As more hackers start to die, when do we finally do something about it? • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by dpark » Sat, Oct 15, 2011, 3:57 AM UTC

lsparrish wrote: post #106

dpark wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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.

No, it doesn't. This is all feel-good silliness. You've said stuff like this in numerous replies, but you've given no reason for anyone to believe that cryonics has any positive impact. A 25K donation for Malaria treatment would probably do a lot more. That provides concrete benefits, rather than intangible hopes that cryonists will somehow work toward a better tomorrow.

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

How does spending money on snake oil do more for the world than spending that same money on solving real problems?

For your argument to make any sense, we have to accept that no one cares about the state or fate of the world after their own deaths, which is absurdly cynical.

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

#112

Post by dpark » Sat, Oct 15, 2011, 4:02 AM UTC

jpulgarin wrote: post #104

dpark wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, you did.

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

Check

it costs less than 200k and

Check

there are no obvious people who are profiting from this then

Check

This is at least as true for religion (which you can practice for free) as it is for cryonics (which is a business venture).

I want to be >99% sure about it not being viable before giving up on it.

In what way can you be >99% sure that religion is not viable? What logic allows you to believe in cryonics but not religion, given that each have basically the same scientific underpinnings (which is to say, none at all).

EDIT: Unless you meant that the logic you described was not yours, but just mmaro's, in which case fair enough.

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

#113

Post by thret » Sat, Oct 15, 2011, 4:44 AM UTC

jpulgarin wrote: post #49

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.

I have discovered a way of extending anyone's life. I will extend yours if you send me 25k via paypal. You can find my email in my profile. Note that this is a non-zero chance.

And if I had an infinite supply of funds I would take all chances, regardless of credibility. I do not.

You do not get points for reductio ad absurdum arguments.

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

#114

Post by dpark » Sat, Oct 15, 2011, 6:32 AM UTC

dpark wrote: post #87

mmaro wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a reasonable concern, but at this meta level there are two things going in cryonics' favor: there's a good chance you're overconfident about its non-utility[1], and there's a chance that your reanimation comes much earlier than expected, so the cumulative risks don't add up to much. And FWIW, Alcor and Cryonics Institute don't require power for storage; they require deliveries of liquid nitrogen. I don't think…

So much hand waving... On what basis do you claim there's a good chance I'm overconfident about cryonics' non-utility? I could say your overconfident in its utility and be standing on ground at leas as firm a you. There's also a chance that you never get reanimated, or that you're reanimated by future humans who torture you to see how ancient humans react to stimulus, or any number of other possibilities that make cr…

Ugh, too late to edit. your -> you're; leas as firm a -> least as firm as

I'm blaming autocorrect for these...

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

#115

Post by nknight » Sat, Oct 15, 2011, 8:04 AM UTC

dpark wrote: post #112

jpulgarin wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? I never said I used that logic.

Yeah, you did. 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 Check it costs less than 200k and Check there are no obvious people who are profiting from this then Check This is at least as true for religion (which you can practice for free) as it is for cryonics (which is a business venture). I want to be >99% sure about it no…

The logic he described belonged to no one. Neither he nor mmaro actually claimed it. It was an entirely hypothetical scenario in which some people might see mmaro's statements as something other than selling snake oil (I certainly wouldn't, it still wouldn't amount to "evidence" of any sort, just more fuzzy hope).

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

#116

Post by ks » Sat, Oct 15, 2011, 11:27 AM UTC

beloch wrote: post #23

true_religion wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can completely understand why extending their lives was not desirable to them. I think its presumed that life extension would also come with improved health. What kills you is decline due to chronic conditions. Target that and stop the declined and you gain both long-life, and healthy life.

There are a lot of things that can cause chronic pain without threatening your life. We would have to learn how fix all of these non-life-threatening things in addition to what causes death, or everlasting life will lead to everlasting pain with absolute certainty.

I think this can be broken down into two problems.

1. Preventing / curing all causes of pain. 2. Changing how the body responds to pain.

I think problem number 2 is easier to solve. The human body is a biological machine and I hink we will find better ways of handling pain than today. An example could be an implant in the brain that simply blocks the impulses.

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

#117

Post by lsparrish » Sat, Oct 15, 2011, 3:26 PM UTC

dpark wrote: post #109

lsparrish wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 wh…

I'm saying that cryonics implies taking a certain degree of responsibility for the future. That's not an argument in favor of it working. It is an argument in favor of it being a positive thing overall, irrespective of it working. It provides selfish incentive for caring about the fate of future generations. Since we are trying to establish betting odds and what is a fair price for cryonics, all the externalities need to be taken into account. A world with cryonics is better off than a world without it.

I disagree that company failures or war are unrelated to education levels (or quality). A well educated populace should be more resistant to and capable of avoiding war, and more capable of solving and preventing financial problems. One specific thing for cryonics trusts to do is offer scholarships to those pursuing peace and financial stability as educational specialties.

Natural disasters can be avoided to some degree by careful selection of location. Alcor is based in Arizona partly because of the lack of earthquakes. Hurricanes and tornadoes be protected against by using a monolithic dome. LN2 shortages can be protected against by having a large bulk storage tank on site, and using efficient insulation.

That said, the most desirable solution (because it addresses all the different sources of risk simultaneously) is to accelerate the development of revival technology to whatever degree is possible. Maintaining high education levels is critical to this, as is spending money on brain and body repair research. This produces a very large positive externality.

The strategy that works best is to make sure that multiple things have to go wrong in order for a critical failure at each critical point. That is how disasters are prevented in e.g. nuclear facilities. It's expensive and painstaking, but it is a case where throwing money and competent engineers at the problem actually works.

Your argument for cryonics having a low probability of working apparently assumes no one has done or will have done this, despite the obvious fact that they have an extremely strong interest in so doing. And you accuse accuse me of hand-waving?

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

#118

Post by lsparrish » Sat, Oct 15, 2011, 3:54 PM UTC

dpark wrote: post #111

lsparrish wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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. No, it doesn't. This is all feel-good silliness. You've said stuff like this in…

People usually have a limited amount they will give to charity and will generally spend the rest on something selfish. Cryonics feels selfish, so they will spend money on it that they would not have given to charity anyway.

People who care about the state of the world after their deaths are not in the same position as those who actually expect to experience it. They are not as likely to care as much or to employ rational means to that end, because their concern is a more altruistic and abstract one, the sort of emotion which evolves for signaling/tribal purposes rather than personal survival. Entirely different neural machinery is employed when evaluating the problem differently.

I don't know how you reached the conclusion that my argument relies on no one caring about the future in spite of death. My argument is that you can increase your rational, self-interested incentives to care about the future by planning to be cryopreserved.

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

#119

Post by lsparrish » Sat, Oct 15, 2011, 4:09 PM UTC

ryandvm wrote: post #77

Wow. I'm surprised how many points this post has given the absurd premises that cryopreservation is based upon. There are far too many easily identifiable things that could go wrong in the process for me to even consider dumping money into such hokum. These are the same type of people that were insisting the world double up on alchemy research two thousand years ago.

If you were to find out that there are well defined solutions for every single easily identifiable problem, would that convince you to invest?

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

#120

Post by lsparrish » Sat, Oct 15, 2011, 4:16 PM UTC

dpark wrote: post #110

lsparrish wrote: post #103

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. 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.

You seem to be assuming an absence of compound interest, overfunding, external funding sources, and future advances that make things cheaper.