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SarahC comments on Optimism versus cryonics - Less Wrong
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Comments (104)
I like this post. Upvoted.
On a tangiential node, I had an experience today that made me take cryonics much more seriously. I had a (silly, in retrospect) near-miss with serious injury, and I realized that I was afraid. Ridiculously, helplessly, calling-on-imaginary-God-for-mercy afraid. I had vastly underestimated how much I cared about my own physical safety, and how helpless I become when it's threatened. I feel much less cavalier about my own body now.
So, you know, freezing myself looks more appealing now that I know that I'm scared. I can see why I'd want to have somewhere to wake up to, if I died.
Your comment suggests a convenient hack for aspiring rationalists to overcome their fear of cryonics.
I wonder if cryonicists (before signing up) are more likely than cryocrastinators to have experienced an "oh jeez I almost died" moment.
Anecdotal evidence: I'm signed up and someone once tried to rob me at gunpoint.
It would also be interesting to know how many close friends or relatives of cryonicists have died compared to cryocrastinators.
Anecdotal evidence: although sympathetic to the idea, I am not signed up, and have had two close brushes with death (that I know of).
Not in my case for the original plan. I decided to sign up for cryonic suspension some day at age 14 (1974), after reading Robert Ettinger's Man Into Superman (an underappreciated book, in my opinion). I followed through in 1990 with Alcor. This November 2 (coincidentally my 51st birthday) marks the 20th anniversary of my suspension membership.
I did have an health issue recently which has motivated me to get more involved in trying to untangle the cryonics clusterfuck (long story). I had a branch retinal vein occlusion in my right eye back in June (basically a stroke in that retina), which has caused some vision loss. Since then I've lost about 40 lbs. and I take Lisinopril to lower my blood pressure (116/80 this morning).
I've had a fair number of relatives die. This is actually one reason I'm delaying on cryonics right now. I first got strongly interested in cryonics about 6 months ago. Then shortly after that, multiple relatives of fairly young ages died fairly suddenly. They weren't the first such deaths in my family by any means. And a family friend died at about the same time from cancer that he had had for a very long time. The initial reaction was that I should run off and sign up for cryonics right now. So I'm now delaying in part to make sure that I am making the decision more rationally and not just based on sudden recent events clouding my judgment. That and the whole thing with cryonics being fairly expensive for a grad student budget are the main causes of not signing up at this point.
It actually didn't occur to me to wear a helmet in a car.
For me this was sort of the dividing line between "I'm young, I'll live forever" and "Wait, shit, I won't, I really do need to do all those boring things like use hand sanitizer and look both ways before crossing the street and take my vitamins."
Wait, should I wear a helmet in my car? :) It sounds plausible. I'd say no, because of reduced visibility increasing odds of accident, and already ample protection from airbags, seatbelt, and crumple-zone into rigid structure protecting against crushing.
A good motorcycle helmet provides well over 180 degrees of side vision, while your peripheral vision can only reach about 160 degrees. While I can't find a reference, IIRC the percentage of motorcycling fatalities resulting from head injuries is around 50%, and the percentage of car fatalities resulting from head injuries is considerably higher. So, disregarding the vastly diminished prior probability of all-cause fatalities in a car, you should actually be more adamantly in favor of helmet use in a car than on a motorcycle.
Why would we disregard that?