Raemon comments on Organ donation vs Cryonics - Less Wrong

6 Post author: handoflixue 27 June 2011 08:45PM

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Comment author: Raemon 27 June 2011 10:40:27PM *  1 point [-]

I don't think (and so far haven't read an argument claiming) that you personally signing up for cryonics impacts the actual number of lives that get to live forever. It just helps ensure that you get to be one of those lives.

If you're taking the super-long view, and AREN'T making decisions for (understandably) selfish reasons, then the money you put towards cryonics will do more good if donated towards life extension research, or invested in space travel, or promoting a socioeconomic framework which can better handle the increasingly long lived population.

The extra half-life you also get to save via organ donation doesn't end up mattering much in the long term, but unless I'm personally emotionally entangled with them, I value currently-alive people dramatically more that not-alive-yet people.

Comment author: Nick_Roy 28 June 2011 01:49:32AM 1 point [-]

Why value currently alive people dramatically more than not-alive-yet people?

Comment author: Raemon 28 June 2011 01:45:47PM 0 points [-]

Actually, that statement was probably incorrect. This is an area where my moral framework isn't well prepared to handle, and my attempts to fix it have all resulted in hypothetical outcomes I'm not happy with. (I'd elaborate, but it's not really possible to do so without going through the entire function, which I should probably attempt to do soon but won't right now)