Britney Spears Preparing for Posthumous Comeback?

Well, here are two things not mentioned in this article:
1. It is illegal to cryopreserve a living human being. Alcor's website states that the foundation knows that and will not break the law by doing it. They will only cryopreserve a human being that has been declared medically dead (their heart has stopped) by a medical professional. So knowing that does make it a little less weird (I guess) to want to be cryopreserved.
2. Cryopreservation *does* cost money! Alcor doesn't give specifics on its website, but suggests to those interested a $150,000 life insurance policy, payment of member dues to the Alcor Foundation before death/cryopreservation, and a deposit into (basically) an individual trust fund, protected and managed by Alcor, that will earn interest and be given back to the cryo-patient once they are revived. After all, if they freeze you, you're going to need money (and probably lots of it, considering our current and ever-increasing rate of inflation, right?) when they "thaw you out."

(Yeah, obviously this website was fascinating to me...I became engrossed and read WAY more than I ever needed to know about cryopreservation and nanotechnology, LMAO.)

So...cryopreservation is really just another option in addition to cremation or burial. Considering that those interested in and willing to be cryopreserved are making a huge donation to science, I say, more power to her. She's got the money, she knows the risks and limitations, and, in the end, society will benefit from what Alcor learns during their attempts - be they successful or unsuccessful - to revive her down the line. Go Britney!

I wonder if, when she was considering being cremated and having her ashes turned into diamonds, she ever considered willing/entrusting those diamonds to someone with specific, legal instructions to sell them and donate the proceeds to various charities? Hmmmm...

needs to read up on what happened to baseball great Ted Williams.


Ted Williams’ Frozen Head Allegedly Abused by Alcor
By Steven Tarlow,

When Baseball Hall of Fame outfielder Ted Williams died at the age of 83 in 2002, he was cryogenically frozen by the Alcor Life Extension Foundation of Scottsdale, Arizona. As the company’s name indicates, the hope was that Williams could eventually be revived once medical technology had advanced enough to resuscitate “Teddy Ballgame.” In the meantime, the cryogenic treatment kept Ted Williams’ head on ice. This service has been provided at no doubt what amounts to great expense, the kind of expense that would drive people to a personal loan company just to keep up with freezer fees.

But Who Watches the Head Watchmen?

All is not rife at Alcor, alleges an upcoming book entitled “Frozen.” There are allegations that Ted Williams’ head has been abused. FOX Sports reports that Larry Johnson, former Alcor COO, alleges in the book that Williams’ head was “repeatedly abused” by untrained workers. The abuse wasn’t even casual, says Johnson. “Gruesome” is the operative word.
MLB’s Last .400 Hitter Reduced to Batting Practice Head

Johnson’s allegations are shocking to anyone with a modicum of human decency, but they are particularly troubling to the Williams family and baseball fans everywhere. Ted Williams used to say that when he went walking down the street, he wanted people who saw him to say, “There goes the greatest hitter who ever lived.” I’m sure he had no idea that his frozen cranium would ever be on the receiving end of the punishment he gave to Major League baseballs from 1939 to 1960. He put pitchers out of work with regularity. If that happened today, they could have gone to a personal loan company. However, such safe consumer businesses didn’t begin to appear in earnest until the 1980s.
Tales From the Frozen Ballyard

As the story goes, Ted Williams head was removed from his body in a haphazard fashion by untrained Alcor employees. Next – and this sounds more like a scene from a Kevin Smith film or an episode of “Family Guy” – Ted Williams’ severed head was allegedly “used for batting practice by a technician trying to dislodge it from a tuna fish can,” according to “Frozen.” Aside from Williams’ head being battered by what you’d suppose to be drunken yahoos on the job, there are also allegations that live dogs were dismembered at Alcor and injected with chemicals for “experimental purposes.” Other bodies may have also been used and abused.
The COO Wore a Wire to Work

Johnson had been the chief operating officer at Alcor for eight months before he realized that something wasn’t right behind the scenes of his company. In 2003, he began wearing a wire to work in order to record the shenanigans. Audio recordings and photos were supposedly used to help compose “Frozen,” although I’m wondering whether he ever took the information to the authorities. If he was innocent of wrongdoing, what would he have to worry about?

That's pretty interesting...I don't accept it as 100% truth because I haven't looked into it beyond what you've posted here (no offense), but it's definitely one of those things that nags at the back of my mind. I mean, if I were to will Alcor a minimum of $150,000 of my life insurance policy AFTER paying annual membership dues every year of my life AND entrusted them with some large amount of money to manage in a trust fund to earn interest on while I'm frozen, who's to say they'll keep they're word?!

I mean, besides the potential for desecration and abuse of frozen bodies, you're giving these people a pretty significant amount of money with the extremely strong faith that they're actually going to freeze your body and that they're actually going to try to thaw you out eventually. Now, I thing all this cryopreservation and nanotechnology stuff is tremendously interesting, but I'm not super-rich AND I have a family. Maybe if I didn't have a son to will my inheritance to, or perhaps if I had so much money that the...what...$500,000?...that Alcor would want from me wouldn't make a significant dent in the grand total my son would be due to inherit, I would sign up tomorrow. Maybe. Even then, though...would you really want to wake up tens or hundreds or even thousands of years in the future and try to exist in a world that you don't know and in which all your loved ones were dead and gone? Eh. Not me so much. To me, life IS my loved ones.

I respect the studies of and research into cryopreservation and nanotechnology. But me, well...I'll hand my remains over to the people I know and love and trust.