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LucasSloan comments on Normal Cryonics - Less Wrong
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Then why did you have a kid? The consequences of an action are the same regardless of the circumstances in which it occurred. If you knew that you couldn't afford to prevent your child's death why did you have one at all? It isn't classist at all to say "don't live beyond your means." Is it acceptable for the father in the ghetto to beat his child to death, because he's too poor to afford a psychologist? Is it acceptable for a single parent to drive drunk with their child because they're too poor to afford a baby sitter or a cab fare when they want to drink? Eliezer said that he doesn't have children consciously so as not to expose them to the enormous risk and endemic suffering that life today means.
And to your last paragraph, there are better things to spend time, money and energy doing, especially given the absolute impossibility of convincing even 26% of the population to go for it.
Considering that all parents so far have had children in the knowledge that they can't prevent the kid's eventual death, this question feels kinda absurd.
Most people would say that they prefer being alive regardless of the fact that they might one day die. Having a child who'll die is, arguably, better than having no child at all.
"Then why did you have a kid? If you knew that you couldn't afford to prevent your child's death why did you have one at all?"
Who said I knew that? When I was pregnant, I had a job which seemed to be secure at the time. Then the recession happened.
Also, what do you have to say to the 88% of the world's population who make less per year than I do?
What do I say to that 88%? They are setting up their offspring for near-certain death, and they are ignorant of the fact. I can call them negligent. I can partially excuse them for circumstances. Regardless, they are endangering the lives of children. It is truly unfortunate, and the only response is to work harder.
Is your position a kind of unfunny joke, like you were put up to say this? It is only because I am open enough to the possibility that this is actually your opinion that I feel forced to bother with a rebuttal.
It is unreasonable in the extreme, given current knowledge about cryonics, to force your own beliefs of what every child that is born in the world should have, almost as unreasonable as your comparisons above: "Is it acceptable for the father in the ghetto to beat his child to death, because he's too poor to afford a psychologist?" Why? Because it is yet not even remotely a proven technique, and explicitly acknowledges so in the hope of a smarter future, you are not to go about slinging moral outrage based on the presupposition that it is. For the average person, there are a million things they could spend the money on for a kid, and you bet that the certainty of them seeing a return on 99% of them are better.
To suggest people having kids are "endangering the lives of children" is so ironic that humour seems the only explanation to me. In addition to the fact that everyone, regardless of cryonics, will have to die, you appear to have myopically discounted the entire value of a life once lived.
I am not discounting cryonics being theoretically possible. I am saying that it remains exactly that, unproven, and until it is you can implore people to try it, but you are ridiculous to -demand- that they do.
I believe that the acts of creation and destruction are not equivalent. Creating a life in the instant you murder does not absolve you of the latter. I do not believe that it is okay to eat meat, because you are allowing an animal to live, if only for a short while. Does that make sense? Maybe it is necessary to have children, and certainly I cannot prevent children from being born, but that does not mean that I have to like the fact that children are being born into intolerable situations, where they can never rise to the level of achievement, fulfillment and happiness I think all humans should. I was not joking when I said that, but I was comparing this world to a nowhere-place (utopia). Does that clarify my position?
I can afford cryonics, but I think I wouldn't want to vitrify children for the same reasons you are criticizing parents for having children. If it is ethical to bring children into the world only if you can care for them, protect them and provide for them, how could it be ethical to send a helpless, dependent child to an indeterminate future? We can make a decision to have a child in the present with lots of relevant information about the present. Sending a child to the future might be negligent.
Are they better off dead?
Yeah, maybe.
I would like to imagine a post-cryonic life for my child that is positive.
However, what if it isn't positive? What if my child thinks I abandoned her, as she is exploited or abused or neglected? Better to know that she experienced a few happy years, and accept that that is all there is, then risk a horrible future she can't get away from.
If there was one person I trusted that she would be in the custody of, it would make a difference. If she was old enough to reason on her own, and know the difference between right and wrong, it would make a difference. She's just so helpless. I shouldn't send her there without someone who loves her, but I can't guarantee that someone who loves her would be there.
Can't you sign yourself up too, and go with her?
Yes, of course. My husband would sign up too, and the grandparents, and aunts and uncles and grown siblings and their descendants. However, in this future beyond my control, they may not have any meaningful custody or be woken up at all.
I might offer that what I am imagining most vividly is a splintered, trans-humanist society that might value small human children but not the things that human children need to be happy.
First, I doubt that an future which would revive my child would be any worse than today. Second, my position is that cryonics can ameliorate the creation of a child, not obviate the inherent problems. I would ask you to read all of the replies about the preferably of cryo over dying - If it's good enough for me, then it's good enough for my child.