Have you heard of Pascal's Wager?

Blaise Pascal was a seventeenth-century philosopher and one of the few Christian thinkers to invent a purely logical reason to believe in the Christian God.

Pascal neither depended on evidence nor personal revelation. Instead, he noticed that an infinitely positive outcome -- eternity in heaven -- could be secured at the relatively small cost of believing.

While a skeptic may reasonably doubt the existence of God and heaven, no skeptic could reasonably be certain.

God might exist.

Immortality in heaven could be at stake.

One hour of church once a week -- plus tithing -- is a very reasonable price to pay to hedge one's bets -- to wager intelligently in the face of such important consequences.

The case for young-cell cryopreservation

Whether or not Pascal's Wager is actually convincing, the structure of his argument applies perfectly to the question of young-cell cryopreservation.

There are compelling reasons to believe biotechnology is going to continue advancing tremendously in the coming decades and that those advancements may lead to dramatic improvements in human health.

Many of the most promising therapies being developed rely on human cells themselves as the therapeutic. A good example is CAR T-cell therapy: a patient's own immune-system cells are harvested, engineered to be more effective against cancer cells, then reinjected back into the patient. This has actually already been working in practice.

It's possible this trend will continue and that scientists will be able to use people's own cells to grow entirely new replacement organs. It's uncertain, but very much possible.

There's a major problem, though.

As you grow old, your cells grow old with you!

Your own old cells picked off of your own old body will -- almost certainly -- not work well.

Your own young cells would work very well, but how can you access your own young cells after you've already grown old?

The answer is young-cell cryopreservation.

If only people were in the habit of cryopreserving their own young cells while they were still (relatively) young, they'd retain the opportunity to use their own young cells on their own older selves.

What a mouthful, but I'm sure you get it.

The final piece to consider is cost.

Ultimately the variables that matter are the cost of participating, the magnitude of the possible upside, and the perceived likelihood of the upside even materializing at all.

In Pascal's Wager the cost is church-time (and tithing, presumably), the magnitude of the upside is heaven, and the perceived likelihood of heaven materializing is uncertain but possible. Given how incredible the upside of immortality in heaven is, even if the cost is high and the perceived likelihood low, it could still be worth it.

In my young-cell cryopreservation version, the cost to cryopreserve your own young cells with Acorn Biolabs (as of me writing this, Dec 30th, 2025) is $900 upfront + $190 / year, the magnitude of the upside sits anywhere between "possibly saving your life one day" all the way through the possibility of "significantly extending your maximum lifespan" (if biotechnological advancements go really well), and the perceived likelihood of young cells helping you in the future is good but speculative!