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This article is from the Cryonics FAQ, by Tim Freeman tim@infoscreen.com with numerous contributions by others.

3-6. What would happen if people didn't age after reaching adulthood? (Cryonics)

Ecology: We might be better stewards of this planet if we
knew that we would have to live with the results of our actions.

Human relations: We will have to learn to treat each other
better if we are going to live in the same world together for a
very long time.

The situation I envision is that people will die of something other
than biological accidents like old age. They will die from making
mistakes, which seems to me to be a more interesting way to die.
We'll get stories like this:

Joe died because he didn't bother buying enough redundancy in the
life support system of his space ship.

Bill died because a machine was developed that could do his job
better than him, and before he could retrain for a different job he
ran out of money and couldn't afford his anti-aging regimen any
more.

Jill died because she wanted to.

Jane died because she believed in a religion that forbids life
extension.

I prefer endings like that over having nearly everyone die of symptoms
of the same disease (that is, aging) regardless of whether they want
to continue, and regardless of how well they were living their life.

 

Continue to:

• prev: 3-5. What if they repair the freezing damage (and install a new body, in the case of neurosuspension), and the resulting being acts and talks as though it were me, but it isn't really me?
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• next: 3-7. Would it be better to be suspended now or later? (Cryonics)

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reading, books, cryonics, cryonic suspension, freezing, metabolism