Check out the latest episode of Castle (Headcase) to see Cryonics covered in mainstream fiction in a not entirely terrible manner. The details are not exactly accurate but probably not more inaccurate than similar fictionalised coverage of most other industries. In fact there is one obvious implementation difference that the company in Castle uses which is how things clearly ought to be:
Amulets of Immortality
It is not uncommon for cryonics enthusiasts to make 'immortality' jokes about their ALCOR necklaces but the equivalent on the show make the obvious practical next step. The patients have heart rate monitors with GPS signalers that signal the cryonics company as soon as the patient flatlines. This is just obviously the way things should be and it is regrettable that the market is not yet broad enough for 'obvious' to have been translated into common practice.
Other things to watch out for:
- Predictable attempts by the cops to take the already preserved body so they can collect more evidence.
- A somewhat insightful question of whether the cryonics company should hand over the corpsicle without taking things to court because that way they would not risk legal precedent being set based on a case where there are unusual factors which may make them lose. It may be better to lose one patient so that they can force the fight to happen on a stronger case.
- Acknowledgement that only the head is required, which allows a compromise of handing over the body minus the head.
- Smug superiority of cops trying to take the cryonics patient against the will of the patient himself, his family and the custodians. This is different than cops just trying to claim territory and do their job and to the hell with everyone else, it is cops trying to convey that it is morally virtuous to take the corpse and the wife would understand that it was in her and her corpsicle husband's best interest to autopsy his head if she wasn't so stupid. (Which seems like a realistic attitude.)
- Costar and lead detective Beckett actually attempts to murder a cryonics patient (to whatever extent that murder applies to corpsicle desiccation). For my part this gave me the chance to explore somewhat more tangibly my ethical intuitions over what types of responses would be appropriate. My conclusion was that if someone had shot Beckett in order to protect the corpsicle I would have been indifferent. Not glad that she was killed but not proud of the person killing her either. I suspect (but cannot test) that most of the pain and frustration of losing a character that I cared about would be averted as well. Curious.
- Brain destroying disease vs cryonicist standoff!
- Beckett redeems herself on the 'not being an ass to cryonicists' front by being completely non-judgemental of the woman for committing "involuntary euthenasia" of her tumor-infested husband. (Almost to the point of being inconsistent with her earlier behavior but I'm not complaining.)
- A clever "Romeo and Juliet" conclusion to wrap up the case without Beckett being forced to put the wife in jail for an act that has some fairly reasonable consequentialist upsides. Played out to be about as close to a happy ending as you could get.
I'm not sure that's a universal feeling. I would certainly would put it the other way around.
But there's another issue that is going on here. Many human moral systems allow one to kill others to save a life. Under many moral frameworks if a person of age x is trying to kill someone of age y > x, it is still ok to kill x. Many different justifications for this are given, but it seems to me that the basis might be best thought of in terms of decision theory as a strong precommitment to stop murderers even if it means killing them. If in such a framework one views a cryonicly preserved individual as morally akin to a living person then this makes sense. Moreover, even if one does agree with the calculation that you suggested, similar lines of emotional pulls (and tribal loyalty to people who engage in or support cryonics) could easily move ones attitude towards indifferent.
What are your exact (or, I suppose, approximated) probabilities? Maybe I don't have a good sense of this.
Well yes. This brings up a whole host of issues though. The best analogy to the point I'd like to make would be abortion. Similar to fetuses, human moral systems do not view corpsicles as "lives". Which is why those moral systems you mentioned wouldn't approve of murdering someone to save a corpsicle, just as it would be widely considered "wrong" to shoot an abortion doctor. Whether or not it actually is wrong is not my point, but only that you can't adopt the "many human moral systems allow this" argument without paying any attention to the fact that human moral systems wouldn't see it as a life anyway.
In the same vein, I don't think your decision theory argument pans out either, because following the rule "kill people who are trying to murder corpsicles" doesn't equate to "kill people who are murdering other people" in the view of, for all intents and purposes, everyone, and ergo doesn't have the intended deterrent effect. In fact, the effect it would have would be to get you jailed, a newspaper story about the "crazy transhumanist who shot someone to save a corpsicle", and, well, the corpsicle will just be killed anyway once you're imprisoned.