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As more hackers start to die, when do we finally do something about it?

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Re: As more hackers start to die, when do we finally do something about it?

#101

Post by dpark »

lsparrish wrote: post #99
dpark wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not "supernatural shit", but it is Pascal's Wager. It takes the same form and has the same flaws. It is an invalid argument. By paying $25k to be frozen, you also get a nonzero chance that you'll be revived and live through thousands of years of torture.

Sure, thousands of years of torture are possible for you if you're a cryonicist -- but in such a world the same risk would apply to trillions of other sentients. If you aren't completely selfish, you're better off investing your energy in preventing such a world instead of trying to dodge the bullet personally.

> If you aren't completely selfish, you're better off investing your energy in preventing such a world

How is getting your head frozen investing in preventing such a world? If you want to improve the future, maybe you should invest your $25K in humanitarian efforts instead of a desperate attempt at personal life extension.

Re: As more hackers start to die, when do we finally do something about it?

#102

Post by dpark »

burgerbrain wrote: post #97
dpark wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not "supernatural shit", but it is Pascal's Wager. It takes the same form and has the same flaws. It is an invalid argument. By paying $25k to be frozen, you also get a nonzero chance that you'll be revived and live through thousands of years of torture.

Eh, I'll give you part of Pascal's Wager. The other part of it is the logical absurdity of thinking that someone who doesn't already believe can be blackmailed into believing. Pascal's Wager can only be used to defend belief, not create. (But every time I've heard someone IRL use it they seem to not understand that). That's a big part of what Pascal's Wager "is" to me.

I think that argument applies to cryonics. :) The people who invoke the wager are trying to defend their belief, not actually convert others. To anyone who doesn't believe in cryonics, the wager is pretty absurd.

Re: As more hackers start to die, when do we finally do something about it?

#103

Post by lsparrish »

dpark wrote: post #86
lsparrish wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't pay $50/month after you die (that would be a unworkable business model for obvious reasons), rather the $100k or so goes mostly into a trust which pays for your maintenance (more like $100/year, could be far lower on a larger scale) after you are gone. Alcor's funding minimums are higher than CI's partly because they are expecting reanimation to be costly. They also pay ongoing costs mostly from member dues…

Obviously you do not personally pay after death, but you set aside money for a trust before hand, which amounts to the same thing. I disagree with your assertion that you can get the company to live thousands of years. How many human organizations have lasted that long? Even the Catholic church has only been around for 2k (so they claim at least) and I can't think of anything else that approaches that longevity, not…

> Obviously you do not personally pay after death, but you set aside money for a trust before hand, which amounts to the same thing.

This is a good point, but it bears stressing that the bulk of the trust fund is there for reanimation and as protection against economic instability. Only a very tiny fraction gets used for ongoing expenses, at least in the current Alcor situation.

Re: As more hackers start to die, when do we finally do something about it?

#104

Post by jpulgarin »

dpark wrote: post #85
jpulgarin wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't know what logic he used, only his conclusion. Perhaps the logic is: * If something is agreed to have a chance of extending my life for thousands of years by more than 5% of people whose thinking I respect and * it costs less than 200k and * there are no obvious people who are profiting from this then * I want to be >99% sure about it not being viable before giving up on it.

Since religion promises eternal life, and a large number of respected scientists are religious, I assume that you are Christian, right? Also Muslim? And maybe Jewish?

What? I never said I used that logic.

Re: As more hackers start to die, when do we finally do something about it?

#105

Post by lsparrish »

dpark wrote: post #100
lsparrish wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need the specific organization to survive thousands of years in its original form, we just need cryonics patients to be passed ahead peacefully to another organization in the event of failure. But yeah, religions are an example of something organized lasting thousands of years, under historical conditions. We haven't yet had a chance to experiment with things under conditions of universal literacy, the absen…

> We don't need the specific organization to survive thousands of years in its original form, we just need cryonics patients to be passed ahead peacefully to another organization in the event of failure. And how do you believe you'll accomplish this? The second, third, etc. companies are not going to sign up for this responsibility for free. Nor is there any guarantee that they won't also fail, or be merged into one…

> And how do you believe you'll accomplish this? The second, third, etc. companies are not going to sign up for this responsibility for free.

Yes it costs more money and it has to be done in advance.

> Nor is there any guarantee that they won't also fail, or be merged into one conglomerate that fails.

You could put it in the bylaws that they cannot merge into a conglomerate, or mandate that they split every so often.

> I don't understand how this is at all relevant. I see no compelling reason to believe that the US will not experience natural disasters, wars, failed companies, or any number of other incidents that could cause cryo-failure.

Sure those are a constant risk. The solution is to put money and resources towards reducing the risks, starting with the worst ones and/or the cheapest to fix. This likely has enormous positive externalities for the population as a whole.

> The fact that the population is fairly educated is almost completely irrelevant.

Are you sure? Education is an important element of what sustains civilization.

> Frozen people are not in a position to promote anything.

They are now when they aren't frozen yet.

> And the people keeping them frozen don't have an incentive to do anything except collect paychecks.

They do if they a) expect to be frozen themselves, b) see the patients as fellow humans, or c) see the patients as priceless historical artifacts. But yes they are also motivated by whatever keeps getting them their paychecks -- obviously it is best to stack things so that the paychecks are dependent on things that are desirable for the patients.

Re: As more hackers start to die, when do we finally do something about it?

#106

Post by lsparrish »

dpark wrote: post #101
lsparrish wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, thousands of years of torture are possible for you if you're a cryonicist -- but in such a world the same risk would apply to trillions of other sentients. If you aren't completely selfish, you're better off investing your energy in preventing such a world instead of trying to dodge the bullet personally.

> If you aren't completely selfish, you're better off investing your energy in preventing such a world How is getting your head frozen investing in preventing such a world? If you want to improve the future, maybe you should invest your $25K in humanitarian efforts instead of a desperate attempt at personal life extension.

> How is getting your head frozen investing in preventing such a world?

It isn't, directly. It is an investment in something else which makes that a more important issue to an individual. That affects the probability of the individual taking actions that favor the given outcome. The main purpose of getting your head frozen is saving the individual's life directly, but it does have this positive externality.

> If you want to improve the future, maybe you should invest your $25K in humanitarian efforts instead of a desperate attempt at personal life extension.

How does passively letting yourself die increase your incentive to plan for a better world in the distant future?

Re: As more hackers start to die, when do we finally do something about it?

#107

Post by lsparrish »

vacri wrote: post #69
thret wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's a non-zero chance that you will be returned to life at some point in the future, then however unlikely that chance is worth 25k. It is a lottery; the cost is small compared to the payoff and it rationalises hope.

Also often forgotten is that biology isn't like an on/off switch - will you come back the same way physcially? Mentally? Could you live with having lost some of your higher mental facilities?

I don't expect to survive with my memories all intact unless I am very lucky. However the complete regeneration of missing parts and restoration of lost functions seems like a very solvable problem.

The fact that a large portion of cryonics funding will eventually go towards this kind of research and thus help non-cryonics patients who have brain injuries is a rather significant spillover benefit.

Re: As more hackers start to die, when do we finally do something about it?

#108

Post by lsparrish »

wazoox wrote: post #73
mmaro wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a false dichotomy. You can strive to achieve as much as possible today, as well as attempt a second chance at life through cryonics.

What does lead you to believe that cryonics give you a second chance? It simply doesn't add up. It needs so many breakthroughs that you'd better get mummified; at least you'd have a reasonable chance for your corpse to stay available for some significant length of time.

Chemical fixation would be the second in line, but the quality sucks compared to cryonics. Freeze-dried brains are even worse.

Re: As more hackers start to die, when do we finally do something about it?

#109

Post by dpark »

lsparrish wrote: post #105
dpark wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We don't need the specific organization to survive thousands of years in its original form, we just need cryonics patients to be passed ahead peacefully to another organization in the event of failure. And how do you believe you'll accomplish this? The second, third, etc. companies are not going to sign up for this responsibility for free. Nor is there any guarantee that they won't also fail, or be merged into one…

> And how do you believe you'll accomplish this? The second, third, etc. companies are not going to sign up for this responsibility for free. Yes it costs more money and it has to be done in advance. > Nor is there any guarantee that they won't also fail, or be merged into one conglomerate that fails. You could put it in the bylaws that they cannot merge into a conglomerate, or mandate that they split every so often.…

> Yes it costs more money and it has to be done in advance. ... You could put it in the bylaws that they cannot merge into a conglomerate, or mandate that they split every so often. ... Sure those are a constant risk. The solution is to put money and resources towards reducing the risks, starting with the worst ones and/or the cheapest to fix. This likely has enormous positive externalities for the population as a whole.

This is a whole lot of ifs. If you could institute enough failovers (how many is enough, when we don't know the average lifespan of a cryo-company?), and if you could stop them from merging, and if you could avoid natural disasters, and if, if, if. There are so many ifs here it's ridiculous, especially given that you haven't provided any hows. This is just hand-waving. Yes, if you could solve all the problems, then there would be no problems. How, though?

> Are you sure? Education is an important element of what sustains civilization.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that an educated population has little or nothing to do with natural disasters, or company failures, or even war.

> They are now when they aren't frozen yet.

Um, okay. This doesn't have much to do with the viability of cryonics. Let's assume that all the cryonists campaign for peace and are then frozen. So now they're in a peaceful world with no way to thaw them and no change in the overall risks except perhaps with regards to war.

Re: As more hackers start to die, when do we finally do something about it?

#110

Post by dpark »

lsparrish wrote: post #103
dpark wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously you do not personally pay after death, but you set aside money for a trust before hand, which amounts to the same thing. I disagree with your assertion that you can get the company to live thousands of years. How many human organizations have lasted that long? Even the Catholic church has only been around for 2k (so they claim at least) and I can't think of anything else that approaches that longevity, not…

> Obviously you do not personally pay after death, but you set aside money for a trust before hand, which amounts to the same thing. This is a good point, but it bears stressing that the bulk of the trust fund is there for reanimation and as protection against economic instability. Only a very tiny fraction gets used for ongoing expenses, at least in the current Alcor situation.

Except that the fraction for reincarnation is likely not nearly enough, given that simple surgeries routinely cost tens of thousands of dollars and building a new body is something we can't even do.
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