Carrie Radomski I think cryonics is regarded as a cult because many...

June 25, 2024 at 1:04 PM  ·  Comment — Archer T. Ships replied to Carrie Radomski's comment.  ·  View on Facebook  ·  Markdown source

Carrie Radomski I think cryonics is regarded as a cult because many people think the prospect of immortality via cryonics has roughly the same plausibility as The Rapture, or being rescued by aliens. It demands substantial sums of money in the present that the cryonics member will never get back if the cryonics operators are scammers/charlatans. They think that cryonics companies are getting rich by taking advantage of elderly people who may be suffering from dementia or otherwise not in their right mind. And there were some gruesome failures in early cryonics history that tainted cryonics in the minds of the public. Of course, as you say, cryonics is a terrible way to try to scam people. Cryonics company organizers are not getting rich--in fact, cryonics activists have often been impoverished by their activism. Getting people to think seriously about death runs up against all sorts of mental coping mechanisms: religion, fatalism, Malthusianism, etc. In media, characters who seek extreme longevity are almost always portrayed as monsters/villains.