Cryopreservation (part 5) – how would you live?

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When a person comes into the world as a baby, they have parents or other adults to care for them. Over the next 18 years or so those carers provide everything the new person needs and teach them about how to get along in the contemporary world – all the day-to-day aspects of language, getting along with other people (manners and behaviour), earning a living, finding a place to live, how to do everyday things like obtain food, clothing and services, pay bills, get around… all the things we all do all the time and are so used to we don’t realise how much we have learnt because we absorbed that information over many years. But how would a revived person cope with everyday life 50 or 100 or 200 years into the future? What would they do for a living? Their skills are likely to be out of date. People who have spent decades in prison, for example, have difficulty adjusting to life on ‘the outside’; how much harder would it be for someone who’s been dead for 200 years? And while they readjusted to life, who would support them? Who would pay the everyday costs of food, clothing and accommodation? Would the state support them, given that state benefits are already stretched trying to support the living? Who would teach them about contemporary life and what has changed since they died? For a young adult growing up, they have time on their side to save up for a house, build skills and experience for the world of work. As an adult, and quite probably an older adult, brought back to life, they no longer have that luxury and would need all those benefits immediately. And no matter how wealthy you are, you can’t keep your life savings after you die! All rights reserved. © Text copyright Fleur 2023.