IMHO this is the cryo equivalent of an ethnic slur. Cryophobia, if you will. It meets the "you can't change this thing about yourself so we outsiders are going to make fun of you for it, nyah nyah" pattern while being devoid of useful information content. Cryonics proponents do not readily concede the point that patients are technically dead, based on the evidence available.
The legal status (which is a fully independent use of the term "dead" and can be readily conceded with absolutely zero consequence to the technical argument) is something else, but if you are implying that cryonics companies would therefore be within their legal rights to dump their patients, that could just as easily be seen as a problem with the law (i.e. it fails to adequately protect cryonics patients). So it's not clear to me why you would think this is an innate ethical shortcoming of the choice to practice cryonics in the first place.
> companies that are under no obligation to actually do what you paid them to do
It certainly would contradict the purpose, and likely the bylaws, of a cryonics organization to fail to keep patients safe, for at least the period of time that is realistic given the limits of initial funding and uncontrollable factors world economic stability. (100 years is definitely more reasonable than a million.) Assuming the funds set aside experience real growth above the rate of inflation, the risk could actually decline over time because the financial safety net would be larger.
One possible approach if you think the time is going to be long before the needed technology is available, would be to allocate funding towards measures designed to stabilize the economy, avoid war, and/or prevent natural disasters. The other approach would be to try and create disaster-proof cryobunkers (but there's physical limits, as always).
IMHO this is the cryo equivalent of an ethnic slur. Cryophobia, if you will. It meets the "you can't change this thing about yourself so we outsiders are going to make fun of you for it, nyah nyah" pattern while being devoid of useful information content. Cryonics proponents do not readily concede the point that patients are technically dead, based on the evidence available.
The legal status (which is a fully independent use of the term "dead" and can be readily conceded with absolutely zero consequence to the technical argument) is something else, but if you are implying that cryonics companies would therefore be within their legal rights to dump their patients, that could just as easily be seen as a problem with the law (i.e. it fails to adequately protect cryonics patients). So it's not clear to me why you would think this is an innate ethical shortcoming of the choice to practice cryonics in the first place.
> companies that are under no obligation to actually do what you paid them to do
It certainly would contradict the purpose, and likely the bylaws, of a cryonics organization to fail to keep patients safe, for at least the period of time that is realistic given the limits of initial funding and uncontrollable factors world economic stability. (100 years is definitely more reasonable than a million.) Assuming the funds set aside experience real growth above the rate of inflation, the risk could actually decline over time because the financial safety net would be larger.
One possible approach if you think the time is going to be long before the needed technology is available, would be to allocate funding towards measures designed to stabilize the economy, avoid war, and/or prevent natural disasters. The other approach would be to try and create disaster-proof cryobunkers (but there's physical limits, as always).