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Roko comments on Open Thread: July 2010 - Less Wrong
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While I'm not planning to pursue cryopreservation myself, I don't believe that it's unreasonable to do so.
Industrial coolants came up in a conversation I was having with my parents (for reasons I am completely unable to remember), and I mentioned that I'd read a bunch of stuff about cryonics lately. My mom then half-jokingly threatened to write me out of her will if I ever signed up for it.
This seemed... disproportionately hostile. She was skeptical of the singularity and my support for the SIAI when it came up a few weeks ago, but she's not particularly interested in the issue and didn't make a big deal about it. It wasn't even close to the level of scorn she apparently has for cryonics. When I asked her about it, she claimed she opposed it based on the physical impossibility of accurately copying a brain. My father and I pointed out that this would literally require the existence of magic, she conceded the point, mentioned that she still thought it was ridiculous, and changed the subject.
This was obviously a case of my mom avoiding her belief's true weak points by not offering her true objection, rationality failures common enough to deserve blog posts pointing them out; I wasn't shocked to observe them in the wild. What is shocking to me is that someone who is otherwise quite rational would feel so motivated to protect this particular belief about cryonics. Why is this so important?
That the overwhelming majority of those who share this intense motivation are women (it seems) just makes me more confused. I've seen a couple of explanations for this phenomenon, but they aren't convincing: if these people object to cryonics because they see it as selfish (for example), why do so many of them come up with fake objections? The selfishness objection doesn't seem like it would be something one would be penalized for making.
If you're right, this suggests a useful spin on the disclosure: "I want you to run away with me - to the FUTURE!"
However, it was my dad, not my mom, who called me selfish when I brought up cryo.
Ah, but did you notice that that did not work for Robin? (The NYT article says that Robin discussed it with Peggy when they were getting to know each other.)
It "worked" for Robin to the extent that Robin got to decide whether to marry Peggy after they discussed cryonics. Presumably they decided that they preferred each other to hypothetical spouses with the same stance on cryonics.
Thanks. (Upvoted.)
Maybe the husband/son should preemptively play the "if you don't sign up with me, you're betraying me" card?
In the case of refusing cryonics, I doubt that fear of social judgment is the largest factor or even close. It's relatively easy to avoid judgment without incurring terrible costs--many people signed up for cryonics have simply never mentioned it to the girls and boys in the office. I'm willing to bet that most people, even if you promised that their decision to choose cryonics would be entirely private, would hardly waver in their refusal.
For what it's worth Steven Kaas emphasized social weirdness as a decent argument against signing up. I'm not sure what his reasoning was, but given that he's Steven Kaas I'm going to update on expected evidence (that there is a significant social cost so signing up that I cannot at the moment see).
I don't get why social weirdness is an issue. Can't you just not tell anyone that you've signed up?
The NYT article points out that you sometimes want other people to know - your wife's cooperation at the hospital deathbed will make it much easier for the Alcor people to wisk you away.
It's not an argument against signing up, unless the expected utility of the decision is borderline positive and it's specifically the increased probability of failure because of lack of additional assistance of your family that tilts the balance to the negative.
Given that there are examples of children or spouses actively preventing (and succeeding) cryopreservation, that means there's an additional few % chance of complete failure. Given the low chance to begin with (I think another commenter says noone expects cryonics to succeed with more than 1/4 probability?), that damages the expected utility badly.
If my spouse played that card too hard I'd sign up to cryonics then I'd dump them. ("Too hard" would probably mean more than one issue and persisting against clearly expressed boundaries.) Apart from the manipulative aspect it is just, well, stupid. At least manipulate me with "you will be abandoning me!" you silly man/woman/intelligent agent of choice.
Voted up as an interesting suggestion. That said, I think that if anyone feels a need to be playing that card in a preemptive fashion then a relationship is probably not very functional to start with. Moreover, given that signing up is a change from the status quo I suspect that attempting to play that card would go over poorly in general.
Can you expand on that? I'm not sure why this particular card is any worse than what people in functional relationships typically do.
Right, so sign up before entering the relationship, then play that card. :)
I would say that if you aren't yet married, be prepared to dump them if they won't sign up with you. Because if they won't, that is a strong signal to you that they are not a good spouse. These kinds of signals are important to pay attention to in the courtship process.
After marriage, you are hooked regardless of what decision they make on their own suspension arrangements, because it's their own life. You've entered the contract, and the fact they want to do something stupid does not change that. But you should consider dumping them if they refuse to help with the process (at least in simple matters like calling Alcor), as that actually crosses the line into betrayal (however passive) and could get you killed.
We may have different definitions of "functional relationship." I'd put very high on the list of elements of a functional relationship that people don't go out of there way to consciously manipulate each other over substantial life decisions.
Um, it's a matter of life or death, so of course I'm going to "go out of my way".
As for "consciously manipulate", it seems to me that people in all relationships consciously manipulate each other all the time, in the sense of using words to form arguments in order to convince the other person to do what they want. So again, why is this particular form of manipulation not considered acceptable? Is it because you consider it a lie, that is, you don't think you would really feel betrayed or abandoned if your significant other decided not to sign up with you? (In that case would it be ok if you did think you would feel betrayed/abandoned?) Or is it something else?
It is a good question. The distinctive feature of this class of influence is the overt use of guilt and shame, combined with the projection of the speaker's alleged emotional state onto the actual physical actions of the recipient. It is a symptom relationship dynamic that many people consider immature and unhealthy.
I'm tempted to keep asking why (ideally in terms of game theory and/or evolutionary psychology) but I'm afraid of coming across as obnoxious at this point. So let me just ask, do you think there is a better way of making the point, that from the perspective of the cryonicist, he's not abandoning his SO, but rather it's the other way around? Or do you think that its not worth bring up at all?
I don't see why you'd be showing disloyalty to those of your allies who are also choosing cryo.
Here are some more possible reasons for being opposed to cryo.
Loss aversion. "It would be really stupid to put in that hope and money and get nothing for it."
Fear that it might be too hard to adapt to the future society. (James Halperin's The First Immortal has it that no one gets thawed unless someone is willing to help them adapt. would that make cryo seem more or less attractive?)
And, not being an expert on women, I have no idea why there's a substantial difference in the proportions of men and women who are opposed to cryo.
It's seems to also be a signal of disloyalty/lower commitment to say, "No honey, I won't throw myself on your funeral pyre after you die." Why don't we similarly demand "Yes, I could keep on living, but I think life would be meaningless without you by my side, so I won't bother" in that case?