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Life-Suspending Technologies, Cryonics, and Catastrophic Risks.

Andrea Sauchelli
Published in: Science and engineering ethics (2024)
I defend the claim that life-suspending technologies can constitute a catastrophic and existential security factor for risks structurally similar to those related to climate change. The gist of the argument is that, under certain conditions, life-suspending technologies such as cryonics can provide self-interested actors with incentives to efficiently tackle such risks-in particular, they provide reasons to overcome certain manifestations of generational egoism, a risk factor of several catastrophic and existential risks. Provided we have reasons to decrease catastrophic and existential risks such as climate change, we also have a (defeasible) reason for investing in developing and making life-suspending technologies (more) widespread.
Keyphrases
  • climate change
  • human health
  • risk assessment
  • risk factors
  • public health
  • human immunodeficiency virus
  • hiv infected