Sure thing. A friend who had met with the team and was impressed offered to set up a meeting. When I met them I was impressed by detailed answers to both my questions around the science and the questions around the incentives that surround such an org, and what long term viability looks like. Often when I speak with founders I have to be a little forgiving and see whether I think their strengths will render them enough resources and non terrible incentive environment to be able to pay for their weaknesses. In the case of Nectome I got the sense they are paying attention to past failures and not falling prey to too much hopeful thinking. I think this is reflected in the scenario analysis of the post.
The particulars that got me interested:
I have long been sympathetic to fixation over cryo bc I believe org risk is very high on some basic actuarial base rates for orgs. If my body can be chucked in a borehole in permafrost at a geologically inactive site and left there that would be ideal IMO. People who imagine themselves revived in a repaired version of their biological body seem to think full body cryo has a better shot for hand wavy reasons afaict.
compatible with normal funerals, so dramatically lower spending of weirdness points and religious objections. I think this means it can scale about 2oom more than cryo at least.
the level of damage by this process (as performed by random assay from third parties) appears to be less than the levels of damage in cases of revival from hypothermic drowning, such people have had (mostly?) complete recovery of personality and memories afaik.
competence of the team.
the much higher feedback cycle over cryo. Other preservation groups are not actively doing electron microscopy nor lab animal experiments afaik.
I don’t know a ton about why aldehyde fixation is able to preserve such fine structure, but the data look reasonable to me.
compatible with normal funerals, so dramatically lower spending of weirdness points and religious objections. I think this means it can scale about 2oom more than cryo at least.
I couldn’t quickly find the percentage of open casket funerals, but let’s say it is half. If we take the extreme case that right now cryonics is only adopted by people with families who would prefer a non-open casket funeral, then maybe that doubles the market? I think the main religious objections are that you are playing God, the soul doesn’t go back into the body, etc. Also, the MAiD requirement would cause a lot more religious objection. And in reality, many cryonicists sign up even if their relatives would prefer open casket. So I think the market would increase less than 100%, let alone 10,000% due to these factors.
It’s not both of these problems—either you do whole body cryopreservation (no decapitation) and no body at the funeral at all, or you do neuro preservation and you can have the rest of the body cremated and present at the funeral.
Sure thing. A friend who had met with the team and was impressed offered to set up a meeting. When I met them I was impressed by detailed answers to both my questions around the science and the questions around the incentives that surround such an org, and what long term viability looks like. Often when I speak with founders I have to be a little forgiving and see whether I think their strengths will render them enough resources and non terrible incentive environment to be able to pay for their weaknesses. In the case of Nectome I got the sense they are paying attention to past failures and not falling prey to too much hopeful thinking. I think this is reflected in the scenario analysis of the post.
The particulars that got me interested:
I have long been sympathetic to fixation over cryo bc I believe org risk is very high on some basic actuarial base rates for orgs. If my body can be chucked in a borehole in permafrost at a geologically inactive site and left there that would be ideal IMO. People who imagine themselves revived in a repaired version of their biological body seem to think full body cryo has a better shot for hand wavy reasons afaict.
compatible with normal funerals, so dramatically lower spending of weirdness points and religious objections. I think this means it can scale about 2oom more than cryo at least.
the level of damage by this process (as performed by random assay from third parties) appears to be less than the levels of damage in cases of revival from hypothermic drowning, such people have had (mostly?) complete recovery of personality and memories afaik.
competence of the team.
the much higher feedback cycle over cryo. Other preservation groups are not actively doing electron microscopy nor lab animal experiments afaik.
I don’t know a ton about why aldehyde fixation is able to preserve such fine structure, but the data look reasonable to me.
I couldn’t quickly find the percentage of open casket funerals, but let’s say it is half. If we take the extreme case that right now cryonics is only adopted by people with families who would prefer a non-open casket funeral, then maybe that doubles the market? I think the main religious objections are that you are playing God, the soul doesn’t go back into the body, etc. Also, the MAiD requirement would cause a lot more religious objection. And in reality, many cryonicists sign up even if their relatives would prefer open casket. So I think the market would increase less than 100%, let alone 10,000% due to these factors.
I don’t think it’s direct considerations but literally the ick of decapitation and no body at the funeral at all
It’s not both of these problems—either you do whole body cryopreservation (no decapitation) and no body at the funeral at all, or you do neuro preservation and you can have the rest of the body cremated and present at the funeral.