Comments on: Kim Suozzi cryopreserved January 17 at Alcor

By: Carson

Carson — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 21:26:43 +0000

We need to get chemically brain preservation as a second option for people that want to be preserved. It’s so much cheaper. Ken Hayworth is working on it at the brain preservation foundation.

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 17:18:36 +0000

Met her a Alcor Conference last year. What a wonderful, smart, sweet lady with the insight to take action to possible extend her life. Befriended her on facebook a couple of weeks ago. I cherish this friend and hopefully will see her sometime in the future.

By: H.K. Fauskanger

H.K. Fauskanger — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 14:04:44 +0000

What “crisis” would that be? Honestly, let’s not make “singularityism” a pseudo-religion with its own eschatology. The future is good and bad, very much like the present and the past. If some equivalent of Skynet is going to fry us anyway, being frozen isn’t that helpful. If you’re alive, you at least get to see how it ends, so to speak. And it isn’t NECESSARILY a foregone conclusion that an emerging superintelligence would be hostile to humans …

By: H.K. Fauskanger

H.K. Fauskanger — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 10:11:02 +0000

If the salient information is preserved by cryonics — and we don’t really know that before the first successful resurrection is performed — I have little doubt that the technology to do it will be available in a century or two. Maybe even earlier, if we are talking “only” about a brain scan followed by software reimplementation. Some serious thinkers believe that can be done around 2050.

My greatest worry is rather that the future may belong to superintelligent non-biological entities who think they have far better things to do than to reawaken the little minds of primitive primates, even if they could easily do it. But if they feel at least some lingering gratitude towards the historically important species that facilitated the transfer from biological to technological evolution, maybe they can be bothered to do it, after all. Let’s cross our fingers that even the future superminds are able to feel moved by a story like that of Kim.

By: Leo Allen

Leo Allen — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 02:41:28 +0000

You’re right about the coming crisis. We should prepare. No time to waste. May God be with us.

By: Gabriel

Gabriel — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 21:21:35 +0000

I remember what Ben Goertzal said…..”better alive then frozen, better frozen than buried”.

You are right, life preservation technologies are simply too primitive right now; but given what is available, Cryonics is still the best choice over the alternatives, which are burial or cremation, which both (especially the latter) don’t leave much to work with.

By: Bruce Wright

Bruce Wright — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 21:12:07 +0000

Agree that it’s probably a long shot, but here’s hoping that it does work for her.

Terribly sad.

By: J.R.

J.R. — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 20:40:00 +0000

There is a separate trust fund that takes care of the patients. It is unaffected by happening at Alcor. Most of the money collected for cryopreservation goes into that fund, very little is used up front. The fund has millions of dollars in it, only a small part of the interest generated is used each year to pay for nitrogen and rent, etc. so it is very stable.

By: charles zeller

charles zeller — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 19:18:05 +0000

Cryonics seems so primitive. If I were guessing I imagine that the future holds uploading one’s brain (software) into an android with characteristics more suitable to life in the universe(s). This would be the likeliest human survival mode.

By: DAG

DAG — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 18:17:21 +0000

Hundreds of years in the future??

You should read some books by this guy “Ray Kurzweil”.. there is good reason to believe that in well under 100 years we’ll be seeing these people brought back.

By: Ian

Ian — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 08:56:38 +0000

Very, very sad. Seems like a shot in a billion to me, but I guess even that is better than nothing. Terribly unfair.

By: Shannon Vyff

Shannon Vyff — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 03:51:45 +0000

If you relocate to the Phoenix area when terminal, an Alcor neuro-suspension is 70K. You can learn more about the pricing structures of Alcor and Cryonics Institute from their websites, a whole body at CI is 28K but does not include stand-by. Anyone interested in setting up cryonics arrangements should research the policies and procedures at both organizations.

By: Shannon Vyff

Shannon Vyff — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 03:48:57 +0000

Cryonics Institute is 28K for a whole body suspension, that is the most inexpensive way to be cryopreserved but you do have to arrange your transportation there, some choose to relocate to a hospice near the cryonics organization of their choice. A neuro-suspension at Alcor is 70K if you relocate to Alcor when are are terminal, it includes stand-by which CI does not-you can read much more about their different procedures at Alcor’s and Cryonics Institute’s sites. Most people set up arrangements with a cryonics organization and pay for them out of their life insurance. You do have to be legally dead to be cryo-preserved. Currently the state of OR has physician assisted suicide for those who are terminal, but no one yet has been cryo-preserved that has used that.

By: Shannon Vyff

Shannon Vyff — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 03:41:38 +0000

With cryonics there is a one time payment, it is usually paid out of life insurance. No electricity is used for upkeep, and a preserved patients carbon footprint is just pennies each year (from the liquid nitrogen that keeps them in storage) Yes, cryonics is done only on someone who is clinically dead.

By: Erik

Erik — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 02:36:57 +0000

It wasn’t long ago I read about her… and now she is gone.. or cryopreserved I should say… Maybe she will read the comments here, in some old web archive, hundred years into the future…

By: Tau

Tau — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 23:14:30 +0000

So what happens to Kim if Alcor goes bankrupt at some point before she is revived? Is there some arrangement that ensures her stasis is maintained? Or do they simply pull the plug?

By: Percival

Percival — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 17:38:54 +0000

I take it from the article that she was pronounced “clinically dead”, in other words she is legally deceased in the eyes of the law. So I suppose, if the funding were to cease, then they would stop preserving her body. Or is this a one time fee? I imagined that being cryopreserved, potentially for decades, could be quite costly, electricity and maintenance-wise.

By: Khannea Suntzu

Khannea Suntzu — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 14:50:41 +0000

If I could find sponsors I’d use this option too, and I don’t even have any terminal diseases. Best not to be ‘alive’ in the coming crisis.

By: Giulio Prisco

Giulio Prisco — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 09:21:25 +0000

Rest in peace Kim, I hope to meet you in a couple of centuries or so.

It is very good to hear that Kurzweil AI’s readership was instrumental in helping Kim be cryopreserved, and I also hope that many will again choose to help with Aaron’s case.

By: Editor

Editor — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 08:19:36 +0000

I have removed cost information from this article.

By: Alex

Alex — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 02:51:40 +0000

I thought the Alcor website says it costs $200,000…?

By: LeFinitDeMorte

LeFinitDeMorte — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 01:17:37 +0000

Rest safely, Kim. We will wait for you to wake up.

By: Gerry

Gerry — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 21:54:11 +0000

Sign up if you want. But yes you must wait to be pronounced dead. Not a good idea to do while “alive” currently when no one has been relived yet.

By: snake0

snake0 — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 21:25:42 +0000

It only costs 32k? Can you choose to freeze yourself if you are living or do you have to die first?

By: Gabriel

Gabriel — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 20:16:46 +0000

Thank you KurzweilAI team for regularly updating us on her status; I really wish her all the best in her future….she deserves to live a life without her condition…let’s hope the exponential pace of technology means she can rejoin us, sooner rather then later.