Peter Eckersley and 'Afterlife'
Earlier today we mentioned John Pilger coming back online shortly after Peter Eckersley, another Australian, had come back online owing to efforts by a third Australian, Daniel Pocock. Eckersley died about half the age of Pilger. He had suffered from colon cancer [1, 2]. Wikipedia says "Shortly before his death, Eckersley was diagnosed with colon cancer. He sent a message to friends: "If possible, please plasticize or vitrify my brain and leave it on a shelf somewhere with a plaque or durable sticky note that says, 'scan me.'"
I had (and still have) a lot of respect for Eckersley, whom I knew a lot about when he was alive. Many only came to revere him and recognise his work only after his death. He did a ton of stuff before moving to the Capital of Stress (and international epicentre of mental health crisis), San Francisco. People from all around the world converge there in pursuit of money, but at what cost?
No disrespect meant, but brain preservation and a hope of recovery/restoration (posthumously) is ambitious to say the least. Maybe in San Francisco they watched Demolition Man (Los Angeles) too much.
Cancer can be caused by many things: hereditary factors, stress, diet, fitness, sleep patterns etc. There's no single type of cancer and we have an extensive list of substances and/or activities that are carcinogens. One can try one's best to avoid these, but it's still not a guarantee of anything.
In order to write for another 40 years I do some exercise every day and I always nap when I feel tired. Brain preservation - even if not a fantasy - wrongly assumes that people who live (say) 100 years later are actually interested in your "old" brain with ideas a century old and no recognition left. How many people from 1924 are widely recognised today? Barely a dozen. Their remaining relatives (who may care) are about 4 generations down and can barely name them. Nobody knows where their tombstone is (if one still exists at all).
It's better to look after one's health* at present than to pursue all sorts of perceived 'insurance' policies. Wikipedia says Eckersley was buried [sic] in "Cryopreserved at Alcor Life Extension Foundation", but that's one of these looney things that super-rich people with very little life left and too much money to spend or enjoy dwell on in their final years or deathbed. Call it "transhumanism" or "sci-fi" (a term abhorred and reviled by everyone except the indoctrinated), those people should really have enjoyed their youth and focused on health, not work (stress). I didn't quit my job in 2022 for any reason other than maintaining my moral integrity and physical health. █
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* Also mental health. Aaron Swartz wrote about about what to do with his online presence in case he "falls under a bus", but at the end he hung himself instead of fighting back.