply then?
Also, technically, if you don't feel the time when you were frozen go by your not really extending your lifespan.

Should "going into the future" by cryonics be taken lightly? No, probably not. But if somebody wants to take it lightly, hey, that's their choice. They're going to be fully aware of all the dangers, so why stop them? I think we protect people from themselves a bit too much. Let them have their fun.

I do feel that if I live to, say, my 70s, and I have pretty much nothing left for me in this time -- maybe a comfortable living, but nobody I care about or anything -- and it were feasible... I'd probably like to see the future before I die. Just to know how what happened, like knowing the end of the story. I don't really see anything wrong with that, other than the resources that would be used in keeping me alive in all that time. If it'd be an insane amount, I wouldn't want to be a bother, but otherwise, what's the harm?

- Kef

I'm not sure if I can back this up, but I've heard that there's some company that let's you pay them to freeze down your body or just your head once you've died. So instead of getting burried or something after death you get frozen. The idea is that they'll try to bring you back to life in the future, should it ever become possible.
Of course, you'll have no guarantee that you will ever be brought back, but I heard that there are still quite a few people who are willing to try, and that some have allready been frozen.

Alcor, of Scottsdale, AZ.

Personally, it sounds like an expensive funeral to me. Yeah, call me a skeptic.

It WOULD be cool to see what kind of stuff we'll have 100 years from now, but if you were thawed out 100 years from now, you'd probably either go "Ok, that's cool. If we've gotten this far in 100 years. I'd love to see how much further we're gonna be in 100 more years." or "WTF?!?! Still no flying cars?!?", in which case you wouldn't be getting Kef's "End of the story". Still, if there were some guarantee it'd work, I'd give it a whirl.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

Funerals are already expensive enough. $6,000 caskets and all that...that's partly why I want to donate my body to science when I die.

Also, keep in mind that there IS the possibility that the future one would wake up to could be absolutely horrible. Imagine if you woke up to find the world in a totalitarian regime, and you were only unfrozen to be another soldier for your nation or something? There's no predicting the future state of governments, so while it's nice to sit and theorize about the "paradise" that the future could be over our world now, it could just as easily be something you would NOT want to wake up to.

_________________
The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!