As a practical example, my parents are very religious. I'd like to convince them to sign up for cryonics. I haven't (yet) come up with an approach that I expect to have a non-negligible chance of success.
If you don't mind Dark Arts, I have a line of logic that has met with limited success with Christian family members in the past. I wouldn't say it convinced them so much as it helped change their opinions and emotions about cryonics, which is the first step.
In the early 1st-5th century AD, one of the major rifts between Christians and Romans was how they treated the dead. Romans would burn the bodies for sanitary reasons and to prevent spread of disease; Christians would preserve the bodies and show them deference as the vessel of a departed soul. It was a Christians duty to keep the dead safe so that their bodies could be resurrected by Jesus when judgment day came; the word cemetery was invented by Christians and comes from "sleeping place," the idea that the dead are just sleeping until God returns to this world.
Why were Christians so concerned about proper disposal of the body? Here are four reasons: (1) The body of every human was created by God, bore his image, and deserved to be treated with respect because of this. (2) The centrality of the Incarnation. When the Word became flesh, God uniquely hallowed human life and bodily existence forever. (3) The Holy Spirit indwelt the bodies of believers, making them vessels of honor. (4) As Jesus himself was buried and raised bodily from the dead, so Christians believed that their burial was a witness to the resurrection yet to come.
Cremation is bad because it instantly destroys the body. There are reasons early Christians would die to protect their interred loved ones from the pyre. Burial is better. Burial keeps the body more intact, but after a few decades there still isn't much left. Cryonics is just a better form of burial, keeping your body, the vessel for your soul, intact for centuries instead of mere decades.
Cryonics isn't trying to escape death or heaven. It's just the best darn technological form of burial that exists. All that Alcor is doing is keeping your body safe for the day when Jesus comes. And hey, if they actually keep their promise and resurrect you into a post-singularity future, then you'll get to see Jesus in person when the rapture happens.
Cryonics isn't trying to escape death or heaven. It's just the best darn technological form of burial that exists.
I've never been a Christian, so I could be wrong about this, but many Christians I'd met would disagree with you. They believe that if they die -- permanently, without hope of revival -- while being "right with God" (the precise meaning of which varies by sect), then they get to go to Heaven. Going to Heaven has infinite positive utility.
Desecration issues aside, if what the cryonics companies are selling is the real deal, then sig...
I recall seeing, in one of the AI-boxing discussion threads, a comment to the effect that the first step for EY to get out was to convince the other party to even play the game at all.
It has since then occurred to me that this applies to a lot of my interactions. Many people who know me IRL and know a belief of mine which they do not agree with and do not want to be convinced of often adopt the strategy of not talking with me about it at all. For me to convince one of these people of something, first I have to convince them to talk about it at all.
(Note, I don't think this is because I'm an unpleasant person to converse with. Excuses given are along the lines of "I never win an argument with you" and "you've studied it a lot more than I have, it's an unfair discussion". I don't think I'm claiming anything too outlandish here; average humans are really bad at putting rational arguments together.)
I suppose the general form is: in order to convince someone of a sufficiently alien (to them) P, first you must convince them to seriously think about P. This rule may need to be applied recursively (e.g., "seriously think about P" may require one or more LW rationality techniques).
As a practical example, my parents are very religious. I'd like to convince them to sign up for cryonics. I haven't (yet) come up with an approach that I expect to have a non-negligible chance of success. But the realization that the first goalpost along the way is to get them to seriously engage in the conversation at all simplifies the search space. (Deconversion and training in LW rationality has, of course, the best chance of success--but still a high chance of failing and I judge a failure would probably have a large negative impact on my relationship with my parents in their remaining years. That's why I'd like to convince them of just this one thing.)
I realize that this is a fairly obvious point (an application of this--raising the sanity waterline--is the point behind this entire site!), but I haven't seen this explicitly noted as being a general pattern and now that I note it, I see it everywhere--hence this post.