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whpearson comments on Costs to (potentially) eternal life - Less Wrong
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Humans risk their lives for less noble causes as well. Extreme sports and experimental air craft being some examples. I have a romantic streak in me that says that yes death is worse than life, but worrying overly about death also devalues life.
Should I pore over actuarial statistics and only select activities that do not increase my chance of death?
The question isn't should you; the question is whether you would, especially considering that people do it now.
As I said I don't like to worry about death, not that I find my death unpleasant to talk about, just that valuable brain cycles/space will be used doing so. And I'd much rather be thinking about how people can live well/efficiently/happily than obsess over extending my life. So I wouldn't.
In my question I was trying to gauge the activism of the community. I already have people trying to convince me to freeze myself, will they also be campaigning against mountain climbing/hiking in the wilderness?
ETA: I do worry about the destruction of the human species, but that has less impact on my life than worrying about death would.
1) You're being recruited to sign up for cryonics because it makes the recruiters' own cryonics investment a) better and b) less weird. A large population of frozen people encourages more investment than a small number of frozen cranks.
2) Probably to the same extent that people discourage smoking and riding a bike without a helmet - subtly try to make their own safety precautions seem less timid by trying to label those who disregard them as stupid.
Surely you already take into account how dangerous various activities are before deciding to do them?
Everyone has different thresholds for how much risk they are willing to take. Anyone that does not take risk into account at all will die very rapidly.
And anyone who obsesses over risk too much will have a life not worth living, which - compared to the risk of injury from mundane activities - is the greater risk.
“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take but by the moments that take our breath away." That's perhaps a slight exaggeration, a long life of small pleasures would compare favorably to a shorter life filled with ecstatic experiences, but the point is that a warm breathing body does not a life make.
People's actions reveal that they do not measure life this way.
There is a difference between conscious thought and gut feeling. I'm quite happy to rely on my gut feeling for danger(as I get it for free), but do not want to promote it to conscious worrying in my every day life.
I'm kind of the opposite. My 'gut' feelings tend to rate most things as being dangerous, and I rely on my awareness of actual risk to be able to do pretty much anything.
I don't think I obsess over risk either - but that's maybe because I have been doing this all my life :-). I also don't think my life has not been worth worth living - quite the opposite, or I wouldn't have signed up for Cryonics!
Your gut feeling is informed by what you consciously choose to read.