I challenge you to back up that accusation. Please google "information theoretic death" before attempting to do so.

Okay, I'll feed the troll. I'm imposing no greater moral obligation on others than anyone who makes a financial loan with the expectation of being paid back, or anyone who goes into an emergency room. In the later case I'm actually making less of a demand, since I'm pre-paying for my own long-term care and eventual restoration. I cover this in the FAQ I linked to above. Regardless, cryonics is simply a medical procedure, albeit a fringe one. I have just as much right to live as anyone else, thank you. I shudder to think what your attitude must be toward elderly care facilities.

I would argue that people in cryonic suspension (at least the ones whose circumstances permitted a good suspension) are not dead. They're in stasis. If you can be recovered then you were never dead in the first place. Please google "information theoretic death" if this is unclear.

Your comment also assumes that I'll contribute nothing to society in the future. Bullocks. I've learned skills and adapted to radically different environments in the past and am perfectly willing to do so again.

Even if your absurdly dark scenario were correct, I'll take living in a zoo over death. As long as I'm alive I have the possibility of improving my situation and the situation of those around me.

I cover the long-term viability of the Alcor Patient Care Trust in my FAQ. There are no guarantees of course, but they're well situated for the long haul. And any society with the ability to repair organs on a cellular level can likely grow/build new ones, so there'd be little incentive to scrap us for parts.

Actually, compared with what a lot of people tithe it isn't. It's not even close. And I'll take the arguably low probability of success of cryonics over the zero likelihood of religion providing an out. Besides, the two aren't mutually exclusive.

A society with the technological capability of repairing damage on a cellular level and constructing a replacement body will have no need of slaves. At the very least, they'd have no need to go through the hassle of recovering my brain to operate the slave body when they could presumably build one from scratch that's optimized for that role.

As for zombies, well, I hope that I have the mental clarity upon waking up to have my first word be "Braaaaaains..." With my luck, there'd be a guy with a shotgun standing by, and the last thing I'd hear would be "We've got another one that turned! Shoot it!"

Either way it'd still be funny. :-)

I don't mean to seem curt (it's late and I'm off to bed), but please check out one of the links I posted. Both cover your question pretty thoroughly. Thanks.

You're making quite a few presumptions here. I'll try to take your main points one at a time, and will ignore the ad hominems and obvious trolling:
* I'm not screwing anybody over. I have no children and no plans to have any. My wife and I both established *plenty* of life insurance long before making any cryonics arrangements. If I go down tomorrow my wife is well taken care of, and vice versa. The separate policies that cover our cryosuspension are just that- separate. And no, we're not wealthy by any means- at least compared with the average non-student slashdotter. I suspect you're grossly overestimating the cost of cryonic suspension and the cost of an insurance policy for a healthy non-smoker in his early 30's.

* You may find my assessment of the Patient Care Trust's financial stability "laughable", but I find the idea that it'll take 1000 years for us to obtain control over matter at the molecular level patently absurd. Eric Drexler estimates that it'll happen within our lifetimes (or at least my lifetime), and the trends in nanotech development point to him being not too far off. Even if he's wildly optimistic, I suspect that nothing short of a global cataclysm will keep us from reaching that goal in this century, and I'm willing to bet my life on that. (And as I mention in the FAQ, if a global cataclysm does happen then we're all SOL anyway.)

* Why would they bother to revive us? Again, I covered this in the FAQ. The PCT is under contractual obligation, and one of the requirements to be on the board of directors is that you have to have a family member already in the tank, so they have a vested interest in their well-being. Why does anyone help anyone in a critical medical situation? You can call the question naive if you like, but the fact is that people do help each other. If nothing else, it's likely that anyone who does get revived will be highly motivated to rescue their fellow cryonauts. (I base this statement on my personal interactions with over 2 dozen Alcor members, every one of whom would take that position.)

If you prefer to disregard basic human empathy entirely, and are looking for a completely economic/rational reason, as technology continues to improve and spread eventually the cost of reviving patients will be less than the cost of maintaining their stasis.

* I'll disregard your conjecture about the future population levels in "1000 years", as well as your incorrect assessment of the cost of cryosuspension, but I will point out that defeating aging is far less of a challenge than reviving a vitrified person. Assuming that the revived person is instantiated in a "meat body" (which is not a given), undoing age-related damage will likely be a side effect of undoing suspension-related damage. In fact, I can scarcely imagine a scenario where that wouldn't be the case.

* I don't know that being revived will be better than being dead, but a society that's a living hell is a society that won't be in a position to revive cryonics patients. And if nothing else, being revived gives me the ability to make that decision for myself. If I'm revived and for some reason prefer oblivion then I can simply find something large and fast moving to step in front of. If I rot in the ground then I rob myself of any control over my fate. (And for the record, I don't believe in Heaven either, so that argument is a waste of time.)

http://www.alcor.org/ . My wife and I are both signed up for cryonic suspension. Even if the chances of success are low, they beat the pants off of the alternative!

Also, if I may tout my own unofficial FAQ: http://datan0de.livejournal.com/144534.html

Your basilisk vs my unicorn! IT'S ON!!! :-)

(Thanks for the flashback, BTW. Archon was/is a brilliant game!)