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A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

nytimes.com

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Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

#161

Post by tim333 »

tene wrote: post #47
amalcon wrote: post #33

Cryonics is one of those things that's hard to evaluate. On the face of it, it seems insane. You're essentially making a bet that someone will find something useful to do with a frozen brain -- and that your estate will be able to afford the procedure -- before the company you've entrusted your brain to either makes a mistake or collapses. Given the near-total lack of progress on the former front (there's been consid…

Cryonics is pretty unlikely to succeed! I'm signed up for cryonics through Alcor, and I am not confident at all that there's much chance that I'll be revived post-vitrification. I do it because there's an infinitely greater chance of life after vitrification than there is of life after burial, or life after cremation. I see it as a low-percentage last-chance life support. It's early and underdeveloped and flawed in m…

>Cryonics is pretty unlikely to succeed!

There seems a surprising amount of techno pessimism here. Just to take the other side I think it's very likely to succeed at least to some extent. If you just assume computing and scanning keep improving a similar amount per year to what they have been then we'll have the tech to scan and simulate for example in two or three decades.

Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

#162

Post by 336f5 »

cbr wrote: post #154
336f5 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which ALCOR etc don't attempt to cover. Maybe you should reread my comment.

Your parent wrote: "You're essentially making a bet that someone will find something useful to do with a frozen brain -- and that your estate will be able to afford the procedure -- before the company you've entrusted your brain to either makes a mistake or collapses." The procedure your parent was talking about is revival, not cryopreservation. Your comment talks in detail about why you think ALCOR's corporate struc…

> ALCOR does claim that the patient care trust will be enough to cover revival

So you understand exactly how it's supposed to work and what I was talking about, and you were playing dumb by claiming to misinterpret my comment. Thanks.

Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

#163

Post by eevilspock »

13thLetter wrote: post #60
eevilspock wrote: post #44

With all the suffering, injustice, unequal opportunity and privilege in the world, this to me is the epitome of narcissism and selfishness. Would you donate to this rather than to social services for, for example, thousands of homeless children in New York City alone?

Why are you spending your time posting on Hacker News when you could be rescuing babies?

I've devoted my life to working for a better world for all. I quit my 6-figure job years ago to work on solutions or ways to convince others to work on solutions. I spend time on Hacker News because I'm trying to use my tech skills for these aims, to be a voice in a tech culture that is too prone to callousness (such as yours) and simplisitic notions that the free-market solves all.

Why do you have to be mean? My comment wasn't mean, it was a criticism of the direction of our culture. Social progress doesn't happen without critique.

I find it ironic that I'm being downvoted for speaking a valid but un-PC thought in a community that normally complains about the ills of political correctness.

Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

#164

Post by ThomasBombadil »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #92
ThomasBombadil wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, if the distributed hardware infrastructure cluster supporting 10,000 EC2 mini compute instances is packed with 1,000,000 emulations of humans, how important are the physical data centers that encompass all their backups, master copies and live instances?

As important as a city hosting 1,000,000 people. No more, no less. The emulation of a human is a human.

I disagree. Less important, and no more important than a public library filled with books. It'd be a shame if it burned down, but the books are not the humans that wrote them. Those are long gone.

Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

#165

Post by deciplex »

dennisgorelik wrote: post #159
edanm wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, regarding failures, they're actually pretty well documented. See g.. here: http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/suspensionfailures.html . First result from a google search. Not exactly some giant coverup and fraud, I think. "> they are hugely financially liable Liable to what exactly?" Well, the original point made above is that there is no way to verify they do as they claim, which is to freeze bodies/heads, in the…

1) How do you know that all body freezing failures are pretty well documented? If they do not test recovery then they register only the most obvious failures. 2) "in the hopes that someday in the future someone will know" They promote and claim that revival will be possible in the future. Without any proof. So it is a confidence game. Hence "scam". There is a good chance that successful freezing and revival would be…

You seem to be suggesting that cryonics will remain a scam until such time that vitrified brains can be recovered. But, by that time cryonics would likely be unnecessary. Is there a use case for cryonics at all?

Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

#166

Post by dennisgorelik »

deciplex wrote: post #165
dennisgorelik wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) How do you know that all body freezing failures are pretty well documented? If they do not test recovery then they register only the most obvious failures. 2) "in the hopes that someday in the future someone will know" They promote and claim that revival will be possible in the future. Without any proof. So it is a confidence game. Hence "scam". There is a good chance that successful freezing and revival would be…

You seem to be suggesting that cryonics will remain a scam until such time that vitrified brains can be recovered. But, by that time cryonics would likely be unnecessary. Is there a use case for cryonics at all?

If somebody wants to travel to the future - cryonics could be helpful (assuming it actually works).

It also may make sense to use cryonics for future cure of deceases, assuming that cryonics work.

But now we should assume that cryonics does NOT work, and everyone who claims (or hints) otherwise without testing is a scammer.

Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

#167

Post by BinaryIdiot »

dennisgorelik wrote: post #143
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Making predictions is the main way to test out theories. Only if you can then test those predictions otherwise they're kinda useless beyond philosophical reasons. > How many medieval people do you think we would unfreeze&revive given such choice? That is a false choice; why are the resources constrained so that the choice is between reviving 100,000 people or extending the lives of 100,000 people? Arguably we shoul…

> why are the resources constrained Because resources are always constrained. The only difference is the level of constraint. Consider slightly modified choice: between "extending lives of 1M modern people + revival of 0.1M medieval people" vs "extending lives of 1.1M modern people". Or another choice: "Revival of 1M medieval people" vs "producing 1M clones of modern people". Curiosity about history would make sure t…

> Because resources are always constrained.

Today sure. Tomorrow? Probably. But if you subscribe to the Kardashev scale then we'll likely become a type 2 or 3 civilization at which point I would consider it very likely that we are resource constrained to the point where this can't be done. I just don't think that would make sense.

When we become a type 1 we still might not have any real resource issues but that's harder to predict. So why wouldn't we revive everyone at some point? Seems silly to just let everyone thaw if we have the technology and resources at some point.

Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

#168

Post by dennisgorelik »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #167
dennisgorelik wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why are the resources constrained Because resources are always constrained. The only difference is the level of constraint. Consider slightly modified choice: between "extending lives of 1M modern people + revival of 0.1M medieval people" vs "extending lives of 1.1M modern people". Or another choice: "Revival of 1M medieval people" vs "producing 1M clones of modern people". Curiosity about history would make sure t…

> Because resources are always constrained. Today sure. Tomorrow? Probably. But if you subscribe to the Kardashev scale then we'll likely become a type 2 or 3 civilization at which point I would consider it very likely that we are resource constrained to the point where this can't be done. I just don't think that would make sense. When we become a type 1 we still might not have any real resource issues but that's har…

Why revive old person if you can clone new person instead?

It does not really matter how much resources you have: if you have a lot, then you clone a lot of modern people, but still ignore obsolete stuff.

Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

#169

Post by cLeEOGPw »

ridgeguy wrote: post #111

I view current cryonics as a bit like playing the lottery. If you don't play, you will not win. If you do play, you have a minuscule but nonzero chance of winning. Over 30 years ago, I joined others to sit with a friend while he died way too young. He had arranged for cryonic preservation. AFAIK, he's still chilling. And he has a minuscule but nonzero chance of someday resuming his prematurely interrupted life. While…

> If you do play, you have a minuscule but nonzero chance of winning.

This is what I don't get it. Why people think this? You have exactly ZERO chance to win.

Even if cryonics will be a thing in the future, nobody is going to unfreeze you or put you in some body. I'm not even counting technological aspects, where your brain would be incorrectly frozen/lack of some key chemicals that has to be used that don't exist yet/tissue not preserved well enough. Even if they COULD make you live, future people wouldn't do it. Reason is that your brain has no value of any kind besides cryonics experimentation - means same value as a cow or a pig. Maybe even less, because your brain might bring trouble to ethicists who would be upset.

Cryonics for smart people is money spending equivalent of fortune teller for less smart people. Even if you explain to them it is not worth it, it doesn't work like they think it works, etc., they will still be convinced they are right. If this helps you psychologically then good for you, fortune tellers sometimes helps people in certain areas too.

Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future

#170

Post by edanm »

dennisgorelik wrote: post #159
edanm wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, regarding failures, they're actually pretty well documented. See g.. here: http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/suspensionfailures.html . First result from a google search. Not exactly some giant coverup and fraud, I think. "> they are hugely financially liable Liable to what exactly?" Well, the original point made above is that there is no way to verify they do as they claim, which is to freeze bodies/heads, in the…

1) How do you know that all body freezing failures are pretty well documented? If they do not test recovery then they register only the most obvious failures. 2) "in the hopes that someday in the future someone will know" They promote and claim that revival will be possible in the future. Without any proof. So it is a confidence game. Hence "scam". There is a good chance that successful freezing and revival would be…

"They promote and claim that revival will be possible in the future. Without any proof. So it is a confidence game. Hence "scam"."

Again, if you're talking about some group like Alcor, they say it may be possible in the future.

I'd love it if you could provide some kind of evidence that they're not presenting the truth or trying to dupe people. Especially considering that so few people have actually signed up, so I'm guessing most people who sign up do it after a lot of research.

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