The character "Dragon" from the Worm web-serial convinced me that I would let an AI out of a box.

I live in South Africa. We don't, as far as I know, have a cryonics facility comparable to, say, Alcor.

What are my options apart from "emigrate and live next to a cryonics facility"?

Also, I'm not sure if I'm misremembering, but I think it was Eliezer that said cryonics isn't really a viable option without an AI powerful enough to reverse the inevitable damage. Here's my second question, with said AI powerful enough to reverse the damage and recreate you, why would cryonics be a necessary step? Wouldn't alternative solutions also be viable? For example, brain scans while alive and then something like the Visible Human Project (body sliced into cross sections) coupled with a copy of your genome. This could perhaps also be supplemented by a daily journal. Surely a powerful enough AI would be able to recreate the human that created those writings using the information provided?

Is it a completely stupid idea?

Aka Sophie's World http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie%27s_World

Thank you. Title updated.

[1] String theory textbooks provide a possible anti-example.

I can assure you that the maths in a string theory textbook will still be essentially correct.

Thanks for this. That talk was an informative read.