Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Normal Cryonics - Less Wrong

58 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 19 January 2010 07:08PM

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Comment author: gwillen 05 February 2010 02:15:05AM 4 points [-]

I won't try to judge the original statement, but I do think that people believing cryonics to be a scam is a serious problem -- much more serious than I would have believed. I have talked to some friends (very bright friends with computer science backgrounds, in the process of getting college degrees) about the idea, and a shockingly large number of them seemed quite certain that Alcor was a scam. I managed to dissuade maybe one of those, but in the process I think I convinced at least one more that I was a sucker.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 05 February 2010 09:00:11AM 5 points [-]

Reasoning by perceptual recognition. Cryonics seems weird and involves money, therefore it's perceptually recognized as a scam. The fact that it would be immensely labor-intensive to develop the suspension tech, isn't marketed well or at all really, and would have a very poor payoff on invested labor as scams go, will have little impact on this. The lightning-fast perceptual system hath spoken.

I'm surprised that you say your friends are computer programmers. Programmers need to be capable of abstract thought.