By Urvika Mehra, Junior Editor
Cryonics. If you’re familiar with this term from science fiction, you probably think it involves freezing rich, delusional, Elon Musk wannabes who refuse to accept the idea of death. You might be surprised to know that almost every part of that sentence is grossly inaccurate. This article explores why that is, the costs involved and the changing attitudes of people towards this often misrepresented science.
The cryonics movement was born in 1962, when Robert Ettinger wrote a book called ‘The Prospects of Immortality’. It is the science of preserving ‘patients’ through vitrification until future medical technology can restore them to full health. Today, there are about 500 people cryopreserved in vats around the world, and more than 4,000 who have signed up for it.
So, how does it actually work?
There are five facilities that offer a shot at a second lifetime, but the oldest and most prominent two are Alcor and the Cryonics Institute, both based in the US. Once you sign up, fill out the paperwork and pay the fee (more on that later), you are given a bracelet and a necklace containing instructions and contact information. You get to carry on with your life until, well, you die. But what is ‘death’? The definition keeps changing over time, but it is generally accepted that it is the ‘point of no return’, the point after which medical technology does not currently exist to revive the patient. Modern science talks about death as a process and not as a singular event, as we are constantly developing technologies to resuscitate people after longer and longer periods of time. Today, legal death occurs when there is the “irreversible cessation of all functions of the brain”, and medical death occurs when the heart stops beating (after which resuscitation is possible through CPR and defibrillators). To be cryopreserved, you need to legally die. Once this happens, the cryonics team swoops in, does a couple of procedures and transports you to the cryonics facility where your body or your brain is vitrified. Basically, your blood is replaced with medical-grade antifreeze, and you are stored in liquid nitrogen for 10 years? 20? 400? Doesn’t matter, you’re on pause.
Then what?
Cryonicists and the companies that provide cryopreservation services openly admit that they currently do not have the technology to revive patients, and that the technology is not likely to exist anytime in the near future. Investing in cryonics is very much a big gamble, but most base it on hopeful and pragmatic science that is rapidly developing. As of February 2006, scientists vitrified a rabbit’s brain, rewarmed it, and showed that it was in near-perfect condition with “cell membranes, synapses, intercellular structures intact.” A study published in July 2023 shows that worms frozen 46,000 years ago were revived. Imagine a patient arriving in an ambulance to Hospital A, a typical modern hospital. The patient’s heart stopped 15 minutes before the EMTs arrived and he is immediately pronounced dead at the hospital. What if the doctors at Hospital A learned that Hospital B across the street had developed a radical new technology that could revive a patient anytime within 60 minutes after cardiac arrest with no long-term damage? Of course, they would rush the patient across the street to Hospital B to save him. What cryonicists suggest is that in many cases where a patient is pronounced dead today, they’re not dead but rather doomed, and that there is a Hospital B that can save the day—but instead of being in a different place, it’s in a different time. It’s in the future. Simply put, cryonicists see cryopreservation as an ambulance to a future hospital which has the ability to save them. Revival involves molecular nanotechnology, which is a field that has applications ranging from developing cancer drugs and making invisibility cloaks, to making sunscreen and protective car paint.
But isn’t it like…super expensive?
Not really.
Alcor and Yinfeng, the most expensive service providers, charge $200,000 for a full body and $80,000 for neuropreservation (just the brain). CI charges $35,000 ($28,000 for lifetime members) plus an annual membership fee of $120 (or a one-time fee of $1,250 for lifetime members). This is so much cheaper than Alcor because it doesn’t include transport fee, and secondly because more than half of Alcor’s large fee goes towards maintaining a Patient Care Trust, which exists to help revival, ensure continued care even if the company goes bankrupt, and provide patients with a financial backing if and when they begin their ‘second life’. The trust uses the power of long-term compounded investment earnings with the intent of achieving growth eventually sufficient to revive all of Alcor’s patients. (From 1950-2009 the S&P 500 had an inflation adjusted return of 7%). These fees seem like a lot, but are actually not as restrictive as one might think. Most people fund their cryopreservation through life insurance policies in the name of the company. If you’re young, this amounts to as little as $120 (~₹9600) per year with CI. Interestingly, it costs the same as a cable or cigarette habit. These companies also provide family and pet discounts (yes, you can cryopreserve your pets too). In case the conditions of death make cryopreservation impossible, the insurance amount goes to family or to the charitable organization of your choice.
The Bigger Picture
Some obvious arguments that arise against cryonics are concerns for overpopulation, and environmental costs. Contrary to popular belief, cryonics is actually not bad for the environment. The long-term storage does not involve any electricity whatsoever, and the vats just need to be refilled with liquid nitrogen regularly. The production of liquid nitrogen does use some energy, but results in an easily renewable resource that is highly sustainable. Economics is based on the fact that resources are limited, so extra people in the future would be added strain on already diminishing resources, right? Cryonicists address this by saying “What about antibiotics, vaccinations, statin drugs and the population pressures they bring? It’s silly to single out something as small and speculative as cryonics as a population issue. Life spans will continue increasing in developed parts of the world, cryonics or not, as they have done for the past century. Historically, as societies become more wealthy and long-lived, population takes care of itself. Couples have fewer children at later ages.” Even with 100x growth, less than 1 million people would be signed up for cryonics, resulting in less than 0.001% additional people in the future.
The Economics behind Cryonics
An interesting exploration of the appeal of cryonics, leads one to understand how effectively cryonics companies have commodified ‘time’ itself. Cryonics is very much a capitalist form. It was Benjamin Franklin who said “Remember that time is money”. During the industrial revolution, time and money were remarkably paired through the hourly wage. This also separated time into two major categories- labour time and leisure time. Time became something to be ‘saved’, ‘bought’, ‘spent’ and ‘managed’. Similarly, cryonics offers the possibility that more time can be bought and sold in the distant, abstract future. Consumers ‘buy’ the privilege to imagine a utopian future and abundant life, in this, cryonics is similar to other types of insurance and speculative investment, but is exceptionally significant as it involves one’s own life itself. A potentially increased lifespan, incentivizes long-term thinking. It encourages consumers to overcome their myopic tendencies and show increased concern for the continued welfare of the planet. The rational consumer acts out of self-interest, and the prospect of living again in the far future, provides a personal reason for why long-term, far in the future issues are important. No one wants to wake up in a dystopian future devoid of nature, devastated by extreme weather and with wars started due to an ever increasing gap between the poor and rich. Consumers are thus highly motivated to create a positive impact in the now, considering the future society might assess their actions with hindsight before revival.
Cultural factors heavily influence both the number, and type of people who sign up for cryonics. Yinfeng, a Chinese company, is the only cryonics group that is supported by the government and embraced by mainstream researchers. The cooperation in China is a long way from the situation in Russia, where cryonics is often derided as “an exclusively commercial undertaking that does not have any scientific basis.” The primacy that Western society places on an individual’s choice in such cases is at odds with Eastern culture, where cryopreservation is a family decision. That may help explain an intriguing difference in the gender balance of people who have been preserved. Men outnumber women by almost three to one among Alcor’s clients, and the imbalance is even greater among people registered with the Australian start-up, Southern Cryonics. But there is an almost even gender balance among KrioRus’s 80 patients. The Russians often cryopreserve their mothers first as more often than not, Russian men are brought up only by their mothers. The Chinese are also baffled by the tendency of Americans to plan a solo journey into the future, and often making the decision on behalf of ageing family members regardless of whether they themselves want to be cryopreserved.
Whether or not you believe in the feasibility or ethics of cryonics, the movement is rapidly gaining traction as more biostasis-based startups emerge, and associated stigma reduces. Cryogenics (of which cryonics is a subfield), is already being extensively used for tissue and organ preservation, and in vitro fertilization (IVF). Cryonics is, admittedly, a step or two further. But is it trying to cheat death? Or just prolong human life?
References
Why Cryonics Makes Sense
Frequently Asked Questions
https://www.emk.bio/towards-building-a-better-world/
https://www.rudihoffman.com/articles.html
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01459741003715391
https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1051&context=lawreview
Arthashastra 