= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Alex_Altair comments on The Threat of Cryonics - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (212)
I am against cryonics, and here's why (though I would love to hear a rebuttal):
Cryonics seems inherently, and destructively, to the human race, grossly selfish. Not only is cryonics a huge cost that could be spent elsewhere helping others, nature and evolution thrive on the necessity of refreshing the population of each species. Though it's speculation, I would assign the probability of evolution continuing to work (and improve) on the human race as pretty high - what gain does the human species have in preserving humans from the 21st century indefinitely, when 23rd century or later humans are better?
Overall, in no way can I think of cryonics benefiting anyone other than the individual's (I think simply genetic) desire to avoid death (maybe it benefits future anthropologists I guess), and the cost of cryonics, given that, is what turns me off so much. I can understand people indulging themselves every once in a while, but since I tend to think gratuitous selfishness is a bad thing for the human race, I find myself understanding cryonic-phobic people more than cryonics-supporters.
Is this an invalid view?
I find it strange that no one seems to be arguing what my answer is; I want to be cryopreserved because my primary value is my life. In any situation where A is certain death and B is any probability of life, I choose B. This is why your argument is irrelevant given my utility function.
Would you be willing to kill $LARGE_NUMBER other people to save your own life, then?
"In any situation where A is certain death and B is any probability of life, I choose B."
No, you don't.
I concur with your skepticism, but don't see your evidence.
My skepticism is because a "situation where A is certain death" is almost always certain death with some time delay (could be seconds, could be years, it depends on the case...) and I'd expect that there is at least the possibility of a trade-off between quality of life during that time delay and a sufficiently small odds of surviving. This regularly comes up in experimental chemotherapy decisions Atul Gawande has a good article on some of these cases
Disclaimer: I'm an Alcor member - but I view cryonics as a long shot, and my arrangements for it could restrict my choices in ways that might induce me to change my mind and cancel them under certain circumstances.
I didn't provide evidence because I figured it just needed a bit of imagination. You provided one reason for such cases to come up in real life. Here's a case which is unlikely to come up in real life, but which makes the point clearly:
A is certain and immediate death, within the next ten seconds. B is a 100% chance of infinite torture (and therefore also infinite life.) I don't believe Alex would choose B. Or if, like Hopelessly Anonymous, he chooses B originally, he would change his mind after the torture started.
I suppose that the people who deride cryonics as ‘selfish’ do so because they think that every cryonicist is like you.