Cryoselfishness

Cryoselfishness is the belief that it is selfish to take "too much" money away now from one's children, heirs, or society, for an uncertain future personal benefit (revival).

"Too much" is of course a highly personal and subjective calculation. The selfishness claim might be greatly weakened if other family members or heirs also share the preservation vision, and by supportive laws, norms, and opinions of wider society. It might also be sensitive to the cost of preservation relative to life insurance, inheritable assets or other discretionary expenditures, and to the expected probability and utility of personal revival.

For some, the prepayment of preservation costs by insurance addresses the selfishness claim. But for others, it clearly does not. A family member with moderate income who takes out an insurance contract to pay preservation costs later has still chosen to direct a significant portion of their income to their own preservation, prioritizing that over the financial support of other family members.

Futurist John Smart argues that the fear of appearing cryoselfish, either to one's family or to wider society, is an important block to preservation adoption. Personal actions and societal conditions that might eliminate the feeling of cryoselfishness might include establishing adequate life insurance for one's heirs, influencing other family members to adopt the preservation vision for themselves, lowering current preservation costs relative to other life costs, increasing their coverage within standard health care insurance, and seeing preservation become a broadly accepted minority norm in wider society.