Two-year-old cryogenically frozen by parents
Technically Incorrect: The parents of a Thai girl who died of brain cancer have had her frozen in the hope that science will one day be able to revive her. She is believed to be the youngest person ever to undergo the procedure.
Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.
We talk about the future as if we know what it will be.
Then the present comes along to remind us that we have control over nothing.
One minute, life is ours. The next, it's gone.
Yet some believe that preserving human bodies until science can find a way to revive them is a gamble worth taking, an investment worth making.
On Thursday, Motherboard released the story of what is said to be the youngest ever person to be cryogenically preserved. Matheryn Naovaratpong died of brain cancer aged 2. (The previous youngest was said to have been 21.)
Her parents, both doctors, decided that they would employ the services of Alcor. This is the same Arizona-based company that currently holds the frozen remains of baseball great Ted Williams, as well as his son John Henry Williams. It's also a company thathas been accused of practices that aren't exactly reliable.
Because of Matheryn's failing health, the cryonic process began in Bangkok. An Alcor staff member was on hand the minute she was pronounced dead to immediately begin preserving her whole body.
The Motherboard article goes into great and painful detail. Matheryn is said to be the youngest ever person to have undergone the procedure.
The cost is, of course, steep. Neurocryopreservation costs $80,000. But if you want the whole body treatment, that's $220,000. Alcor suggests that this is funded through a life insurance policy.
Its membership rules state: "Alcor must be designated not only as the beneficiary of the life insurance policy, but also as its owner. This guarantees that the beneficiary cannot be changed without our knowledge, and we will be informed if the premium is unpaid. Alcor will provide a written guaranteethat it will surrender its ownership status if you choose to abandon your cryonics arrangements or move to a different organization."
Google's Ray Kurzweil is said to be a member, alongside other tech-focused humans.
I have contacted Alcor to ask for its comment on the case and will update, should I hear.
However, the fact is that humans have now knowledge of how regeneration might occur.
Such freezing of mind and/or body is but a leap of faith that science will catch up and the world will become a place where every part of what we know as the human body will be replaceable by a similar part. Just like our cars and washing machines.
This hasn't stopped parents signing their children up from an extremely early age. (The kids can opt out when they're old enough.)
If you have money and the sort of hope -- for science and for the earth -- that such a procedure might be the beginning of life resuscitation, then you dedicate your money to that hope.
Especially if your two-year-old daughter has been dealt such a cruel hand.
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