Larry Niven has a novel (the title escapes me now) where the main character has his head frozen upon death and wakes up in the far future in a different body, where the society sees these cryo people as non-citizens and a financial burden. The future society mind wipes hardened criminals, writes into their brains the personalities of people who went for cryogenics, and then forces the newly wiped/wakened people into a life of slavery to repay the costs of the process. The main character gets sent on a one-way mission to investigate other star systems for the future society to colonize, and manages to escape his enslavers by doing a gravitational slingshot around a black hole, with the time dilation effects pushing him even further into the future. And that's just the first third of the book.
all living organisms grow old and die; cryogenics just time-shifts it (in theory).
Not necessarily. We're starting to understand the underlying cause of aging (deterioration in DNA), so hypothetically we could eventually reverse it. You could cryo yourself far enough into the future that when they revived you, they would be able to stop your aging.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2009-12-11 03:40 pm (UTC)all living organisms grow old and die; cryogenics just time-shifts it (in theory).
Not necessarily. We're starting to understand the underlying cause of aging (deterioration in DNA), so hypothetically we could eventually reverse it. You could cryo yourself far enough into the future that when they revived you, they would be able to stop your aging.