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ciphergoth comments on The Threat of Cryonics - Less Wrong
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I don't see how to do that; whether I am revived from cryonic storage is not a continuous thing.
But you could ask analogous questions. Am I glad that I was born? No, why should I care? I certainly don't think that it's a good thing to contribute to the birth to as my people as I can, just so that they can live; I only care about people who already exist, and that goes for me as well as for anybody else.
But I think that this would be a good question to ask to a lot of other people who might find cryonics unappealing because they've come to terms with death. I think that a lot of people have, or think they have, accepted that they will die but are still glad that they were born. So you might ask them if they would similarly be glad to find themselves cryonically revived. But I would not.
If the prospect of an unboundedly long life stretched ahead of you and everyone else, would you be thinking "I wish my lifespan were much shorter - perhaps less than a century"?
No, feeling that a century was about the right length was just a phase that I went through. (Although I put it in past tense, I didn't really make that clear, sorry.)
In fact, right now, I only want to live a few more years, because that's how long it will take to do the things that I want to do now. However, I predict that in a few more years, I'll want to live a few years more, and so on for a while, so I plan ahead in that expectation, but that's all. (There are also a few people that I want to outlive, for their sakes, but that reason will expire in a few decades and it would not help them if I were cryonically preserved, since they probably won't live long enough to see my awakened.)
It's hard to be sure about a century from now, but I predict that, given that I live for a century, I'll want to live (possibly a few years of wanting at a time) to live for another century. So I have a long-term interest in life extension, which gives me the prospect that you described. But that's not the same as cyronics.
What's the big difference with cryonics - is it the time you spend frozen? How long would you have to spend frozen before you prefer death? Clearly eight hours would be OK with you, since I assume you sometimes sleep that long - so is there a cutoff period after which you would rather die than be revived?
Somewhere between a few years and a few decades, I think.
(IANAL) I think that would be a very simple clause to include in any freezing arrangement.
The extremely small chance that cryonics will work within that time doesn't justify the expense.
But for those who can afford more, it would be interesting to see short-term cryonics added to a health insurance plan.