back to article Your data will get hacked anyway so you might as well give up protecting it

Flee! Flee! It’s the return of the frozen heads! With childish inevitability, this steaming pile of perennial medi-nonsense is trying to stage a comeback. Walt Disney did it, and now your own bonce can jostle with his for space in the freezer at a fraction of the price. And it’s all going to happen within the next ten years. …

  1. Anonymous South African Coward Bronze badge

    Classic.

    Freezing your own head. Reminds me of the sanatorium in Zork Nemesis.

    1. ciaran
      Facepalm

      You'll be revived on mars, or worse...

      I love the frozen head idea, but realistically you'll be a cyborg with no money if you're ever revived. Now where would it be profitable to put a "technically dead" cyborg ? Somewhere dangerous that no living human would ever accept to go to. So basically you'll be managing a methane factory in Jupiter orbit, or harvesting Oort cloud debris. But you won't have a window to look out of. Fun!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: You'll be revived on mars, or worse...

        I do wonder if there's a legal mechanism to retain ownership of an investment portfolio ( managed on your behalf by a firm, of course ) when your brain has been frozen.

        You could "die" moderately well off and "wake up" outrageously rich ( or dirt poor if the fund manager put it all on black ).

        The cyborg problem could be worked around with a head/body transplant ( which ever way you want to look at it ) from somebody who died from a brain injury.

        1. Rich 11

          Re: You'll be revived on mars, or worse...

          Or you could just spend a year dead for tax reasons.

          1. fobobob

            Re: You'll be revived on mars, or worse...

            Was hoping this one hadn't been said yet xD; it is the excuse I pull when nothing else fits.

        2. ciaran

          Dead people don't have money (problems)

          I would guess that your investment fund would be raided by your heirs about 10 seconds after the will was read. That's why I think you'd be broke, and hence doing something "useful"...

          1. Toltec

            Re: Dead people don't have money (problems)

            "I would guess that your investment fund would be raided by your heirs"

            More likely the government would suck it down to nothing using some kind of wealth tax. Logically it would have to otherwise everything would eventually be owned by dead people that pay no tax.

            1. ciaran

              Re: Dead people don't have money (problems)

              Equally probable, yes.

              In any case, the lawyers will get their cut off the top ;)

            2. GBE

              Re: Dead people don't have money (problems)

              > everything would eventually be owned by dead people that pay no tax.

              If dead people are ever allowed to "own" anything, you can be damn sure they'll also be paying taxes.

              Governments aren't _that_ stupid.

              1. James O'Shea

                Re: Dead people don't have money (problems)

                "> everything would eventually be owned by dead people that pay no tax.

                If dead people are ever allowed to "own" anything, you can be damn sure they'll also be paying taxes.

                Governments aren't _that_ stupid."

                Dead people owning everything, and taxes, and not-very-bright governments are precisely the plot of Lois McMaster Bujold's book Cyroburn. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryoburn

                Unfortunately for the Bad Guys Who Would Be Frozen To Rule, they decide that running just one planet isn't enough, and want more... and the 'more' is one of the three planets run by Lord Auditor Mad Miles Vorkostigan's boss, Emperor Gregor Vorbarra. This means that they run into Mad Miles. Things don't end well for them. They should have picked a safer target... Cetaganda, say, or Old Earth. The not-bright government was owned by the bad guys, and they made the fatal error of assuming that all governments were as corrupt as theirs was, especially the government of a three-planet empire run from a notoriously backwards home world and including one system taken by conquest and another rather accidentally settled as a brand-new colony. They didn't know that the Vor Counts were, originally, the emperors accountants, and they really didn't understand just how powerful a Lord Auditor was, even if he was the youngest and newest Lord Auditor. Oops.

        3. Valerion

          Re: You'll be revived on mars, or worse...

          You could "die" moderately well off and "wake up" outrageously rich.

          Isn't that exactly what happened to Fry in Futurama?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: You'll be revived on mars, or worse...

            And Lister in Red Dwarf ( although I think that was a prank by Hol, who also said the gas board were chasing him for an unpaid bill plus a thousand years interest ).

            1. Uncle Slacky Silver badge
              Thumb Up

              Re: You'll be revived on mars, or worse...

              From the Norweb wiki page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NORWEB :

              "Holly, the on-board computer of the mining ship Red Dwarf, played a practical joke on Dave Lister. According to Holly, the Norweb federation were looking for Lister for his crimes against humanity; leaving two half eaten sausages on his table before leaving, which over three million years had gone mouldy and now covered seven eighths of the earth's surface, and also because he left his bathroom light on for three million years, resulting in a 180 billion pound fine."

              http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEu0o62ycmg

              Also reminds me of how people paid for their meals at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

            2. Tom Paine

              Re: You'll be revived on mars, or worse...

              Outland Revenue, wasn't it?

              [O gods... I already made a Strontium Dog comment, now this. Am I going for Sad Nerd of the Week here or something?! ]

        4. MonkeyCee

          Re: You'll be revived on mars, or worse...

          "I do wonder if there's a legal mechanism to retain ownership of an investment portfolio ( managed on your behalf by a firm, of course ) when your brain has been frozen."

          A trust would work (IANAL) I expect. In the UK they pay 1% tax every 10 years and allow avoidance of death duties if the beneficiary changes, even if that change is due to death.

          I expect the problem would be in ensuring that the day-to-day trust management doesn't help themselves, or that your descendants (or worse, the state) decides to seize the trust, and expect you to file a response.

          Perhaps a series of trusts, paying people to watch over other people, that sort of thing.

          Personally it all sounds like a scam for extracting a lot of money for rich people with little potential downside. It's not like defrosting tech has been ever shown to work for humans, so there's no actual enforceable contract. Well, maybe the "keep you on ice until you can't pay the bills" part.

      2. dtl

        Re: You'll be revived on mars, or worse...

        If you want to see that idea spun into a exciting book, I recommend "We Are Legion (We Are Bob)" from Dennis E. Taylor.

      3. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

        Re: You'll be revived on mars, or worse...

        Now where would it be profitable to put a "technically dead" cyborg

        Well, Larry Niven (I think - my search-fu, both in-head and extra-head isn't working) has them flying Interstellar Bussard ramjets for the State.

        It doesn't end well.

        1. ma1010

          Re: You'll be revived on mars, or worse...

          Larry Niven wrote a short story called "Rammer" and then turned it into a novel called "A World Out Of Time."

          Both worth reading, IMHO. The State had confiscated all the wealth of "corpsicles," and when revived, they were put to work doing jobs that required "expendable assets." He also pointed out that their cells had been destroyed by freezing, so they actually extracted the memory RNA and put it into the body of a criminal who had been mind-wiped. And if the newly (well, "revived" isn't exactly the word - "reincarnated"?) don't pass their tests, they just wipe the mind again and start over with another candidate.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Pint

        Re: You'll be revived on mars, or worse...

        Works for me. My troubles are from the neck down. As for my prior life, well as the Reverend Jim put it on Taxi when Tony Danza's character was thinking of joining the Navy: "The Navy is like prison, with a chance of drowning." I'm attitudinally prepared.

        That last YouTube video was my first FanFlic. Good stuff. Also good attitude adjuster.

    2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      I was thinking of the Corpsicle Problem in Larry Nivens Known Space books.

  2. Ralph the Wonder Llama
    Joke

    “a Fitbit for the stomach”

    Fatbit?

    1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      Re: “a Fitbit for the stomach”

      Gutbit? Fitgut?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: “a Fitbit for the stomach”

      Ulcer Pulser

  3. sandman

    Dungeness

    Lovely post-apocalyptic landscape. The nuclear power plant and the power lines just add the final touch.

    1. Outski
      Boffin

      Re: Dungeness

      Not to mention the Denge sound mirrors nearby https://goo.gl/maps/zGsYcZK3XEE2

      Boffin icon, because the site really deserves a mention in the Reg's Geek's Guide to Blighty

      1. Alistair Dabbs

        Re: Dungeness

        Sound mirrors geek guide is great idea. I'll pitch it and see what happens.

        1. Outski
          Pint

          Re: Dungeness

          Great! For added wonder, one of the best ways to get to Dungeness is the Romney Hythe and Dymnchurch Railway http://www.rhdr.org.uk/dungeness.html

          And there's a pub there as well --->

          1. Alistair Dabbs

            Re: Dungeness

            I've done the miniature railway twice: once when I was 5, then again aged 52.

            1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

              Re: Dungeness

              miniature railway twice: once when I was 5, then again aged 52.

              Similar here - my primary school in Norf Lunnon (can't remember the name - 1/4 of the way up Cat Hill in New Barnet) took us on a week-long trip to St. Mary's Bay when I was a nipper.

              Went back there a couple of years ago when I was 50. The accomodation was slightly better than before - ex-WW2 temporary huts converted into kiddie-barracks were not great.

              But it was the 70's and we expected nothing better.

    2. Admiral Grace Hopper

      Re: Dungeness

      Thank you for the pointers. For whatever reason it's a part of the country that I haven't really been to and has long been on my to-do list, along with Orford Ness.

    3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Dungeness

      Isn't Dungeness just the sort of place where low-budget film units go to stage Sci-Fi cowboy shoot-outs & the like?

    4. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: Dungeness

      There is something about Dungeness I quite like. I popped round to Derek Jarman's 'house' last time I was there. I know he's passed on but I'd much rather think he was out watching a sci-fi space cowboy gunfight on the beach. Though knowing Jarmen; more likely filming half-naked sci-fi space cowboys splashing in the sea, slapping each other about the head with giant rubber willies, while shouting in latin.

      1. hplasm
        Happy

        Re: Dungeness

        "...slapping each other about the head with giant rubber willies, while shouting in latin."

        Isn't that Eton?

  4. TimR

    "It’ll detect when you eat a particularly spicy curry and automatically tell Alexa to order more toilet paper..."

    At last, the killer app for IOT !

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
      Happy

      IoT - the Internet of Toilets?

      [Insert jokes about core dumps and checking the logs here]

      Mine runs domestOS - where the splash screen is sometimes blue, sometimes brown.

  5. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

    I propose the following

    Theorem 1:

    Anybody who wants to freeze their head for the purpose of returning to life later, has a brain not worth freezing.

    Proof of this is beyond the scope of this essay, but should be bleeding obvious to everyone with a brain worth freezing.

    Corollary 1: All brains worth freezing will only be frozen for the above purpose against the will of the owner of said brain.

    Corollary 2:Freezing of brains for the above purpose is either (i) a waste of space/time/energy, or (ii) evil

    Of course, if you want to freeze your head for the purpose of scaring the willies out of your descendants, that is an entirely different matter

  6. andy 28

    01/01/80

    Jan 1st 1980 is the date that jumps out when I see it. Maybe I'm too young to have seen when things defaulted to 01/01/70. But feels lke I've been doing this stuff forever...

    So, for youngsters, no doubt soon their alarm date wiill be 01/01/00

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 01/01/80

      So you're too young to have heard of POSIX? Or Unix, or just about any operating system other than Windows, when it comes to timestamps?

      1. Stoneshop
        Boffin

        Re: 01/01/80

        17 Nov 1858.

      2. Uncle Slacky Silver badge

        Re: 01/01/80

        ISTR old Mac Systems (6 & 7) used to default to sometime in 1904, or maybe that was just Excel?

        1. Uncle Slacky Silver badge

          Re: 01/01/80

          Macs used to default to 1/1/1904 as it was the first leap year of the 20th century, avoiding the complications of starting with 1900 and having to implement Gregorian leap year exceptions. More here:

          http://www.lowendmac.com/lab/04/0115.html

          1. Jonathan Richards 1

            Re: 01/01/80

            > first leap year of the 20th century

            I think that Sarah has been gone long enough for me to risk pointing out that the 20th century didn't begin until 1 January 1901. Thus 2000-02-28 was the last leap day of the 20th century. CE dates are not origin-zero!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 01/01/80

      As I'm guessing you don't know, unix timestamps store the time/date as a number, with 0 representing the first of January 1970.

      The current time is 1508493616.

    3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: 01/01/80

      Informix dates start with 1 = 01/01/1900. A date of 31/12/1899 is a warning that someone didn't understand the difference between null and zero.

  7. Dr_N

    Strontium Dog

    Someone explain why there isn't a blockbuster movie?

    1. Teiwaz

      Re: Strontium Dog

      Strontium Dog

      Someone explain why there isn't a blockbuster movie?

      Proly because the Judge Dredd ones weren't massive hits....I suspect Dredd is considered the main 'celeb' of the magazine, and if he doesn't do that well, the others certainly aren't worth it.

      1. dajames

        Re: Strontium Dog

        Proly because the Judge Dredd ones weren't massive hits....

        The more recent one -- with Karl Urban and Olivia Thirlby -- deserved to be ... apart from being scarily reminiscent of a shopping trip the local Arndale centre on an Saturday afternoon ...

        1. DropBear

          Re: Strontium Dog

          So you're suggesting those who took a look at the trailer and went "f### this, forget it" were merely misinformed, and would have enjoyed it tremendously if only they saw it...?

        2. DJSpuddyLizard

          Re: The Recent One

          I hear it was good. I went to see it in 3D, but I think a projector was out of focus, as all I remember was a massive headache and bleeding eyes. Of course, that may have happened to all viewers.

    2. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: Strontium Dog

      I expect the actor playing Wulf refused to suck Harvey's Weinstein's cock.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Strontium Dog

        Which is surprising considering it's famous what with everything it's been in.

    3. dajames
      Boffin

      Re: Strontium Dog

      Someone explain why there isn't a blockbuster movie?

      Maybe because the government is still trying to pretend that Milton Keynes isn't a mutant ghetto?

      Hmm ... The Johnny Alpha icon doesn't look quite right to me ...

      1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

        Re: Strontium Dog

        Milton Keynes isn't a mutant ghetto?

        Don't be silly. It's the test ground for the new BASILISK STARE system.

        Those concrete cows weren't built y'know

  8. jake Silver badge

    I suspect that the folks freezing their heads ...

    ... would get exactly the same end result by boiling it.

    I've boiled pigs heads. It doesn't help the pigs. Makes for good head cheese and stock, though.

    1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

      Re: I suspect that the folks freezing their heads ...

      good head cheese

      There's a phrase that you have to be careful about using in polite company..

  9. Dr_N
    Devil

    Head Freezing

    It's a lot safer than full body freezing.

    I've seen "The Chilling" !!!

  10. Potemkine! Silver badge

    building a commercial hover bike

    You mean, like these ones? ^^

    1. Alistair Dabbs

      building a commercial hover bike

      Beware of products illustrated by a 3D graphic on a Photoshopped background.

      1. Potemkine! Silver badge

        Re: building a commercial hover bike

        If this one was photoshopped, the buyer should ask for a refund ^^

        Here's the website of the maker https://www.hoversurf.com/

        It can also be used as meat grinder if something goes wrong for the pilot.

    2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      "You mean, like these ones?"

      A programmed maximum height? If it's going to be overflying people it would need a programmed minimum height as well or that freezer's going to be needed PDQ.

  11. Mage Silver badge
    Coat

    Zombies

    Cutting off the head and freezing it is nothing to do with resuscitation as the subject is already dead.

    Obviously it's to make sure the subject is really dead and also security if subject was really a werewolf / vampire / zombie etc that would have shortly run amoke.

    It also ensures that fresh frozen brains can be sold at huge profit if there is a shortage. Like if there is a successful zombie apocalypse.

    As a side note, why Zombies at Halloween. No connection to Celtic Samhain or Christian All Saints.

    Vampires do have a slight Celtic connection (see where Bram Stoker is from and also "lennan shee" is female (fairy) Celtic vampire with human lover, hence the two earlier Victorian books than Dracula had female vampires. One was Lilith. I forget the other.

    1. Rich 11

      Re: Zombies

      Carmilla.

    2. Terry 6 Silver badge

      Re: Zombies

      +1 for the Zombie question. I guess just the marketing bods packaging up anything they can flog at too high a price for a few days. But then festivals do seem to spread outwards. Round my way the Diwali fireworks all seem to consist of continuous bangs. No pretty lights in the sky for a festival of light . Weird.

    3. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Re: Zombies

      Technically, Jesus.

      1. Mage Silver badge

        Re: Technically, Jesus.

        Passover (later renamed Easter, for reasons forgotten and not written down,), about 6 months later than Halloween.

        1. ma1010

          Re: Technically, Jesus.

          Easter comes from "Ishtar," an Assyrian goddess of love and fertility (think Venus), which is why it is associated with fertility symbols like eggs and rabbits.

          1. Alistair Dabbs
      2. Uncle Slacky Silver badge
        Stop

        Re: Zombies

        Technically I think Jesus was a revenant, not a zombie.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenant

      3. WolfFan Silver badge

        Re: Zombies

        Technically, Jesus.

        May I present to you... Lucy Phurr's Imps. Meet Team G (Team D got introed much earlier on; the CEO of Team D likes lawyers... fried, boiled, roasted, on a stick...) http://luciphurrsimps.com/2011/03/29/team-g-03/ And, oh, here's the CEO of Team G: http://luciphurrsimps.com/2011/04/03/team-g-06/ He likes megachurch preachers... fried, boiled, roasted, on a stick... http://luciphurrsimps.com/2011/04/05/team-g-08/

        Warning: may cause head explosions among religious nuts.

    4. Teiwaz

      Re: Zombies at Halloween?

      You forgot pumpkins - pretty sure they aren't celtic...if they were, there must have been a pumpkin famine in the 70's/80's in Ireland as I only ever saw them in Charlie Brown....

      It's an 'underworld' festival - marking the retrograde cycle of the Wheel of the Year, which is generally associated with death and decay.

      1. ciaran

        Re: Pumpkin connection

        When I was a kid in Ireland (Dublin) we hollowed out turnips. VERY difficult. And too small. Basically a fail.

        I doubt the idea came from American TV at the time.

        We also had mashed potato with something green in it, and with a coin hidden in it. Who comes up with this stuff?

        1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

          Re: Pumpkin connection

          We also had mashed potato with something green in it, and with a coin hidden in it. Who comes up with this stuff?

          People with not much money?

          Anyway, in my childhood it would have been "green-coloured Smash with money hidden in it". Which is a whole other bucket of vomit.

        2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Pumpkin connection

          "When I was a kid in Ireland (Dublin) we hollowed out turnips."

          Nowadays everyone seems to insist that these should be called swedes and it's the cricket ball sized things that are turnips. But who'd make a turnip lantern out of those little runts.

          "We also had mashed potato with something green in it"

          Sounds like champ.

        3. John Gamble

          Re: Pumpkin connection

          "When I was a kid in Ireland (Dublin) we hollowed out turnips. VERY difficult. And too small. Basically a fail."

          I read a story as a child that had a character do that, and remember thinking "oh, that's where we got the idea from!"

          I assumed that the turnips were bigger than what I saw in the grocery store.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Pumpkin connection

            If everyone must get down to the nitty gritty, the original festival as known by the Celt was meant to keep the Fair Folk from descending on a village (in the legends, Fae, especially winter Fae, held grudges). The name comes from the Eve of All Hallow.

      2. Mage Silver badge

        Re: It's an 'underworld' festival

        Maybe for neo-pagans.

        Not so much for Celts, who don't seem to have had the Greek concept of an underworld, but many "Otherworlds" only maybe some or one associated with the dead.

        Certainly it was more important than the equinox.

        All the (four) Celtic fire festivals were originally about 1/2 way between Solstices and Equinoxes. Various theories.

        Yes, America imported Halloween and corrupted it. Turnip lanterns were fine, there are different kinds, the largest are near football sized and there are others that are no use for lanterns being only a bit bigger than a sliotar (a little like a cricket ball used for Irish ice hockey, which doesn't bother with ice). Harder to dig out turnips, but at least the waste goes in stew. Pumpkin has little flavour in comparison. The important thing was the bonfires, the apple ducking etc, not shop bought "candy" nor going round the houses begging.

        In the 1960s the fireworks were still legal in N.I. (made for England's Guy Fawkes) but illegal in Ireland (Republic). England seemed to do Guy Fawkes rather than Halloween (Celtic) or All Saints Eve (the too Catholic appropriation of it) then.

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: It's an 'underworld' festival

          "In the 1960s the fireworks were still legal in N.I."

          I don't think they were when I moved there in the mid '60s, or at least it wasn't enforced. They certainly became so after the start of the troubles.

    5. disgruntled yank

      Re: Zombies

      Heck, why Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers at Halloween? Yet I remember a year about 1994 when half the five-year-olds looking for candy were done up that way.

  12. AbelSoul
    Trollface

    Walt Disney does it...

    Naw he disney.

    1. Commswonk

      Re: Walt Disney does it...

      Are you hoping to become a Glasgow - based journo for El Reg?

  13. m-k

    Walt Disney

    was cremated. Sorry, only found out the other day, when one of my children asked about cryogenics (well, she didn't use that word, just mentioned some people who get frozen after death. So, naturally, we said: WALT DISNEY. And, to back up this claim with real evidence we went to wikipedia, what else. There, cremated. But then, the verdict comes with a tiny question mark, as the reliability of wikipedia is known (to us all) to be somewhat... questionable. To prove that, I had once gone with my daughter to edit a wikipedia page, and she did put in something silly, saved - not a trusty source, see, qed. Only that we got distracted and only remembered, a few days later, that, bugger, we didn't reverse the change, but at that point we already forgot what wikipedia page it was, of course. Pretty embarrassing. So, multiply that by a few (hundred) milion parents eager to teach their kids how unreliable wikipedia is, and there you have it. Cremated, frozen, might even be still alive. Or never existed in the first place.

    A library you say? Well, they have access to the same wikipedia pages, gocha there!

    1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Re: Walt Disney

      The Further Adventures of Walt's Frozen Head

      Apparently a crowdfounded feature-length comedy, currently in post production.

      From the website:

      About Our Film

      Playing off the urban legend that Walt Disney had himself cryogenically preserved, a new feature film produced and shot in the Orlando area.

      Currently, we’re in post-production, but expect to see screening of the film starting as early as next year!

      Synopsis

      The Further Adventures of Walt’s Frozen Head is a quirky comedy about the unlikely friendship between the frozen head of Walt and Peter, a low level theme park employee.

      During his yearly thaw to oversee the direction of his company and guard his creative legacy, Walt demands to be finally allowed up to see his park, Walt Disney World. When management scoffs, he recruits Peter to kidnap him for a day in the Magic Kingdom.

      The movie was made without the knowledge or permission of the Walt Disney Company or family. It has not been authorised or approved by either and those organizations have no responsibility for its content.

      -----

      (There also is a "Glove and Boots" vlog featuring a puppet version of Disne's frozen head, but I can't remember which.)

      1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

        Re: Walt Disney

        Found it! (Video, cued to the relevant bit.)

    2. Uncle Slacky Silver badge

      Re: Walt Disney

      Snopes is usually pretty reliable, though:

      https://www.snopes.com/disney/waltdisn/frozen.asp

    3. Tikimon

      Re: Walt Disney

      I was totally bummed to discover the truth of this. It ruined years of hilarity over the ads for the Disney-themed ice-skating shows that roamed the country, breathlessly insisting "Come see Walt Disney on Ice!"

      Was funny while it lasted.

  14. David Roberts
    Windows

    Never explained

    Is the benefit to the rest of humanity in reviving frozen corpses (or select bits of same).

    The underlying assumption is that the most extreme damage can be reversed, the most extreme diseases cured. Effectively (probably) eternal (or at least very extended) life.

    Given the population pressures that must produce, why would you want even more people on the planet, especially those with an archaic outlook and an immense sense of entitlement. Face it, if you want to be frozen and revived you think you are worthy of eternal life.

    Invest your fortune to grow whilst you are dead, you say? That strategy progressively ties up more and more of the world's wealth as the richest 1% park themselves for a few decades (or centuries) and hoard all their money to use when they are thawed again. Why would the other 99% of the world tolerate such destructive selfishness?

    Of course, once all the wealth has been taxed into oblivion (Trying to avoid death duties. eh?Penalties!) why would you want to revive and angry pauper with nothing to offer a world which has moved on?

    A great con game. "Give me all your money and I'll wake you up when things get better. Honest I will!"

    One reservation. If this was really feasible then there could be a case for certain special cases being preserved. Iain M Banks, Terry Pratchett to name just two. However this does establish a dangerous precedent.

    1. David Roberts
      Holmes

      Re: Never explained

      As an example, just consider Donald Trump. Money and a sense of entitlement.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Never explained

        "As an example, just consider Donald Trump. Money and a sense of entitlement."

        Maybe he could be persuaded. And for reasons far too complicated to explain, it has to be done before the end of the year. This year.

    2. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

      Re: Never explained

      I recall reading The Far Arena which is a good revival and reintegration into society story. I can't remember much of it except it's about bringing back a frozen gladiator who has a penchant for disembowelling people. Probably worth a read before turning the heaters on.

      1. Mark York 3 Silver badge
        Pint

        Re: Never explained

        I remember the cover of that book.

  15. Seajay#

    Cryonics is very unlikely to work

    But if you're buried or cremated your odds of being revived are zero so even if the chance of cryonics working is only 1%, it's worth a punt surely?

    Of course that logic only applies if it's free so the real question is which number is higher.

    {cost of cryonics}

    or

    {prob of revival} x {benefit of being revived in a future where death is cured}

    The latter is a very very small number times a very very large number so difficult to evaluate.

    WBW has a try

    https://waitbutwhy.com/2016/03/cryonics.html

    1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

      Re: Cryonics is very unlikely to work

      Especially as the current methods don't seem to have solved the problem of ice-crystals growing in the cells that then rupture the cells..

      Not a problem with frozen veg (which have stronger cell walls anyway), very much a problem for neurons..

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Cryonics is very unlikely to work

      certainty of death, small chance of success... what are we waiting for?

  16. Mage Silver badge
    Pirate

    even if the chance of cryonics working is only 1%

    No, it's 0%, because they only freeze dead people AND the process destroys the integrity of almost all the cells.

    To work at all, you'd need to have induced hibernation via chemicals & genetic manipulation. WHILE ALIVE. Then ALL your blood & other fluids quickly replaced with an oxygenated non-water fluid that would permeate all the cells and not kill you. Then you can be gradually frozen. Being already absolutely dead is too late.

    1) Preserving dead people or heads is never going to work.

    2) Cryogenics of mammals without modification and basically hibernation destroys too many cells. Even if they are alive.

    Only people mostly dead* can be revived.

    [*i.e. they may have stopped breathing and pumping blood, but otherwise enough intact to be revived, being not quite frozen may extend the period of being a little alive]

    1. Charles 9

      Re: even if the chance of cryonics working is only 1%

      But isn't the legal definition of death loss of blood flow to the brain? As in a brain is like DRAM in that it needs constant cycling?

      1. Seajay#

        Re: even if the chance of cryonics working is only 1%

        @Mage

        0% is a big call. Yes we know we couldn't revive those people now. If we could revive them now, we wouldn't be freezing them in the first place. But how can we be 100% confident about all the possible medical and technical advances between now and the point when someone accidentally trips over the freezer cord? Even if it's true that the brain is destroyed beyond any possibility of repair by any future civilisation (which I don't think is a certainty), isn't it at least possible that someone in the future could cut it in to very thin slices, scan the whole thing with an electron microscope, simulate it in software and stick it in a robot body? It seems outlandish but I don't see anything there which is fundamentally impossible. In fact not only is it theoretically possible it's actually being done right now (but only for flatworms).

        http://www.artificialbrains.com/openworm

        You might think it's unlikely to ever be possible, fair enough. You might think that even if it becomes possible, a future immortal civilisation will have enough overcrowding problems that it won't see any value in reviving 21st century brains, fair enough. But those are reasons why it's unlikely, which I fully accept (hence 1%). Not reasons why it's impossible.

        @Charles 9

        I doubt there's a legal definition of death other than "has been declared dead by a doctor". Even if there was a legal definition, if someone recovers and is walking around talking then it doesn't really matter what the law said does it? A hundred years ago we'd have said, if your heart has stopped beating, you're dead but now there are loads of people walking around whose heart had at some point stopped. In another hundred years, declaring someone dead just because there had been a lack of blood to their brain for a few hours might seem absurd.

        1. Charles 9

          Re: even if the chance of cryonics working is only 1%

          "I doubt there's a legal definition of death other than "has been declared dead by a doctor". Even if there was a legal definition, if someone recovers and is walking around talking then it doesn't really matter what the law said does it?"

          Then why is a person who is Brain-Dead (though still having a beating heart, etc.) considered legally dead? There must be some medical evidence to support that once a brain stops functioning it's past the Point of No Return in order for the legal declaration to have standing.

          1. Seajay#

            Re: even if the chance of cryonics working is only 1%

            They are considered legally dead because we know we have tried reviving people from similar states and always failed.

            Doctors are ruthlessly pragmatic (with good reason). They take a great interest in what's going on internally but they don't care about it for its own sake at all, they are only interested in where it is relevant to the questions of "How do I diagnose this?" or "How do I treat this?".

            Death means the patient is unconscious and there are no treatment options which have a chance of making him concious. That's it.

            It is possible to do scans on the brain to look for activity directly but that would be very very rare. 99% of the time people are declared dead because we know there's no chance of revival. This is a super important point for cryonics because if death is just an arbitrary point along the "a bit under the weather" spectrum, it shifts every time there is a medical advance. That means that the people we freeze today who are 'dead', a 2050 doctor might say had never died at all.

  17. MrKrotos

    Cryonics

    Even if you do come out the other side, you have to deal with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFe9wiDfb0E

    1. WolfFan Silver badge

      Re: Cryonics

      Team D from Lucy Phurr's Imps knows how to deal with those troublemakers: http://luciphurrsimps.com/2009/12/25/20091016-prow1s3/ (The CEO of Team D just got back from Georgia, and lost his fav gold fiddle there, so he's a bad mood... but he knows what'll cheer him right up.)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Cryonics

        DeBoss had every right to be ticked given he lost it on a bet to a bumpkin named Johnny who just happened to be damn good on a fiddle.

  18. Tikimon
    Devil

    Tasty Alien Treats!

    First they will raid the freezer banks. After those run out, live people will be captured to make more. When our species is destroyed by carnivorous aliens for whom frozen Human Head Pops are the ultimate dessert treat, I hope someone is left to scream "I TOLD YOU THIS WAS A BAD IDEA!"

  19. Jan 0 Silver badge

    Enough of the Frozen Head talk!

    Thanks a lot Alistair for introducing me to the Strontium Dog film.

    I could use a few more recommendations like that.

  20. Chairman of the Bored

    Cremation for me, baby

    More 'n enough people here already

    When I kick everyone will be able to say, "he really made an ash of himself."

  21. Jonathan Richards 1

    The fatal flaw...

    > they should be able to revive your brain if it’s iced immediately after your death and safely stored as far from the Haagen Dazs as possible.

    Yabbut, why would they? Just suppose that ol' Walt is in a revivable condition when the technology becomes available to revive him. What's the incentive to get the geezer out and pop him in the hugely expensive human popsicle defroster? You'll just end up with an old, terminally ill Walt Disney that will immediately require yet more hugely expensive medical treatment to become an old, moderately healthy Walt Disney. If Walt believed that his heirs and assigns are going to thaw him out in the future, he just didn't think it through. Oh, and if it becomes necessary to fit disembodied brains into spaceships and asteroid mining gear, then some still-warm individuals are going to find themselves involuntarily drafted. That'll be so much easier than defrosting somebody who's been dead for ages.

  22. pyroweasel
    Terminator

    Lawnmower man!

    Never mind all this meat malarkey . If I'm about to go, jack me in and upload me!

    1. Tom Paine
      Coat

      Re: Lawnmower man!

      > jack me in and upload me!

      TWSS

  23. Tom Paine
    Alien

    Strontium Dog fan films?!

    ...can't wait to see who's playing the Gronk. #YourGagHere

    1. jake Silver badge

      Re: Strontium Dog fan films?!

      Gronk was a dinosaur, right?

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Millennials reading this may be wondering why you’d want to freeze your head. You may also be wondering what a "Walt Disney" is but let that pass."

    I'm a Millennial, I’m 32. The Lion King came out in 1994 when I was a kid, I even remember watching Aladdin which came out in '92. You need to go forward a generation for this statement to work. Lazily applying "Millennial" to anyone under 40 despite it being 2017 is lazy.

  25. onebignerd

    Walt Disney was cremated.

  26. adam 40 Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Frozen Head - I'll be lucky!

    Apparently they need half a million coders in the next 4 years so it said on the news.

    So - with 30 years programming experience - I won't be ALLOWED to die - when the time comes I'll be decapitated, my brain will be wired into t'interned and forced to write software forever.

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