Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by cmn32480 on Monday March 19 2018, @04:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the is-this-one-from-Abby-Normal? dept.

Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd

The startup accelerator Y Combinator is known for supporting audacious companies in its popular three-month boot camp.

There's never been anything quite like Nectome, though.

Next week, at YC's "demo days," Nectome's cofounder, Robert McIntyre, is going to describe his technology for exquisitely preserving brains in microscopic detail using a high-tech embalming process. Then the MIT graduate will make his business pitch. As it says on his website: "What if we told you we could back up your mind?"

So yeah. Nectome is a preserve-your-brain-and-upload-it company. Its chemical solution can keep a body intact for hundreds of years, maybe thousands, as a statue of frozen glass. The idea is that someday in the future scientists will scan your bricked brain and turn it into a computer simulation. That way, someone a lot like you, though not exactly you, will smell the flowers again in a data server somewhere.

This story has a grisly twist, though. For Nectome's procedure to work, it's essential that the brain be fresh. The company says its plan is to connect people with terminal illnesses to a heart-lung machine in order to pump its mix of scientific embalming chemicals into the big carotid arteries in their necks while they are still alive (though under general anesthesia).

The company has consulted with lawyers familiar with California's two-year-old End of Life Option Act, which permits doctor-assisted suicide for terminal patients, and believes its service will be legal. The product is "100 percent fatal," says McIntyre. "That is why we are uniquely situated among the Y Combinator companies."

Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610456/a-startup-is-pitching-a-mind-uploading-service-that-is-100-percent-fatal/


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by looorg on Monday March 19 2018, @04:37PM (17 children)

    by looorg (578) on Monday March 19 2018, @04:37PM (#654982)

    How is this different from Cryogenics (not literally) ? A vague promise of one day you'll return when they can cure whatever ails you (old age, horrible disease etc). They are both quite fatal, but then so is living. Alternatively they are both like some really, crazy, religious cults -- once upon death you (or you soul, mind, life force or something) will transcend (or be uploaded) to another plane of existence where you will stay until the one day that you return (or get resurrected).

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 4, Funny) by EvilSS on Monday March 19 2018, @04:52PM (1 child)

    by EvilSS (1456) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 19 2018, @04:52PM (#654993)

    Its chemical solution can keep a body intact for hundreds of years, maybe thousands, as a statue of frozen glass.

    Well the major difference seems to be that with this process instead of being a peoplesicle, you end up as a bit of modern art for some future rich guy's bookshelf.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 19 2018, @07:12PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 19 2018, @07:12PM (#655069)

      All these sort of stuff seem like preserving a forest by fossilizing it. Or copying some scans of it into a simulation. Or replacing people with a very small shell script.

      But if you're stupid enough then it may work adequately for your case. ;)

  • (Score: 2) by Snow on Monday March 19 2018, @04:54PM (5 children)

    by Snow (1601) on Monday March 19 2018, @04:54PM (#654994) Journal

    Heh, you should start a company that issues 'Certificates of Resurrection'. The idea is that you sell these certificates for $$$$$ while 'developing a time machine'. Then once your time machine is finished you super-duper-promise to come back and bring them to the future so they can be saved.

    • (Score: 4, Touché) by captain normal on Monday March 19 2018, @05:07PM

      by captain normal (2205) on Monday March 19 2018, @05:07PM (#655005)

      The Evangelicals already undercut your price.

      --
      When life isn't going right, go left.
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Monday March 19 2018, @05:10PM (3 children)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday March 19 2018, @05:10PM (#655006) Journal

      Let's work Roko's basilisk into this.

      Or how about orphans? For every Certificate of Resurrection sold, 100 starving orphans from throughout the timestream will be saved by the company. So if you don't buy a ResCert as a privileged rich person, you are condemning 100 orphans to death.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 2) by black6host on Monday March 19 2018, @06:11PM

        by black6host (3827) on Monday March 19 2018, @06:11PM (#655043) Journal

        Holy shit, that plus all the kittens I've killed in my lifetime! I simply cannot have that on my conscience. Certificate time for me!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 19 2018, @09:20PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 19 2018, @09:20PM (#655134)

        fuck orphans

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 19 2018, @04:58PM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 19 2018, @04:58PM (#654997)

    It's cryogenics on a computer so it can be re-patented.

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Monday March 19 2018, @05:06PM (5 children)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday March 19 2018, @05:06PM (#655004) Journal

      Actually, they just give your brain a big ol' chemical bath. It's up to some other saps to develop the scanning technology to revive the Silicon Valley elites so they can resume world domination.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday March 19 2018, @06:01PM (4 children)

        by maxwell demon (1608) on Monday March 19 2018, @06:01PM (#655039) Journal

        Ever thought about how Roko's Basilisk can re-create people to torture them? Well, obviously their mind has to be stored somewhere for this to be possible. The customers of this startup might one day wake up to an unpleasant surprise! :-)

        --
        The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
        • (Score: 2) by takyon on Monday March 19 2018, @06:09PM

          by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday March 19 2018, @06:09PM (#655040) Journal

          https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=24636&page=1&cid=655006#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]

          But... but think of the orphans! XD 😂😂😂

          --
          [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Monday March 19 2018, @06:41PM (2 children)

          by aristarchus (2645) on Monday March 19 2018, @06:41PM (#655057) Journal

          But if a mind can be stored anywhere, it would be prudent to have backups, multiple backups. Which raises an interesting question. If you are torturing a copy, are you really torturing the person you intended to torture, or is it just facsimile, a "strawman", as khallow would say, a mere chimera of the original, a shade or an echo? Then there is the Riker problem. http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Thomas_Riker [wikia.com]

          Now, think, for a moment. What is it that is "you", essentially. You are unique? Repeat after me. "We are all individuals!" ( Life of Brian, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QereR0CViMY [youtube.com] ) But other than a continuity of awareness, there really is nothing you can point to as "being" what it is the you are. You are a collection of skhandhas, a result of co-dependant co-origination, and at some point you will, if you can release yourself from the bondage of grasping and desire for existence, reach nirvana, or just cease to think you exist. Nothing has self-being (svabhava) and all is empty (sunyata). So the copies you torture are not the person you desired to torture, indeed the actual person you seek to torture is non-identical to itself, and in torturing them, it is you who are tortured by your tortured need to torture.

          Roko's basilsk is from the Avici hell region, not an enlightened being at all.

          • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday March 20 2018, @11:15AM (1 child)

            by maxwell demon (1608) on Tuesday March 20 2018, @11:15AM (#655323) Journal

            Roko's basilsk is from the Avici hell region, not an enlightened being at all.

            Not enlightened? You know the etymology of “Lucifer”?

            --
            The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
            • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday March 20 2018, @07:35PM

              by aristarchus (2645) on Tuesday March 20 2018, @07:35PM (#655581) Journal

              Wrong religion, different demonologies! And, just because you carry light, that does not mean you are the light you carry.

  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Monday March 19 2018, @04:59PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday March 19 2018, @04:59PM (#654999) Journal

    Necto could be worse than cryo from certain perspectives.

    You could argue about "souls", but when it comes to resurrecting you and your personality, the future scanning process could create an imperfect copy of your brain, rather than preserving a somewhat damaged version (your dead, frozen brainsicle) that could be directly revived using the existing intact tissue. On the other hand, Necto is done while you're still "fresh" and haven't suffered hours of brain damage from the gap between death and cryopreservation.

    From an investor perspective, Necto is more likely to face legal issues due to the requirement that the company actually kill people with its procedure. what if right to die laws are rolled back? Now you can't operate the service in California anymore. Better split the state [techcrunch.com] and legalize all vampire [vanityfair.com] and zombie related activities in Silicon Valley.

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
  • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday March 19 2018, @08:19PM

    by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Monday March 19 2018, @08:19PM (#655104) Journal

    This is a form of cryogenics. At least the article describes it as, "aldehyde-stabilized cryopreservation" when talking about a test case that was not viable because it occurred 2.5 hours post death.

    However, normal cryogenics are applied postmortem. The summary and article makes it clear that they are looking to preserve detail levels which require the process to be started before death is declared. More precisely, death is delivered by the process rather than occurring "naturally." They actually have a point - if you have waited long enough for the individual neuron cells to die then what good is preserving the remains?

    However, my prediction is that it will take exactly one case where there is a family objection to the process to have it prosecuted as murder. Even assisted end-of-life, where it is legal (six states in the U.S.), requires the patient to self-initiate the final process (the patient is actually given a lethal prescription that they have to fulfill and self-administer). And any physicians/nurses/technicians could well assisting (they talk of heart-lung machines while the process is initiated) be charged with conspiracy at minimum as well.

    --
    This sig for rent.