What It Really Means To Be Cryopreserved After Death with guest Charlie Kam

We talk cryonics with Charlie Kam and treat it like a serious end-of-life option, not a movie trope. We dig into how cryopreservation works, why the brain is the main focus, and what “plan B” means if future medicine can repair what killed you. 
• what cryonics is and why “legally dead” matters 
• cooling, cryoprotectant, and vitrification in liquid nitrogen 
• why speed after death affects preservation quality 
• how ceremonies and grief change when “return” is possible 
• answering religious concerns by comparing cryonics to CPR and defibrillators 
• what happens in accidents, decomposition risks, and why the brain is key 
• euthanasia, personal choice, and why pets can be preserved quickly 
• comparing frozen eggs, sperm, embryos, and whole-body complexity 
• myths and bad press, including Walt Disney rumors 
• costs, life insurance funding, and the differences between Alcor and Cryonics Institute 
• neuropreservation vs full-body preservation and the idea of rebuilt bodies 
• AI, Ray Kurzweil, longevity escape velocity, and why Charlie thinks timelines are shortening 

If you have someone that you think is turning their actions in your impact or think they'd be a great guest for the show, RotarianPod@gmail.com. Of course, check us out on YouTube and we blog on Blogger, tell friends about us, and I'm hitting the road. And if we'd like me to come to your neighborhood, same address, RotarianPod@gmail.com. 

Transcript

Why Cryonics Comes Up Now

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi there everyone, I'm Gwen Jones, and welcome once again to the Action to Impact Show, the weekly show where I introduce you to all those amazing people all over the world turning their actions into impact. This week, my dear friend Charlie Cam is on the show. Now, Charlie is an entrepreneur, a musician, and now he works for T-Star Labs, where he is the senior advisor of Alliances. And all that sounds very, very, very impressive. But why am I talking to him today? Not about any of those things. Why? Because we're talking cryonics. That's right. We're talking about what Charlie's dream is when he dies, which is to be frozen. That's right. Cryonics. Now, a lot of you might not realize this, but I'm about to be 60 this year. 6'0. So I'm gonna start a group of shows about, well, longevity and what to do when you die, or just a whole bunch of great stuff. Because guess what? I'm turning 60. It's time to kind of think about some of those things. So anyway, I thought I'd start with one of the more um controversial, interesting, cuckoo, science-based fact, and all of the above. I'm talking cryonics with my good friend Charlie Cam, and we're gonna let it all out. For you to understand this um, I think, greatly misunderstood procedure. Welcome everyone. The conversation starts right now. Welcome back to the show, everybody. I've I get to like hang out with one of my buddies of about 30 years now, Charlie Cam on the show. And and it's kind of funny that after all these years of a show, after a while you start looking in your backyard and go, God, Charlie's pretty interesting. And and he'd be willing to talk to me about one of the more sensitive subjects that when I just put feelers out, people were going crazy about. So, first of all, Charlie Cam is an entrepreneur, a musician, somebody who's willing to hang out with me and my partner Celia for more than thorough 30 years now, and he is the senior ad advisor. Wait a minute, I I wrote it down. I wrote it down for Tsar Labs. Okay, he is the senior advisor of alliances for Tsar Labs, which is another show all in itself because Tsar may be on the road to uh making a lot of people's lives a lot healthier. And that's all that's all the sneak in we'll put in for that. But today we're talking about freezing people. That's right. We're talking about if you die or when you die, if you die, look at that, look at the longevity person in me already coming out. What do you do when you die? And a lot of people get cremated, some people get pretty caskets and get put in the ground, but no, no, no, not my brother Charlie. He believes in cryonics and freezing himself once he dies. Say hello to the world, Mr. Cam. Hi, Charlie. How you doing?

SPEAKER_02 3:15

Hey Gwen, I'm doing well. It's good to talk to you. Yeah, it's uh I I uh I live in Chicago, so freezing isn't really a problem for me.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Right. I think you're wasting a lot of money. You could just stand outside in January, couldn't you?

SPEAKER_02 3:31

I I've posted that on social media where I said, Look, you know, in the middle of winter in Chicago, I'll post that and say, now offering free cryonics in Chicago, just step outside, you'll be in the

How Cryopreservation Works

SPEAKER_02 3:45

community, half of them laugh and half of them say, Hey, you gotta take this more seriously.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

What is cryonics?

SPEAKER_02 3:52

Uh I'm sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

What is cryonics?

SPEAKER_02 3:55

Uh so cryonics is kind of okay, as you were saying, when a person is dying or gonna die or die, essentially there's three, there's three options really, and one is being buried in the ground, one is being cremated, and the third option, which rarely anybody uses, but it's there, is cryonics, where you're uh cryo preserved. So we most people are familiar with the first two, right? Well, cryonics is that when you are legally pronounced legally dead, and it's important to say legally because you can't start freezing somebody unless a coroner says you're dead, otherwise you could get in a lot of trouble. Okay, go to jail for that kind of stuff. So you have to it has to be pronounced that he's that the person is has passed on. And then at that point, a chronics company would cool you start to cool you down and then get you to their facility where, or in some cases they could do it on site, but they then it they will inject your body with a cryo preservation, like a it's almost like an antifreeze, but it's a it's it's a bio uh a bioantifreeze type of uh substance.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

So that you're not putting the stuff that you put in your car in your body.

SPEAKER_02 5:07

Correct, yeah. No, no, unless you're part car. No, they don't, they they they they it's a it's a biograde anaphreeze type thing where they inject it into you, and the purpose of that is so that when they do submerge you into the liquid nitrogen, which is uh we'll get into a second, but that that there won't be any crystallization formation of the water molecules. Because as you might remember from old, you know, third fifth, fifth grade chemistry or whatever, that when you freeze water, it expands. Right. And that can burst cells and that could cause a lot of damage. But because they put this cryoprotectant into your body before they submerge you into liquid nitrogen, that doesn't happen. You don't you don't have the bursting of cells. What really happens is because they put this liquid nitrogen into your body, when they do submerge you into liquid nitrogen, because I mean when they put the cryoprotein in your body and they submerge you your whole body into liquid nitrogen and there's no expansion of cells, what happens is it's called vitrification. So the the term freezing is one that's used because, well, it is in very cold temperature storage, but you actually go into a process called vitrification, which is where because there isn't damage by of the cells from the freezing, you your body is almost like in a glass-like state. So there and they've and they've they've done scans of this because they've done this test thousands of times before, and this this stuff's been used by cryonics companies for a while, quite a while now, decades actually. And they can scan and they see, oh, look, no damage. So the the preservation is is actually very good as far as the process of doing it. Now, the tricky part is that you want to be able to crowd preserve the person as soon as they are.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

I was gonna say you started this whole thing off by saying they have to legally be dead, and you specifically said legally. So I know that when bodies die, I mean, it's like tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Things start breaking down from the moment of that last heartbeat.

SPEAKER_02 7:19

Correct. And you know, that's why a lot of these, so they the companies there are so some of the companies that are cryonics companies will have a standby team. So they know, for example, with regard to dying, there's the the number one killer in in the United States and probably the world is really heart disease. The number two killer is cancer.

unknown 7:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 7:42

If you're cryopreservation, if you're a person like me and you're signed up with cryonics, if you had to pick one, you go with cancer because uh because at least you got you'll you'll be prepared, you'll have the standby team ready to go, and then the minute you are pronounced dead by horror.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

Most likely in a hospital or hospice, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

Yeah, they'll they'll be right there to start the process, and there'll be no no real degradation happens to your body. Because the the whole point of chronics is that we want to cool the person or their body down as quickly as possible so that there's no apoptosis or you know, degradation of the cells or anything that's gonna cause it to not be you anymore, like to you know, to turn into motion essentially. You don't want that. You want it to you want to be able to crowd preserve this person as best possible. And and when you are laying in a bed somewhere and they say, Oh, you know, we're sorry, you know, you know you're gonna die, and there's your last moment. Well, that one is really easy. If you have a heart attack and you're alone in your apartment somewhere and they don't find you for two weeks, that's rough, man. That is a tough, tough place for cryonics to be to be successful because you know your body has decomposed and a lot of bad stuff could have happened. And really, it's mostly about your brain. That's what we're most concerned about. You know, if you if let's let's let's say, for example, you're in a you're you're a cryo patient like, or you know, somebody who signed up with crynox like I am, and let's say you get in a car accident and you, you know, I hate to sound gory here, but let's say you you lose your leg or something like that. Well, right, you know, and you die. Well, legs aren't your brain, that's not your memory. That's not what most people consider.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Well, everyone would argue it's not your spine, it's not your heart, it's not your lungs.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

It is what makes you you really is your brain. I mean, I you know, a lot of people like to be poetic and say it's your heart and all that, but you know, come on, we've had heart transplants for a long time now.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

Right. We haven't had a brain one yet.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

Yeah. Yes. So, you know, that's why that's so that's kind of the gist of what cryonics is that you will try to you know cryopreserve a person as quickly as possible the moment they're pronounced legally dead.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

So I I one, this doesn't shock me, but I'm sure there's people listening to me because you and I have hung out in some of the longevity communities and transhumanist communities. So hearing about cryon cryonics, you know, is just like, oh, that's what Charlie does. But there is has been some questions over the years that I've always wanted to ask you and ask others, and some

Ceremony Grief And The Cryo Facility

SPEAKER_00 10:20

I do jokingly, and some I actually really think are interesting topics, like the ceremony behind a funeral. So, and I'm not saying if you're an atheist or if you're a Catholic or if you're a Muslim or a Jew or anything in between, when somebody's life is over, there's usually a great, there's usually some type of ceremony. In the cryonics world, do you still have that ceremony? Because I would I would argue that perhaps are so are you dead and frozen, or are you in a state of limbo? So, I mean, I'm not planning ahead, don't worry. I haven't bought a cake or anything. I'd like you around around for a lot long, long time. But I'm just saying, like, is there do you get any ceremony or is it just no, Charlie's frozen? We'll catch up to him later.

SPEAKER_02 11:14

No, you know, these chronics companies are are they run by humans and they have emotions and they understand that what you just described is actually is is brilliant because that's that's exactly right. So they they smartly do offer this ceremonial procedures because you know they there are it's exactly what you said, people are used to that, you know. If you even, you know, look for the longest time, especially you know, in this country, but for the longest time up until the 1960s, the main disposition of people when they're dead and their bodies was burial, right? And so funerals and all that became the the standard. You would, you know, you die and then you'd have whatever, you know, but it's a it's a process for people to go there and do whatever it is that they do to remember that person or to celebrate them, whatever. And then cremation became something that was available in the in the lit mid to late 60s. And then, but even there, you can have now, you know, or since then they they they had ceremonies for that. They just have instead of a casket, it's an urn, and you have the ashes in there, you could do that. So cryonics is not you know oblivious to that fact. And they said, Yeah, of course, if you if you want, you can you could come to the I mean you could do whatever you want, but if if you come to the place where the person is crowd preserved, you can have a little ceremony, you can be outside of their the the the cryosphere chamber, okay chamber they call it, or they call it a doer, they got different names and different companies have different names, but it's but essentially it's just a huge container type thing, it's not a see-through, like you know, a lot of movies like they have it for the purpose of drama. You don't see the person's face, it's a little bit gross.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

You don't see like a naked Arnold Schwarzenegger with a whole bunch of tubes all over him, it's not like that.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

No, no, I mean, no, it's not. You know, it's a it's a big, it's a big metal, big, big metal container, usually nine feet, ten feet tall, and it and it can actually hold more than one body in there.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

Well, that's freaked out, people. Now there's people in their car that are like running off the car because you just said that.

SPEAKER_02 13:15

You know, here's the i I gotta uh let's let's let's here, let me address something about this. This is uh this is always funny to me because I I go to these conferences and I answer a lot of these questions. So people say, Oh, chronics just freaks me out, it's too gross, you know. They they right they freeze you. Okay, let's let's let's look at the other options, right? And if you describe and everything's marketing, right? Everything's how you describe something, right? So let's just say, for example, I'm gonna tell you the three options that you have when you die, and that's burned, buried, or frozen, right? Those are the three, right? So here's your options.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

The first one is kind of brutal. So the first sentence that you're telling us, Charlie, is that what does he say? He said burnt, burial, or burned, buried, or frozen.

SPEAKER_02 13:56

Those are your options. The first one burning, we're gonna take grandpa who just died, we're gonna take his body and we're gonna throw him into that fire, and we're gonna let it burn to a bunch of ashes, and then we're gonna put it in the urn and give it back to you so you can look at it. That's pretty bad. That sounds gross to me. The other option is we're gonna take poor old grandpa who just died, and we're gonna take his body, shove it into a small little box, and put them underground so worms can eat them. That sounds pretty gross to me. Now, the third option is we're gonna take grandpa who just was passed away, we're gonna use some scientific technology to cool his body down, put him into a liquid nitrogen chamber where in the future we might actually be able to use the latest nanotechnology in the future to actually bring to rework on his body and and and repair whatever it is that he died from and revive them so you can see him again. And and we maybe even have him give him a healthy, a healthier body by rejuvenation of his cells. So, which one do you want to do for a grandpa? You tell me.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Put it that way, and see how people react. There's but there's snarkiness with a with a hint of truth in it, and I think that's exactly what you're saying. I I like I said, I'm gonna be 60 this year. And so this is probably why I've started many of these conversations that I'm gonna be having over the next couple of months about when you die or brain health or all these different things. And I will say, and I always say, you know, if you want to send your hate mail to me, it's rotarianpod at gmail.com. Please go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 15:28

Because I got it down just now.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

Got it down because I know I had a mother and father that passed away very quickly, and I had to go in and I was shown coffins that were thousands of dollars or cremation that was thousands of dollars, and do I want this add-on? Do I want a flag? And do I want this and do I want that? And it was an emotional hell, it really was. And I found myself afterwards going, that was a racket. So that was an absolute that that just took to take care of my parents, and then they they both their requests were to be cremated, and then instead of an urn, God bless you for saying an urn, I didn't get an urn, I got a maroon-colored plastic box with a bag of remains in it. And it was, and I believe it was, you know, not my mother or my father, but it was like they hand it to you, and it's like mazata, there you go, have a good time. Here's your box of parents, and so what does intrigue me about what you have is at least you have a plan. And and your plan is but in saying all that, how do you talk to the people who are the religious folks that are listening to me? That because this is I assume anybody of any religion has had cryonics done, correct? Or it is worth suggesting.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

Everybody, there's a representative from every religion and atheists, so it's all they're all everybody, everybody's partaking.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

Okay, so everybody's partaking in it, they're willing to let you have your ceremony if you want it, but what you're basically telling the world is my parents don't have a plan B. I gotta bag a parent. I gotta bag a parent. And what you're saying is Cryonics can offer you a plan B. Yep, that's what you have to lose. That's right. Yep. Okay. All right. So then what are you hoping for then? Well, more like in a hundred years or so.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

Well, okay, a couple things that you mentioned just there. The answer to the thing question is uh for me personally, I'd like to not die. That's like plan A is don't die. Number one, don't die. Gotcha. And and you know, and by the way, you know, I'm Elcor, which is the company that I'm signing up with, like, if you go to their website, you'll see they call them patients. They don't call them corpses or people that are dead, they actually call them patients because in their in their interpretation of it, which is the way I look at it too, is like you're you're basically trying out the the last treatment, right? For whatever you're dying from. Like, let's say, for example, you did have cancer and you and you you tried chemo and it didn't work, and you tried radiation and it didn't work, and then the doctor says to you, Look, you we don't have any other treatments available. But what if they said to you, like, okay, there's nothing left here, but there is one other treatment, it's the final treatment that we could probably offer. We're basically gonna cool

Religion CPR And Redefining Death

SPEAKER_02 18:55

you down, and then we're gonna keep you in a state of cryopreservation until the future technology can fix whatever it is. Do you want to try that treatment, or do you just want to give up and go be gone forever because we can have you buried around? I mean, that is it's technically kind of a treatment. It's asking the question a different way. But that's the truth. Like, that's what it is. It's a treatment, and it's just like the other ones where you they might want, they might work, the chemo might work, and the radiation might work, but if it doesn't, you go to the next treatment. So the final treatment is cryopreservation. Why not try it? And with regard to the religious people, right? You know, because the idea is that the argument I hear is like, wait, you're messing with God. If you cryopreserve somebody, right? It's God's will. You're you don't have you can't, if there's their time to go, it's their time to go. Okay, a couple things that I'll talk, I'll say. Number one, did you know that the first CPR was the most the first successful CPR was done by a Scottish surgeon back in the 1700s? Most people don't realize it goes back that far. When you actually do cardio pulmonary resuscitation on somebody, right? So that means back in if you if you were in the 1600s and you're walking down the street and had a heart attack, well, that that was it, you were dead. But if you were in the 1700s and you happened to be near this uh this Scottish surgeon or somebody that learned what he was doing, you fall down from a heart attack. You could have had a chance. He might know what to do, and then all of a sudden you live 20 more years. That means the goal, the goalpost of death has been moved up. The idea of what our definition of death was was no longer just, you know, your heart stopped and you died. No, now you got that. And in 1930, they invented the first defibrillator, and in 1947 was the first time they used it successfully. Wow. So if you know a hundred, if you you know died over a hundred years ago and there was no defibrillator, that might have been it for you. But by 1930s or 1947, which is when they did the first one, oh, all of a sudden you're not dead. So, did that interfere with God because we used a defibrillator? I mean, now it's an accepted thing. In fact, if you don't use it, people's like, hey, why didn't you use defibrillator on me? I just had a heart attack or my loved one. Right, right, right. That's just another way of extending life. It's not really that much different, other than, I mean, technically there's differences, but the idea that a person is was pronounced dead at one time based on a heart attack is no longer the case because of things like a defibrillator. And that's the same thing with this. Now, with regard to intervening in like the soul, right? Right. Well, here's the thing. Let's say that you believe in God and that God is all powerful and that He is the one who makes the decisions as to what's gonna happen with your life. Well, let's say you get cryopreserved. Now, if it is God's destiny or your own.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

We'll use the air quotes on the podcast and say God's will, right? Right, let's say it's God's will.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

It's God's will that you're gonna die. Well, here's the thing just like we try to do defibrillators, right? Now, sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. And a person is dead and then their soul. According to God's believing person, that soul went to heaven. There was no interference. I mean, humans tried to interfere apparently, but if it's God's will, it's God's will. So it's the same thing with cryotics, right? If you say, like, well, I'm gonna die, but I'm gonna be crowd preserved, and then they'll bring me back in such and such time. Well, if it doesn't work, let's say you get crowd preserved and the thing never works at all. Well, God, that's because it was God's will. And by the way, like, so if you if these feeble say freezing people, God can, it's not like they can freeze them so solid that the all-powerful God's gonna reach his hand down to get the soldier. Oh my god, it's all frozen. I can't get it sold. No, that's not gonna, you know, if it's God's will, it's God's will. So you don't have to worry, like, oh, I froze them. I I must, oh my god, I'm I'm interfering with God. Look, you know how it is? Everything everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face, as Mike Tyson famously said. So, you know, if God's if it's God's will, it's God's will. So it, you know, and the fact that God put us on this earth and we invented defibrillators, I guess that's part of his plan. And the fact that we've come up with cryonics, that's part of his plan too. So if it works, maybe that's part of his plan that we come back to to be back on the earth to worship him some more. So, you know, I I don't I never look at that as any kind of conflict at all, which is why most people that are religious that are crowd preserved don't have an issue with it. In fact, there's a lot of people I know that are crowd preserved that are religious. And so I I I think it's a it it's it's unfortunate that people would use that like misunderstanding.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

That's the that's the one reason. That's the one reason. Yeah, the the picking and choosing of God's will is a is another podcast in itself, and uh you gotta get God in for that one. Yeah, I was gonna say check out John Fugelstein's book. But yeah, you know, I I get that. All right. So I have asked you this question before, but I'll ask it again so now thousands of people can hear it. We live in sometimes an unhappy world where people decide to use weapons of mass destruction to hurt each other with. What

Accidents Timing And Protecting The Brain

SPEAKER_00 24:05

happens if, God forbid, because you're not allowed to leave me for quite a few years now, you're in an explosion of some kind. Like, what what happens? I mean, if if all of a sudden you're I mean, I know you and my Celia travel to Europe all the time, and Europe unfortunately has some nasty people that like to express themselves through bombs. I mean, he is set to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_02 24:35

Europe's a bad place. You're safe. Well, touche.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

Yeah, that's it. Yeah, I know, I know. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:40

I I understand your question about exactly.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

That's like doing do you send Alcor a bag? I mean, what do you do?

SPEAKER_02 24:45

No, well, here's the thing. Okay, cryonics is just uh it's a it's a hopeful option. I mean, we we we wanted to, we we wanted to have the best possible scenario for an outcome. That's why we want to, like I was saying in the beginning, it's better to have a cancer diagnosis and prepare for it than if you're found three weeks later of a heart attack alone in your apartment and you're rotting away. So that yeah, look, there's always a chance that you could be in a plane crash and then you're you're gone. I mean, that's it. There's not much you can do. If the if you're an explosion and your brain is really like just mutilated and there's no real cohesive way to bring it in a in a place where you can crowd preserve it very well. I mean, that that that's it. I mean, that there's always a chance that there's accidents that can happen, but you know, you want to try to mitigate as much as you can, and and cryonics is one way to try to say, you know, like be healthy, don't get into risky situations. It's unavoidable. You yeah, how do you live your life without walking down the street and be hit by a car? You know, or you might get your head run over and then you're you know, so uh yeah, look, it's unfortunate, but stuff can happen where you do, you are it's uh irretrievable. My opinion, though, and they do allow you to opt, they offer this when you sign up for this stuff, is that at what point should you be cryo-preserved? In other words, if like if half of your brain is it's mutilated, but the other half is there, the they ask you this when you're signing up do you want do you want that? Now, in my opinion, I say yes, sign, say whatever you can. Because here's the thing we we don't know how what's gonna happen in the future. What we do know about the future, if you're following science, is that it keeps getting better and smarter. The computational powers are growing exponentially, as Ray Kurzweil says. So that stuff is happening, which means that all of technology is gonna get so advanced that they might be able to just use whatever portion is left to really bring you back in a really substantial way that it is you. So like I would take whatever shot I can because to me, life is the most you know precious commodity that there is. Because if you if you're not here, well then what what good is anything if you're not here to perceive it?

SPEAKER_00 26:54

So now I know people I'm I'm sure are like interested now because what you've what you've described in Cryonics is like the third plan or the plan B. And the way that you you call them, that they're called patience is fascinating. But here's an idea, and this is a a personal, a personal opinion question. You call it your plan B, but what about euthanasia? What about people that decide to take their own life? Do you ever just want to like reach out and shake them and say, but no, what what if we could do this? Or are you a supporter of people that wish to, you know, have a have a their own death at their own way?

SPEAKER_02 27:37

Well, I'm a supporter of people having choice. I mean, everybody should be allowed to choose for themselves, whatever it is they want to do. I'm 100% in favor of people choosing. I do feel bad for anybody that wants to kill themselves. I think it's a terrible situation of depression, and then they need to be, you know, counseled or treated

Euthanasia Choice And Freezing Pets

SPEAKER_02 27:55

or whatever the case may be, so that they're not in that place. Because the future is coming in a way, so we're so close to such a different future that we can that we that humanity's never thought of before. I mean, you if you don't, if you don't grasp it, I recommend go read Ray's book, Singularity is near, and you'll see where the world is going because his predictions there are coming true. That's why he's being you know asked to speak everywhere now. Right. Um, he really is a brilliant guy, but you know, if you so if you understand what he's talking about, you'll see that this the future of all of this amazing stuff that's coming medically, especially. I hate for people to miss out on that because there are going to be all sorts of things that are gonna make us much healthier, where you know we won't have poor bodies, we won't have, I mean, even depression can be treated in in ways that are a lot more successful than than maybe the antidepressants that that one of the symptoms is you might kill yourself. Like, you know, the like when you hear those commercials where that, oh well, the side effect.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

Yeah, if you take this and then decide you want to kill yourself, stop taking the drug. Yeah, no, I agree.

SPEAKER_02 29:02

With regard to euthanasia, no, look, honestly, that if you really wanted to just you know to say, like if we're talking about cryonics, euthanasia is probably one of the more successful ways to have a successful cryonics. Because if you know you're gonna be euthanized, you can also say, Well, look, this life's been really bad to me. I'm I'm in constant pain all the time. You know, why not just okay, I want euthanasia and I will, but I want to be crowd preserved because when they bring me back, they they they might be able to bring me back to a much better body, and and they might even be able to do different things so I don't feel depressed all the time. Because there is gonna be this, and I hate to say utopia, but it is kind of on that verge of where we're going. Because, you know, when you say utopia, you automatically think George Orwell and uh-oh, there's an underlying bad guy thing going on. We grew up with movies, and movies require drama. Yeah, but you know, there is gonna be some really good stuff coming very soon in this world. I hate to see people miss out on it. I would never recommend euthanasia, but I understand that people have to choose that because they're in some sort of strange, you know, situation or unfortunate one. But I would recommend highly, highly, if they are gonna choose that, go with cryonics as the next step. You know, complete the whole, like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm not gonna do this anymore, but I want to go, I want to have cryopreservation. Because by the way, you know, people, you know, most people love their pets more than they love their family. Well, cryonics is offering that to pets too. You can get your pet frozen and or cryopreserve, and you know, people because you don't need a coroner to to determine your pet's death, they have the pets have the most successful cryonic preservation of all. Because you can you can euthanize them and immediately put them in a perfect cryo preservation. So so look, I I don't, I won't, I would never choose euthanasia. I just because I believe in cryonics. I probably shouldn't say never because you should never say never, but I don't I wouldn't want to do that ever. I would rather always just say, wait, I'd rather just, you know, have cryonics ready to go and and whatever the case may be. But yeah, so I I think that that's one of those situations where it's somebody's choice. But yes, I would like to shake them and tell them, please, please try for cryonics. Because look, and by the way, this isn't, you know, people say, oh, maybe this is arrogant or it's selfish. No, no. I I let's put it this way: let's not talk about ourselves. Let's talk about loved ones. If you had a grandpa, or let's go even further, if you had a child that was diagnosed with cancer and there was no cure, and you knew this poor child who's six, seven, eight years old, is looking at you like, mommy, I don't want to die. And you're like, ah, I mean, I couldn't live through, I don't have children, but my God, I know how that would feel, or at least I feel I know how that would feel. And imagine if that if if you said, wait, we could crowd preserve them, maybe they'll we can bring them back and they'll have a like. Oh my god, I'd sign that up. And I can't imagine any parent that wouldn't do that. So when a person says, I would rather just, you know, die and I don't want to take cryonics because I'm brave, okay, I think that's misguided. But if you put it to someone they love and you say, wait, okay, we've got this possibly successful thing that could work, it could be successful, cryonics preservation. What do you want to do with your child who's now gonna die or it's is is about to die from an incurable disease? Which one of those do you want? Do you want that worm-eating thing in the what I talked about, where they're gonna put them in the ground and get them eating? We're gonna throw them in the fire and burn them up, or do you want that last treatment? What do you do? Oh my god, who wouldn't go with that one? I mean, at least I would. I would say, yes, give it to my grandfather child, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 32:51

And I do tell my my guests who are listening to us now that this isn't a we want you all to join, you know, cryonetics and join the bandwagon because I am not a card carrying member in any way. I I still don't know,

Frozen Embryos And The Rewarming Challenge

SPEAKER_00 33:05

and hopefully I have several years to figure it out. But I do have put your science hat on. What's the difference between freezing eggs and sperm and cryonetics? Are they both the same? Are they in the same family? I mean, don't we don't we freeze things all the time? Isn't there like eggs all over the place?

SPEAKER_02 33:26

That's a very good, very good.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

Because those are frozen, are they not?

SPEAKER_02 33:30

Oh yeah. Look, here's the thing when I when I have to debate this thing, which you can imagine it comes up, one of the things that I like to do.

SPEAKER_00 33:38

That doesn't have the stigma. That does not have the stigma.

SPEAKER_02 33:43

Especially nowadays when they're when the society is so polarized politically.

SPEAKER_01 33:47

Right.

SPEAKER_02 33:47

I say, well, you know, people say, well, you know, cryonics, I don't know about that. Uh, you know, it's it's it hasn't, you have you haven't brought anybody back yet. So I don't know. I want to see some proof. I need to see the proof. I said, so they say, and they think they got, they think they'll throw a gotcha question at me. Like, so well, uh, you want to do cryonics. Well, did anybody ever get brought back? And they they know the answer is gonna be no because it would be all over the headlines, right? Right. But I always say, like, well, yes. And they're like, Well, oh, now they don't like that because they they think I'm lying. I said, no, no, no. First of all, I guarantee that if you're Republican, you will agree with me because you know, most Republicans I know believe that you are basically a human at conception. The minute that egg fertilizes that the sperm fertilizes that egg, that's a human. And we have frozen thousands of embryos that were brought back to life very successfully. So good on you, Republicans, because you believe in cryonics and you've proven it works.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

Now, I'll put out the disclaimer to all the Republicans that are listening to me. That is Charlie's opinion that all Republicans do that. Damn, Charlie, you're gonna give me hate mail all over the place.

SPEAKER_02 35:01

Well, I'm not saying that to slander look at what you are saying, I'm really enlightened. So it because I say that, you know, with a certain amount of levity, but the reality is, yes, we have a lot of cryopreserved people walking on this earth because they were cryo-preserved as embryos and then brought back at a later date for you know a myriad of reasons, right? Because people don't want to have a child at such and such time. But they either freeze their eggs, their sperm, or frozen embryos that are already fertilized, which there are a lot of people that are around that because of that. So, you know, I uh and when you ask, is there any real difference? Well, the reason that it works so well for sperms and and eggs and even fertilized eggs is because those are very small, you know, a blastocy, you know, a fertilized egg or something like that is is only a small number of cells, cells, exactly very easy to freeze and unfreeze. A body is is so complex with trillions of cells that are that and organs that are all different dimensions, so trying to freeze it all uniformly is very difficult for now. Although it's still being done and very successfully, it's still tricky. And so to bring them back is the tricky part because we have to be able to unfreeze everything in a very uniform, stable manner. Because you can't, if you start just thawing somebody out and the outer parts are falling out and the inner parts are still frozen, well, then it's gonna be messy, you know. The parts outside are gonna be coming apart. So many levels messy. So it has to be, which is why one of the you know theories or the idea is that we're gonna develop nanotechnology to the point where you can actually put nanobots inside and do whatever is necessary. But again, that's futuristic science. We don't know yet, but we do know that science keeps progressing and we can see that at some point. Look, I always think to myself, my god, we can we can pinpoint land a rover on Mars, right? Which is hard to do. People take it for granted, but my God, we've done it. Imagine comparing that to just freeze somebody and unfreeze. To me, that unfreeze, freeze, unfreeze sounds a lot easier than landing a rover on a planet that I look up, I can't even see it in the sky. Imagine that we're we're landing it millions of miles away on a month, month, multi-month mission, and we're worried that like we might not bring him back. Oh, I think Cryonics is gonna find a day where it's gonna like, oh, that was easy. We could unfreeze him. We got him back. Here he is. Grandpa's talking too much now. So I think this is what's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 37:36

So I I I'm sure people have are loving this because this is because you know, you and I are bantering as well as putting out all the misnomers, but I would be at a lack if I didn't go there, and that is Alcor and some of these other places over the last years have gotten some bad press. And that bad press goes into

Myths Bad Press And Why It Sounds Weird

SPEAKER_00 38:06

the social media sphere where it gets twisted and changed and straight up lied about, and all of a sudden it's people are playing football with Willie Mays' head, or you know, Walt Disney has been frozen and unfrozen and frozen and unfrozen, and they blah blah blah blah blah. By the way, those are two very famous people who are both frozen, to my knowledge. I think Walt's still frozen. But what's some of the truth? What's some of the fiction? I mean, are we just all guilty of this pretty not very exciting thing being cryonics, just being blown out of proportion because we just don't get it?

SPEAKER_02 38:54

Yeah, I mean, you know, with regard to the whatever's in the news and such like that, or you know, by the way, Walt Disney's not really frozen. That that's just one of those children myths that started a long time ago.

SPEAKER_00 39:07

It was all over that he was that he was frozen. And of course, you know, we had the was it the Simpsons, or there was a cartoon where there was all the ex-presidents' heads that were talking to you in some type of.

SPEAKER_02 39:26

What's that?

SPEAKER_00 39:27

We've mocked it. I mean, oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:29

Look, it gets here's my uh look, I'll tell you what. I I mentioned earlier that up until the 19 mid-60s, there was the the the main disposition of bodies when they died was burial.

SPEAKER_01 39:42

Right.

SPEAKER_02 39:43

And it then then in the 60s, the Pope decided that it was okay to be crowd preserved, that it wasn't some terrible sin to have your somebody uh uh cremation, cremation, not crowded. Okay, cremation's okay. So the Pope said cremation's okay in the in the 60s, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:59

That wasn't all that long ago, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:00

Yeah, and it yeah, it really wasn't, it was it was actually looked, it was frowned upon prior to that. It was considered like, oh my god, blasphemy, you're doing something terrible. But, and this is the reality I think like James Carville said, it's the economy stupid. Well, it is always about money. We live in a capitalist world, there's no way around that, and unfortunately, capitalism is insidiously causing people to make decisions in ways that are not always the most ethical or whatever, you know, there's a lot of corruption. Right, sure. By the way, that that can happen with communism, not just capitalism, but in in our capitalist world, what happened was that as you were describing earlier, when you went to the to the to the city, you know, to the funeral parlors that or or you were talking about when you go to there, they try to upsell you. Oh, well, if you really love your so uh the person that you love, get in this ten thousand dollar coffee. You should get the golden casket, it's worth a hundred thousand. But my god, they live in the wonderful gold thing down under the ground, and the worms really enjoy it. Or, you know, even the urns or whatever, they try to upsell you. But the thing was that burials were becoming very expensive, and then cremations were it was as it turned out, people were finding out like, wait a minute, it's pretty simple to just throw person in when their body's dead to put them into a pyre, a funeral pyre, you know, to burn them, to cremate them.

SPEAKER_00 41:24

I'm Viking, so we've done this, you know. I'm you know, I'm I'm Norwegian and Welsh. We've used those those funeral fires for a long time.

SPEAKER_02 41:32

Yes, yes, but in the United States, when I'm talking about what's popular, I'm I'm referring to the United States. But right that so all of a sudden, and you can look at this statistically, you'll see what happened was then all of a sudden, if and you've plotted out, you'll see burials started plummeting down and and and and and cremations went up. Started going up because everybody was like, Yeah, uh, you know what, uh, there's nothing wrong with uh yeah, let's uh let's go with that. The grandpa, I think he likes smoking, so we'll just put him, you know. It just became the choice. But here's the real here's the sad and possibly cynical reality. If you go back to the 60s, interestingly and coincidentally, when the Pope decided that that was the case, where it was okay to cryopreserve, uh, I mean, I'm gonna keep saying I'm saying cremate, yeah, cremate. It was okay to cremate. At the same time, as it was 1967 when the first cryo preservation, successful cryopreservation preservation was done by a guy named by the name of James Bedford. And by the way, he's still cryopreserved. Well, okay, so in the 19 late 60s, that's when all this was going on. We had we we went from where it was just burials as our choice to all of a sudden cremation and cryonics erupted. Well, okay, all right, okay. So now, back then, you go to somebody and you say, Well, hey, listen, grandpa's about to die, and here's the choices. You know, there's burials. Oh, yeah, yeah, I know about burials. And or there's cremation. Oh, yeah, what's that new thing? Yeah, well, we can we can put him in the thing and say, Oh, that's a little bit burning. Well, yeah, but he's dead, so you know, and and uh, and then but there is cryonics, and they're like, Oh, what's that? Oh, well, we'll when he's pronounced it, we'll cool him down, and then we put him with this antifreeze. And they might not have had antifreeze back, you know, the biograde antifreeze back then.

SPEAKER_00 43:19

Yes, I'm I'm sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:20

But those were the three choices. And if it was described properly to people, and you said, well, and then they said, like, well, gee, uh, I know what burial is. You put them in the ground and yeah, worms, but whatever. They yeah, burial means he's never coming back because he's dead, he's buried, right? That's right. And cremation, that one, okay, I understand now. It's new to me because this is 1960s. You're gonna you're gonna burn them, and yeah, we'll give you the ashes, and you can put it on a mantle, and you can always, you know, have them in the round. Or there's this other thing called cryonics. And like, well, what's that one now? Well, we're gonna cool them down and we're gonna be able to maybe treat them later, and meet when we we might even be able to fix them, bring them back, maybe give them a new body. You might be able to be able to talk around. Again, and he might be able to see the grandchildren. And yeah, that's a wonderful situation. So those are your three choices. Which one would you like? Now, any nice, emotionally rational human being is probably gonna say, like, I'll take that third one. I really like that idea. I mean, I I love grandgrandpa, I don't want him to be gone forever.

SPEAKER_00 44:17

I if that's so how come it hasn't caught on, Charlie. So how come it has so how come it hasn't caught on?

SPEAKER_02 44:22

And there comes my answer.

SPEAKER_00 44:23

I was gonna say, because you're just 67 here.

SPEAKER_02 44:27

And here's the here's I'm tying it all together for you. I brought up capitalism because the reality was the reason people started picking cremation, they said, well, because after all that explanation I just gave you, and everybody's saying, I want cryonics, I like cryonics, I love grandpa, I want cryonics, cryonics, and I want that. Okay, and they said, All right, and then the person who was standing there and gave you those three options that says, Okay, all right, well, you know, so you don't want the uh burial, right? It's like, no, well, that's because that's about five thousand dollars. Yeah. Oh, I know five thousand. Well, okay, but cremation is about a thousand dollars. Oh, well, uh uh, but yeah, no, I want that crankman. And the third one, and that one, crank. Well, that's fifty thousand.

SPEAKER_00 45:06

There you go.

SPEAKER_02 45:09

You know, you know, grandpa had a pretty good life. I mean, you know, all of a sudden, our human brain and our uh the way we are, we start to rationalize because we don't want to inflict ourselves with guilt. So we start making up ideas of like, you know, grandpa had a pretty good life, but we don't want to feel bad about ourselves even with using that, because that even sounds a little bit like, wait a minute, wait a minute. Is this because of money? So now, society who did not like the idea of spending 50,000, but didn't want to feel like guilty, you know, pigs that they were gonna say, like, yeah, but wait, I was I was counting on inheritance to buy a new car or or support my kid, whatever the case may be. So they had to start to, in the back of their mind, subconsciously, not only say, like, well, grandpa had a good life, but they start to say, you know, this Alcore thing or this Cranix thing, it probably doesn't really work, or maybe it doesn't work, or wait a minute. If they really want to skew it, they start saying, you know, it's probably a scam. Yeah, or maybe they're just trying to make money or it's crazy, or you know, all if you could just malign the idea, then you don't feel guilty. And I truly believe that this is part of what the process became, which is why it became like unacceptable for so many years, because they just they tarnished it to make everybody appease their guilt. Because I guarantee if cryonics had been the cheapest option and by far the best option, everybody would have gone to that. Who wouldn't, in their right mind, say, like, yeah, I want that last treatment? And how much is it? Oh, it's $900, or it's $999. So it's it's it's it's it's a dollar less than the cry cremation. Oh my god, I'll take that. Like, you know, I truly believe that so much is driven by capitalism in our world that people will rationalize, and I don't mean this like that they're gonna think it out loud in their mind, like, you know what, I gotta do it, because but there are some people that will do that. But for the most part, that's kind of what I think happened, which is why cryonics didn't

Cost Insurance And Cryonics Providers

SPEAKER_02 47:10

catch on, because to this day, it's still pretty expensive, and that's one of the drawbacks here, which we should probably talk about, because Cryonyx, unfortunately, because it's not scaled, it's still pretty expensive.

SPEAKER_00 47:24

It's a niche, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 47:26

And and so, but the way I pay for it, the way most people pay for it is you buy a life insurance policy and you make the the crynyx company, like there's there's two major ones right now in the United States. There's Alcor in Arizona, and there's another one called Cranics Institute up in Detroit. And there is a new one that's come out. You gotta keep on throwing, throw more ice cubes in. This is terrible. No, um, actually, it's just the way it is. The the one in Arizona is in Scottsdale, that's Alcor, Cronics Institute. Now, these two are the they've been around the longest. They're both they're both good institutions. That it works at either one. Alcor is uh is fancier looking, but they both do the job. And then there is one other company called Tomorrow Biostasis, which is now starting to they they flourish a bit in Europe. They do essentially the same financial plan as Alcor. So you have to buy an insurance policy, but they charge you know upwards of $200,000 for a full body cryopreservation, and we'll get into what the difference is. So it like if you get an insurance policy, which you can buy for $200,000 or whatever, then then or $250,000, whatever the cost is, well, that kind of takes care of like you have an insurance policy, and then when you die, it pays. They and they send out the transport team and they'll come and get your body and they'll cryopreserve you, and there you go, you're fine. Cryonics Institute, though, doesn't offer the transport, you have to buy that separately. And the reason they do that is because they can bring the cost all the way down to about 30,000, between 30,000, 35, like 32,000, 35,000 to cryopreserve you. The difference is that you have to, you know, get you have to help, you know, have people help you get there, you know, like so. If you are dying of cancer, you essentially go to a hospice nearby and then make sure that they are you can get right to their to their facility after you're pronounced dead, and they'll cryopreserve you for a much less expensive price. And you can you can get a you know, an insurance policy to cover that. So this is the drawback for chronics is that it's very expensive. But again, if you get insurance policies, then that'll cover the cost. Now, to your point, you mentioned earlier, well, I'm not a member yet because I feel like I got a few years. If you sign up when you're young, those insurance policy payments are so cheap. It's like five, ten dollars a month and you're covered. So I would recommend anybody that has even an interest or an inkling about like what to do, go find out how much an insurance life insurance policy is. And if it's dirt cheap, you should just sign up with cryonics, pay your five, don't don't buy that, you know, that Starbucks coffee extra on one day and use that payment to keep yourself where you might have cryonics and live later. I'm sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 50:27

No, well, no, it's funny. So I'm I'm sure somebody down the road is driving and saying, you know, what does this have to do with action to impact? And I say that there is a definite action in in choosing this type of of method, and it's got an impact that I I think you believe that this should be the way we die, and that should is mine,

Land Use Culture And A Different Kind Of Hope

SPEAKER_00 50:55

nobody else's, but if you're telling me that there's that we can take care of the spiritual aspect, I can throw in that say there's a lot of parkland with a lot of dead bodies under it in the United States, and we're not making any more land, one would argue we're going to be losing land here pretty quickly. So there isn't a lot of place to bury bodies much anymore, which is an also reason why I think cremation got to be so big. You would really like this, you really you would really like this to be more the norm than this crazy friend of mine, Charlie, wants to freeze himself. I mean, you would really you you it and those are again, those are my words, and Charlie isn't crazy, everybody. I'm just saying that that's debatable. Okay, yeah, well, that's debatable, yeah. But but I'm just saying that you know it's because it's become so abstract in people's brains that you kind of feel, I think, bummed that people aren't even willing to give it a try. Is that a kind of a fair statement? Yeah, I mean, I feel bad.

SPEAKER_02 52:00

I I I think every day on the news I hear somebody, oh, they died, and I think, wow, what a shame. We do have this option, and it's so it's so maligned or it's not it's not popular in our zeitgeist that people just ignore that option. And I think what a sad, sad situation. Some really brilliant, wonderful people die, and they could have been crowd preserved where they might come back. And I want to make a point about this because you know, I've been signed up with Cronics for almost well, since the it's almost probably a quarter of a century now. It had to be in since the early 2000s, right? My mindset is something that is different in for other for people. So when I hear somebody dies, like everybody, I feel bad, or like most people, like eating. Right, you're compassionate, yeah. You tend to feel bad, right? You think, oh wow, that's a shame they died. But what happens in my mind, because I'm so attuned to the idea of chronic, so I always think the first thing that goes through my mind before I go into full-blown sadness is I think, oh, that's not good, but wait, were they cryopreserved? Nine now, 99.999% of the time that they weren't crying. Doesn't happen, right? Unfortunately, it's not. But because I happen to be in this futuristic community, I attend so many of these conferences and I'm always involved in this stuff. I do know a few people that died, and then I found like, wait, they were cryopreserved. What a difference in my intake of the way I feel when I hear that, wait, they were cryopreserved. Well, then we didn't officially lose them forever. They couldn't come back. It would be wonderful to see my friend again because they were cryopreserved. That there's a chance that, like, it it it's such a weight off of my heart and shoulders that you it's hard to describe for people that are not part of the cryonics.

SPEAKER_00 53:53

Right, or even willing to give it a try or just to think about it. Right. That's that when yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:58

When you were talking about the idea of going into a ceremony when you die and you're a funeral, when I I when I, you know, I tend to funerals. Oh my god, the tears, the sadness, it's miserable. The person that you loved is in that casket, they're not coming back. You can look and you can try to talk, but it's like, and look, people are supposed to believe in God, but they I see them crying. Well, wait, if you think he's in heaven, why are you crying? You can just look up and say, Hey, I'll see you in a little while. But they don't, they're crying because you know, this is the person that they may never see again, and or or they're burned and in a cremation, they're never gonna see him again. But when you go to, if you if you truly believe in chronics and you're someone that has a loved one that's crowd preserved, when you go there for that ceremony, it's a different mindset. You go there and you think, Wow, you know, I hope to see you soon. Yeah, I'll see you. Okay, I hope I'll see you soon. I look forward to when we get to get back. In fact, there's a lot of people that'll record things, they'll say, Hey, you know, we we want to let you know little Tommy just had his third birthday and we're gonna talk to you. And they come back once a year or whenever they come to say hi again, just like people visit a grave site. The difference is they are anticipating them coming back, and it's such a it's such a beautiful, better feeling than that permanency of loss that you feel when you are buried or when you're cremated. So, even just for that reason, I would recommend cryopreservation because it's such a different and and and it's not a false hope because it's it's a scientific dealing. You know, it's something where you you it could work, and you know, like okay, crazy Charlie Cam, but there are some really brilliant people that are signed up. I mentioned Ray Kurzwell, for example. He's a member, he signed up with Grangs. His mentor from and by the way, he's an MIT graduate, he's a genius, right? But his mentor, Marvin Minsky.

SPEAKER_00 55:47

Marvin Minsky, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:49

He's he's cryopreserved. He's a guy was a genius. I I met him when I held a conference in Chicago, which you were very apart, very important part of. Marvin Minsky is cryopreserved. So there's some really brilliant people that are signed up. In fact, in fact, there's a lot of science scientists that I'm aware of that are signed up with cryonics. So this isn't just the crazy guys like me. This is a lot of things.

SPEAKER_00 56:12

So it's almost like a frozen think tank

Neuropreservation And Rebuilding Bodies

SPEAKER_00 56:15

right now. In a way. It's like, well, you know, you know, I believe it's in Norway we have the seed bank. Could could cryonics be like this frozen brain bank?

SPEAKER_02 56:28

Oh, yeah. I mean, you look, there's a lot of people that choose what's called neuropreservation, where they only freeze your brain, basically. Okay. Because let's say, for example, you're 90 years old and you and that's the Futurama.

SPEAKER_00 56:43

That's the Futurama cartoon, right?

SPEAKER_02 56:45

Futurama, gonna have fun with it. But you know, and and it's again, it's you're not gonna have a glass case where you have that.

SPEAKER_00 56:51

No, but it would be kind of fun to talk about talk to Richard Nixon right now. I'm sure he would really like, you know.

SPEAKER_02 56:58

You know, they made a reference one time on on uh uh 30 Rock when Alex Baldwin said to Tina Faces uh, well, uh yes, um uh we have Nixon's head is frozen. You know, like it was for as a criminalist, I was laughing my head off. Excuse the pun. But you know, the thing is that there are people that choose neuropreservation, okay? Because let's say, for example, you're 90 years old and you're really debilitated, and you you the reason you're dying is because you've got some muscular disorder or whatever, and you're wasting away to almost nothing, and you're like, and you say, Well, you want to be crowd preserved? And they might say, No, I don't, why would I want to come back? This is I'm in pain all the time. Well, if you understand the way technology is happening right now, we are already able to regrow a lot of organs. They've successfully re-grow, you know, kidneys and bladders and all sorts of organs, right? They they've done this. In fact, one of our mutual friends, Martin Rothplat, has uh an organization that can regrow body organs and they've used it successfully. Somebody died in 2022 of, or well, they were gonna die, and they needed a heart transplant, and they were able to grow a heart for this person and they put it in and it worked. The person lived, they died eventually of other complications, but the heart itself worked, and there and now you can do this with a lot of other organs, so eventually we will be able to grow brand new bodies, you know. You know, so the idea would be that yeah, unfortunately you're 90 years old, but uh you really got a terrible body right now, but we're gonna crowd preserve. So, what Alcor has done and Tomorrow Biostasis is they say, well, look, instead of paying $200 and something thousand dollars, you can just do neuropreservation for $80,000 because, well, you're taking up a lot less space. It's just your head, essentially. Again, people say, Oh, it sounds gross, but I will point back to the idea of like, I think getting buried in the ground, getting eaten by worms is more gross. I think getting thrown in a fire and getting burned, buried is pretty gross. This is just cryo-preserving your brain because that is where all your information and everything, which is what you are, that's your supercomputer you are. You know, that's your supercomputer. You can replace your heart, your arms, and your legs, you can replace all that, but your brain is something that makes you you. And and if by cryo-preserving that part of you, there is gonna be a time where you'll have brand new bodies. It might even be robotic bodies, but it'll be something where you'll be back to really good health. And that's what I believe, you know.

SPEAKER_00 59:32

So that answers some other questions there about, you know, yeah, and I'm and I'm sure, I'm sure I've got some listeners that are loving this and freaking out all at the same time, and I love it. And I and I want and I want to thank you so much for being on the show, but I've never got I've got one more, one more question, and I'll let you go back to your world. So I know people's heads are spinning, and and I love it, I think it's great, and the whole idea of this podcast is that we want to have these conversations and let people know different ideas and different views. But what is your dream? So just Charlie. So

AI Singularity And Longevity Escape Velocity

SPEAKER_00 1:00:10

let's say you leave us, Charlie, and in a hundred years from now, like what why is your reason? Are you ready to come back to this world? Like, are you are you you're really hoping this works? You know, why, why, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:30

Yeah. So uh first of all, just correct that a little bit. I don't think it's gonna be a hundred years. I really think, like I was saying before, you know, landing on Mars is it's so complicated. And we are there are scientists now that work on the idea of bringing this crionics back, you know, people bringing tissue back. They've done it successfully with with different organ parts. So we're on the verge of where we can get. And and if you look at the advance uh advances of AI technology, artificial intelligence, and it keeps getting smarter, it's solving problems that we can't even solve. I truly believe, and again, I'm gonna reference Ray Kurzweil because in his book he talks about the singularity coming in 2045. We're already at 2026. That means we're only 19 years away, and that is where computational powers will be doubling almost instantaneously. It'll be so brilliant that a lot of our soul, a lot of problems will be solved, including cranks. So I truly believe that people will be able to be uncrypt preserved within the next 20 years. I don't think it's gonna be out 100 years. So for me, it it really just it's a very fundamental answer, is just I don't I don't want to die. I I really see the idea of going to heaven or whatever it is that you believe as far as an afterlife, okay, that's part of what's called faith, right? But faith by its definition is acceptance without proof, right? That's what it is. I tend to want to always have proof of whatever. So if I'm gonna throw my faith into anything or whatever, I would rather go with something that says to me, like, well, look, we did crowd preserve, you know, embryos and we brought them back. So I see the science working there. So that makes more sense to me to choose the route of science and say, like, yeah, I'll tell you what, I'll take a shot. I'll I'll go with the chronics because I do think that if humanity navigates things correctly and doesn't just destroy ourselves because there's always that chance with nuclear or whatever, but if we do get to that point in the future where we can work in a nice way, then we will, we could have a much better future where people can get along. Part of what what Greg Kurzwell talks about is something called the economy of abundance, where molecular manufacturing devices will mass produce a lot of things. So we won't live in such a way that we're all competing, we're all greedy. Maybe we will reach a level where humanity will have better sympathy and empathy and love towards one another. I would like to be a part of that world, so I'll take a chance. So for me, I'd like to just have that crynox option. At the same time, cryonics is one of those things you sign up for, but you hope you never really have to use it because we'd like to get to what Ray Kurzweil talks about, the longevity escape velocity, which is coming, according to him, in 2032. Other ones say it's somewhere sooner, somewhere, some little later. But that's at a point where you will have so many treatments that will actually get to age reversal. In fact, David Sinclair, who's this brilliant scientist out of Harvard, got an FDA approval just recently, where he's actually doing treatments to do age reversal on humans. This is actually happening now as we speak, or as I speak. So the point is that this is the kind of thing where you, if we are getting to age reversal, we might catch up to we might get to that and you never need the cracks, but you should always have it as a backup, even if you're young, because you never know when you might get hit by a bus, or you know, something or you fall down the stairs and you die. You should always have it. Just sign it up, keep it in, keep it as an insurance policy because it's why not? I mean, don't miss out on what the could be the great life that's coming. We're all gonna be young and healthy and enjoying good relationships. So that's for me, that's what I want, and I hope everybody else partakes in it.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:05

Charlie Cam, my brother, thank you so much for doing this. I hope everybody out there is listening to our voices and it's just dizzy. It's absolutely dizzy because it I want him to think. I want him to think the whole idea of this. Like I said, am I gonna go buy my third insurance policy? I don't know. I don't know. But I'll tell you this the whole idea that that you're willing

Closing Thoughts And How To Reach Us

SPEAKER_00 1:04:30

to take on all of these questions um is something I really appreciate, my friend. And I thank you so much for being on the show.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:37

Well, thank you for having me. And uh, you know I love you and I think you're wonderful, and I appreciate your friendship, and I appreciate the opportunity to talk about this. Thank you again.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:45

You're welcome.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:49

Okay, so what'd you think of Charlie? Are you confused? Are you intrigued? Do you think no way in a million years would I ever freeze myself? Or are you thinking, hmm, plan B. Or plan B for my kids? Or what about embryos? They're frozen. Charlie, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you for putting it all out on the table. From the good to the bad to the political to the religious. You were willing to be willing, and my friend, I truly appreciate you. And I appreciate you out there for listening because these are important conversations. Now, Charlie has his own views, and I have my own views, and well, welcome to the club. You have your own views, and we're not expecting everybody to agree on everything, but to have the information, to have someone else's experience, and like I said, I'm turning 60 and I wanna know. I wanna know the good, the bad, the ugly, the hilarious, so I can make my own mind up. Charlie, thank you. And I hope your plan B works, and I hope Cryonics is something that you out there listening may not necessarily be so in the dark about. It's science, it's interesting, it's around us, and it might be your neighbor right next door is part of Charlie's crew that's about to be frozen once they leave the planet. Well, I have to leave the planet, or at least the show, for another week. I thank you so much for being out there listening. If you have someone that you think is turning their actions in your impact or think they'd be a great guest for the show, RotarianPod at gmail.com. Of course, check us out on YouTube and we blog on Blogger, tell friends about us, and I'm hitting the road. And if we'd like me to come to your neighborhood, same address, RotarianPod at gmail.com. Until next week, I hope we got you thinking. And take care of yourself, the world around you, and we'll hear you next week, right here on the Action to Impact Show. Have a wonderful week, everybody. We will talk to you soon.

unknown 1:07:14

Whew!

SPEAKER_00 1:07:15

That was a great conversation.