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gwern comments on Open Thread, August 2010 - Less Wrong
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I doubt it. Signing up for a lottery for cryonics is still suspicious. There is only one payoff, and that is of the suspicious thing. No one objects to the end of lotteries because we all like money, what is objected to is the lottery as efficient means of obtaining money (or entertainment).
Suppose that the object were something you and I regard with equal revulsion as many regard cryonics. Child molestation, perhaps. Would you really regard someone buying a ticket as not being quite evil and condoning and supporting the eventual rape?
Who regards cryonics as evil like child molestation? General public sees cryonics as fraud - somethink like buying real estate on the moon or waiting for mothership, and someone paying for it as gullible fool.
For example, look at discussions when Britney Spears http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2520762/posts
wanted to be frozen. Lots of derision, no hatred.
Bad example. People want to make fun of celebrities (especially a community as caustic and "anti-elitist" as the Freepers). She could have announced that she was enrolling in college, or something else similarly common-sensible, and you would still have got a threadful of nothing but cheap jokes.
A discussion about "My neighbour / brother-in-law / old friend from high school told me he has decided to get frozen" would be more enlightening.
Does the fact that my specific example may not be perfect refute my point that mere indirection & chance does not eliminate all criticism and this can be understood by merely introspecting one's intuitions?
Rather than using an undiluted negative as an example, suppose that there was something more arguable, that might have some positive aspects - sex segregation of schools, for example.
Assuming that my overall judgement of sex segregation is negative, if someone pursued sex segregation fiercely and dedicatedly, then my overall negative valuation of their goal would color my judgement of them. If they can plausibly claim to have supported it momentarily on a whim, while thinking about the positive aspects, then there is some insulation between my judgement of the goal and my judgement of the person.