The Masses Who Don't Have To Die
From Overcoming Bias: "More likely than not, most folks who die today didn't have to die! Yes, I am skeptical of most medicine because on average it seems folks who get more medicine aren't healthier. But I'll heartily endorse one medical procedure: cryonics, i.e., freezing folks in liquid nitrogen when the rest of medicine gives up on them. Yes even with modern anti-freezes, freezing does lots of damage, perhaps more than whatever else was going to kill you. But bodies frozen that cold basically won't change for millennia. So if whole brain emulation is ever achieved, and if freezing doesn't destroy info needed for [constructing an emulation based on scanning brain structure], if we think more likely than not, future folks could make an [emulation] out of your frozen brain. Since most folks who die today have an intact brain until the rest of their body fails them, more likely than not most death victims today could live on as (one or more) future [emulations]. And if future folks learn to repair freezing damage plus whatever was killing victims, victims might live on as ordinary humans." Those of us more in favor of continuity theories of identity prefer the latter option, and cutting edge cryonics now uses vitrification rather than freezing, which causes far less damage. But the point still stands: we have the technology to prevent irreversible death in a majority of cases, yet it is scarely used at all.
Link: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/12/we-agree-get-froze.html