Founder Of Cryogenics Movement Dies (For The Time Being)
Act One of Robert Ettinger’s existence has drawn to a close. I plan on watching Weekend at Bernie’s in tribute. Associated Press reports:
Robert Ettinger, pioneer of the cryonics movement that advocates freezing the dead in the hope that medical technology will enable them to live again someday, has died. He was 92. His body became the 106th to be stored at the Cryonics Institute, which he founded in 1976.
The Cryonics Institute charges $28,000 to prepare a body and store it long-term in a tank of liquid nitrogen at minus 321 degrees Fahrenheit. The first person frozen there was Ettinger’s mother, Rhea Ettinger, who died in 1977. His two wives, Elaine and Mae, also are patients at the Institute. Similar facilities for preserving dead bodies operate in Arizona, California and Russia.
Ettinger also established the Immortalist Society, a research and education group devoted to cryonics and extending the human life span. He wrote:…
Does Your Spouse Hate That You Want To Be Cryogenically Frozen?
The New York Times has an intriguing article on the tension that often arises between people that want to be cryogenically preserved after death and those people’s loved ones. Is it a selfish act to hope for the revival of your frozen brain centuries into the future? Or are the rest of us just jealous of cryogenics enthusiasts’ cheery refusal to accept death as inevitable?
Robert Ettinger is the father of cryonics, his 1964 book, “The Prospect of Immortality,” its founding text. “This is not a hobby or conversation piece,” he wrote in 1968, adding, “it is the struggle for survival. Drive a used car if the cost of a new one interferes. Divorce your wife if she will not cooperate.” Today, with just fewer than200 patients preserved within the two major cryonics facilities, the Michigan-based Cryonics Institute and the Arizona-based Alcor, and with 10 times as many signed up to be…
Wake From Cryonics
Here’s an interesting idea. Finance your cryogenic preservation using life insurance — and then leave a huge death benefit to your future thawed self!
“Most in the middle class, if they seriously want it, can afford it now. So by taking the right steps, you can look forward to waking up one bright future morning from cryopreservation the proud owner of a bank account brimming with money!”
But there’s one important caveat. Some insist that money “will have no meaning in a future dominated by advanced molecular manufacturing or other engines of mega-abundance.
“In this case waking from cryonics rich or poor would be exactly the
same…” (This article first appeared in the fall issue of H+ magazine…)
Ted Williams Frozen Head Beaten with a Monkey Wrench
via nymag.com
In a new book called Frozen: My Journey Into the World of Cryonics, Deception, and Death, Larry Johnson, a former executive at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Arizona, details what he saw while working at the facility, including the terrible things workers did to the head and body of Red Sox player Ted Williams. According to the Daily News today, it’s gruesome and inexplicable stuff, including an incident the newspaper un-tastefully describes as “batting practice.”
“Johnson writes that in July 2002, shortly after the Red Sox slugger died at age 83, technicians with no medical certification gleefully photographed and used crude equipment to decapitate the majors’ last .400 hitter.”
“Holes were drilled in Williams’ severed head for the insertion of microphones, then frozen in liquid nitrogen while Alcor employees recorded the sounds of Williams’ brain cracking 16 times as temperatures dropped to -321 degrees Fahrenheit.”
“The head was balanced on an empty can of Bumble Bee tuna to keep it from sticking to the bottom of its case.”
“Johnson describes watching as another Alcor employee removed Williams’ head from the freezer with a stick, and tried to dislodge the tuna can by swinging at it with a monkey wrench.”
The technician, no .406 hitter like the baseball legend, missed the can with several swings of the wrench and smacked Williams’ head directly, spraying “tiny pieces of frozen head” around the room.”
