georgepennellmartin comments on Normal Cryonics - Less Wrong

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

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (930)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: georgepennellmartin 14 November 2010 01:54:52AM -1 points [-]

Problem is that would also decrease the chances of you ultimately being revived, why would they bring you back to life if they have billions to choose from? Also the price of cryonics would probably skyrocket as fridge space ran out...etc through the law of diminishing returns meaning your corpse would be turfed out by new rich clients as soon as cryonics became popular. Think about it, what moral obligations would future generations have to revive you anyway? You'd be nothing but a resource sink with antiquated skills. No offence

Comment author: lsparrish 14 November 2010 02:56:34AM *  0 points [-]

The source of plausible moral obligation becomes much more obvious when you stop referring to the patients as "corpses". Corpses are associated with irreversible death -- we don't traditionally have a duty to revive corpses, but that is only because doing so would be impossible by definition.

If there are billions in need of revival, more resources will go towards finding a way to do it in the first place. Also, revival mechanisms that can only pay for themselves with greater economies of scale can also be employed.

If I have to learn a new set of skills, language, customs, etc. to live again that is a sacrifice I'm more than willing to make. If the people of the future are non-sociopathic humans, they will be willing to revive and reeducate me. However, I see no harm in setting up a trust that creates financial incentives as well, and covers any expenses. A few hundred years of compound interest can add up to a lot. The more people are involved in this, the more economies of scale (i.e. group schooling, revivee communities, specialists trained to deal with us, etc.) are possible and profitable.