lsparrish comments on Cryonics Wants To Be Big - Less Wrong

28 Post author: lsparrish 05 July 2010 07:50AM

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Comment author: lsparrish 06 July 2010 02:01:44AM 1 point [-]

I imagine Mormonism gave women the spiritual connection which most church groups do. I doubt it is coincidental that women outnumber men in churches. The protection of a powerful alpha male, as God is portrayed, might be something they can connect with more easily than men, on average.

But religion is not the only thing that disproportionately attracts women... For example, the Twilight fandom is mostly female.

Comment author: [deleted] 06 July 2010 02:15:54AM 4 points [-]

While we're speculating, I think it's that "kin work" (keeping up with family and friends, taking care of the elderly, child-rearing) primarily falls to women. Churches provide a framework to do that. If you've noticed, women are highly active in the parts of a church that aren't explicitly about God -- fundraising committees, education committees, various organizing functions. It's community-building glue.

Cryonics, unlike Mormonism, doesn't have that aspect. As of now, it's a transaction made by an individual. I'm not sure how one would make cryonics by itself "church-like."

You could try to make a rationalist social institution -- like a Masonic lodge -- that combined charitable work, socializing, activities for children, educational lectures, and activities/volunteering opportunities for the elderly. Cryonics could be built into that. The point is, it has to be a family and community institution.

Comment author: Alicorn 06 July 2010 02:06:21AM 3 points [-]

Perhaps coincidentally, Twilight was written by a Mormon.

Comment author: lsparrish 06 July 2010 04:24:35PM *  2 points [-]

Some of my favorite authors are Mormon. Orson Scott Card, Brandon Sanderson, and Howard Tayler. Somehow they seem to go to greater extremes in their fiction than non-Mormons on average. And they have no qualms about literally turning a character into God (given that Mormon theology includes this eventually happening to the faithful anyway). There's a kind of balance of creepiness/weirdness and old-fashioned family values, which is in itself perhaps more disturbing in a way.

I think it has to do with how success of a meme seems to have a lot to do with its power to resolve cognitive dissonance -- but what this implies is that the cognitive dissonance must exist to begin with. When they encounter the creep factor of cryonics, most people resolve cognitive dissonance by ignoring it, downplaying its chances of success, or imagining fantastic reasons it would not work. Cryonicists themselves might resolve the dissonance factors by reassuring themselves that it's the only sane thing to do in face of inevitable deanimation, reading up on the facts, and hoping for improvements in the process before they die. But that sort of thing takes a lot of activity in the logical areas of the brain.

Mormons seem to resolve the cognitive dissonance factors of their religion (and the weirder aspects of life in general) by turning to a focus on human relationships -- family, romance, etc. Perhaps the cognitive functions involved in this are easier to stimulate in a group that is highly inclusive of women and children.

Comment author: wedrifid 08 July 2010 06:13:24AM 1 point [-]

Perhaps the cognitive functions involved in this are easier to stimulate in a group that is highly inclusive of women and children.

... per household?

Comment author: Alicorn 06 July 2010 05:27:14PM 3 points [-]

Zenna Henderson is another splendid Mormon author. One of my Mormon friends aspires to write children's books, although she's not yet been published, and her writing is reasonably good as well. Said friend accounts for this strong representation of Mormons in the fiction world by saying that the religion encourages imagination and creativity. (It's perfectly acceptable to plan for being one of the future deities who gets to run a universe later, so one may as well think about how one plans to do it.)

Comment author: simplicio 08 July 2010 05:30:14AM 2 points [-]

It's perfectly acceptable to plan for being one of the future deities who gets to run a universe later, so one may as well think about how one plans to do it.

Crikey, I didn't know that... the other cool thing is, you learn about genealogy and get to save all of your unbaptized relatives from hell! That religion has some pretty kickass memes.

Comment author: Alicorn 08 July 2010 06:59:21AM 3 points [-]

They are so hardcore about genealogy. I have one friend whose tree goes back all the way to some crackpot king who demanded that genealogers trace his lineage back to Adam, so my friend can trace hers back that far too.

Comment author: wedrifid 08 July 2010 07:03:51AM 6 points [-]

They are so hardcore about genealogy. I have one friend whose tree goes back all the way to some crackpot king who demanded that genealogers trace his lineage back to Adam, so my friend can trace hers back that far too.

That's impressive. I can only trace my lineage back to people who actually existed.