"I can make a reasonable estimate of the risk of being kidnapped or arrested and being tortured.

"There's a lot less information about the risk of ems being tortured, and such information may never be available, since I think it's unlikely that computers can be monitored to that extend."

If we can't make a reasonable estimate, what estimate do we make? The discounted validity of the estimate is incorporated in the prior probability. (Actually I'm not sure if this always works, but a consistent Bayesianism must so hold. Please correct me if this is wrong.)

My reaction to the most neutral form of the question about downloading--"If offered the certain opportunity of success at no cost, would I accept?"--Is "No." The basis is my fear that I wouldn't like the result. I justify it—perhaps after the fact—by assigning an equal a priori likelihood to a good and bad outcome. In Nancy's terms, I'm saying that we have no ability to make a reasonable estimate. The advantage of putting it my way is that it implies a conclusion, rather than resulting in agnosticism (but at the cost of a less certain justification).

In general, I think people over-value the continuation of life. One consequence is that people put too little effort into mitigating the circumstances of their death--which many times, involves inclining it to come sooner rather than later.