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ciphergoth comments on Open Thread: July 2010 - Less Wrong
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Data point FWIW: my partners are far from convinced of the wisdom of cryonics, but they respect my choices. Much of the strongest opposition has come from my boyfriend, who keeps saying "why not just buy a lottery ticket? It's cheaper".
Well, I hoped you showed him your expected utility calculations!
I'm afraid that isn't really a good fit for how he thinks about these things...
It seems a bit odd to me that he would use the lottery comparison, in that case. Or no?
They're both things with low probabilities of success, and extremely large pay-offs.
To someone with a certain view of the future, or a moderately low "maximum pay-off" threshold, the pay-off of cryonics could be the same as the pay-off for a lottery win.
At which point the lottery is a cheaper, but riskier, gamble. Again, if someone has a certain view of the future, or a "minimum probability" threshold (which both are under) then this difference in risk could be unnoticed in their thoughts.
At which point the two become identical, but one is more expensive.
It's quick-and-dirty thinking, but it's one easy way to end up with the connection, and doesn't involve any utility calculations (in fact, utility calculations would be an anathema to this sort of thinking)
One big barrier I hit in talking to some of those close to me about this is that I can't seem to explain the distinction between wanting the feeling of hope that I might live a very long time, and actually wanting to live a long time. Lots of people just say "if you want to believe in life after death, why not just go to church? It's cheaper".
I could see people saying that if they don't believe that cryonics has any chance at all of working. It might be hard to tell. If I told people "there's a good chance that cryonics will enable me to live for hundreds of years", I'm sure many would respond by nodding, the same way they'd nod if I told them that "there's a good chance that I'll go to Valhalla after I die". Sometimes respect looks like credulity, you know? Do you think that's what's happening here?
Yes. I'm happy that people respect my choices, but when they "respect my beliefs" it strikes me as incredibly disrespectful.
And if you reply "I only want to believe in things that are true?"
Apply the same transformation to my words that is causing me problems to that reply, and you get "I only want to believe in things that I believe are true".
That's a bit scary.