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multifoliaterose comments on Against Cryonics & For Cost-Effective Charity - Less Wrong
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Comments (180)
Getting a heart transplant has instrumental value that cryonics does not.
A heart transplant enables the recipient to continue being a productive member of society. If the recipient is doing a lot to help other people then the cost of the heart transplant is easily outweighed by the recipients' productivity.
By way of contrast, if society gets to the point where cryopreserved people can be restored, it seems likely that society will have advanced to the point where such people are much less vital to society.
Also, the odds of success for a heart transplant are probably significantly higher than the odds of success for cryorestoration.
Edit: See a remark in a post by Jason Fehr at the GiveWell Mailing List:
I don't think that having Bill Clinton cryopreserved would be nearly as valuable to society as the cardiovascular operations that he underwent were.
But if while President Bill Clinton knew he was going to be cryopreserved he might have caused the government to devote more resources to artificial intelligence research and existential risks.
So, then, should prospective heart transplant recipients have to prove that they will do enough with their remaining life to benefit humanity, in order for the operation to be approved?
I think you're holding cryonics to a much higher standard than other expenditures.
Distinguish personal morality from public enforcement. In a liberal society our personal purchases should (typically) not require anyone else's permission or "approval". But it still might be the case that it would be a better decision to choose the more selfless option, even if you have a right to be selfish. That seems just as true of traditional medical expenditures as it does of cryonics.
One of the defects of the karma system is that replies to comments tend to get less votes, even when they're as good as the original comment. Here CronoDAS's comment is at 9, and the response at only 4, even though the response does a very good job of showing that the cases mentioned are not nearly equivalent.
I consider Crono's comment more insightful than multi's and my votes reflect my position.
Would you disagree that the differences mentioned by multifoliaterose are real?
Anyway, in terms of the general point I made, I see the same thing in numerous cases, even when nearly everyone would say the quality of the comments is equal. For example you might see a parent comment at 8 at a response at 2, maybe because people are less interested, or something like that.
The difference is real. Whether it is also the real reason is another question.
Yes, I would disagree. A large fraction of the people who are getting heart transplants are old and thus not very productive. More generally, medical expenses in the last three years of life can easily run as much as a hundred thousand US dollars, and often run into the tens of thousands of dollars. Most people in the US and Europe are not at all productive their last year of life.
If I personally were debilitated to the point of not being able to contribute value comparable to the value of a heart transplant then I would prefer to decline the heart transplant and have the money go to a cost-effective charity. I would rather die knowing that I had done something to help others than live knowing that I had been a burden on society. Others may feel differently and that's fine. We all have our limits. But getting a heart transplant when one is too debilitated to contribute something of comparable value should not be considered philanthropic. Neither should cryonics.
You are making an error by not placing your own well-being into greater regard than well-being of others. It's a known aspect of human value.
Err, are you saying that his values are wrong, or just that they're not in line with majoritarian values?
For one thing, multifoliaterose is probably extrapolating from the values xe signals, which aren't identical to the values xe acts on. I don't doubt the sincerity of multifoliaterose's hypothetical resolve (and indeed I share it), but I suspect that I would find reasons to conclude otherwise were I actually in that situation. (Being signed up for cryonics might make me significantly more willing to actually refuse treatment in such a case, though!)
If you missed it, see my comment here. I guess my comment which you responded to was somewhat misleading; I did not intend to claim something about my actual future behavior, rather, I intended simply to make a statement about what I think my future behavior should be.
I'm saying that he acts under a mistaken idea about his true values. He should be more selfish (recognize himself as being more selfish).
I see what I say about my values in a neutral state as more representative of my "true values" than what I would say about my values in a state of distress. Yes, if I were actually in need of a heart transplant that would come at the opportunity cost of something of greater social value then I may very well opt for the transplant. But if I could precommit to declining a transplant under such circumstances by pushing a button right now then I would do so.
Similarly, if I were being tortured for a year then if I were given the option to make it stop for a while in exchange for 50 more years of torture later on while being tortured then I might take the option, but I would precommit to not taking such an option if possible.
By what factor? Assume a random stranger.
Maybe tens or thousands, but I'm as ignorant as anybody about the answer, so it's a question of pulling a best guess, not of accurately estimating the hidden variable.
I don't understand how you can be uncertain between 10 and 1000 but not 1 and 10 or 1.1 and 10, especially in the face of things like empathy, symmetry arguments, reductionist personal identity, causal and acausal cooperation (not an intrinsic value, but may prescribe the same actions). I also don't understand the point of preaching egoism; how does it help either you personally or everyone else? Finally, 10 and 1000 are both small relative to astronomical waste.
It rarely bothers me when insightful original comments are voted up more than their (more or less) equally insightful responses. In my view, the original comment often “deserves” more upvotes for raising an interesting issue in the first place and thereby expanding a fruitful discussion.
Doesn't successful cryopreservation and revival have a good chance of doing the same, and for longer?
A life kept active and productive in the here and now might be more valuable in some respects than one that is dormant for the near future, given that more other individuals exist in the far future who would have to compete with the reanimated individual.