Pitfalls of the deeply frozen
THE feature about “cryonic preservation” (DD, November 22), a process in which a person is “frozen in time” after their death and then “woken up” at a point when scientific advances allow them to be revived and cured of whatever caused them to die, poses a few thoughts.
How would you like it, that is, to be frozen for 100 years at a temperature of absolute zero and wake up as good as when you were frozen?
But, I ask myself, would I really want to skip the next 100 years and wake up at Christmas AD 2116? Admittedly I’d escape all the wear and tear of life but I am a modest man and do not think I’m worth preserving for posterity.
But perhaps there is something to be said for this hibernation lark. If we sold all our possessions and put the proceeds in the bank at the best interest rate, we could wake up in 100 years as millionaires. A father with noisy, troublesome and expensive children might find it sensible to spend the next 20 years in hibernation and wake up to find his offspring grown up, civilised, quiet and wage-earning, so they could support him. Julius Malema, for example, might want to pop off and return in a decade or so. With a bit of luck he might find Jacob Zuma had emigrated to outer Mongolia.
But to take a really serious example, say South Africa discovered in one season two superb leg-spin bowlers. We could choose one for the upcoming Indian tour and put the other into deep-freeze to keep the stranglehold on future Australian tours and as payback for the damage Shane Warne inflicted on Daryll Cullinan in the 90s.
Alas, you might postpone, but you can never evade our mortal lot. Besides, I have gone to a lot of trouble to get myself acclimatised to 2016 and earned the privilege of retirement. AD 2116 would be a new world with heaven knows what in the shape of politicians, governments, gadgets and new ghastliness.
Speaking of politicians, some of the current lot appear to have a half-thawed, glacial look. Perhaps they have already been deep-frozen, for at least the last 100 years! — Charles Beningfield, Berea Gardens
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