Once it's shown conclusively to work no one will want it anymore :)
I don't get the joke or reference, and it sounds intriguing. Does it mean that if people can be revived successfully into indefinite lifespans, then there would be no need to freeze people going forward?
My big problem with indefinite lifespans is that I think we're already a warped society by having so many old people (meaning, say older than me at 57 :-)). I suppose if we could first keep everyone from aging and retaining their 25-year-old physiques and energy and mental status, that would address that to some extent. But if we get a world full of reasonably spry 80-year-olds, it doesn't appeal to me. In my book of values, all else being equal, society is supposed to be half children.
Thought experiment: Suppose we suddenly developed the technology to revive everyone who has ever lived (they left some sort of holographic signal that Google finds it can read :-)). Would we want to? Historians would be overjoyed to revive selected ones because they would help us understand the past. But as a matter of restoring them for their own sake?
As a newcomer I'm sure these have been discussed over and over, and pointers to the relevant discussions are welcome in place of rehashing old arguments.
Thought experiment: Suppose we suddenly developed the technology to revive everyone who has ever lived (they left some sort of holographic signal that Google finds it can read :-)). Would we want to?
Yes. It is not a hard question. As a matter of funding priorities, it would come after being able to reliably feed (and otherwise care for) everyone currently living, but the ultimate answer is: yes, revive them if we can.
One thing that struck me in the 2011 survey was that 90% of LW respondents were under age 38. I'm 57 myself. It seems that often rationality in planning our lives depends on estimates of what values and utility functions we will hold in the future. Has anyone looked systematically at what projected older versions of themselves would think, based on what relevant groups of existing older folks think?
"You'll understand when you're older" is an annoying form of argument. Arguably there's some grain of truth there when a 7-year-old tells you that sex is disgusting and he or she will never ever think it's anything but incredibly gross. But you could explain hormonal changes that as a matter of empirical fact change opinions on that subject in the vast majority of cases. I can't think of anything that dramatic that distinguishes 60-year-olds or 80-year-olds from 20-year-olds.
My dim recollection of studies is that on the whole as people age they tend to be less idealistic, more resigned to society the way it is rather than how it might be, and more constrained by realities of politics and economics (for starters).
I don't presume to offer anything in this regard based on my age, and in any case I'm only a single person (a nihilist when pressed, but one who finds himself happier pretending not to be and working sporadically for rationality, truth, justice, love, and all that good stuff).
When I read of cryonics, what comes to my mind is the escalating costs of health care and (as I see it) the need to curb the development of expensive life-extending medical procedures. Cryonics sounds instead like an extremely expensive procedure. Maybe no one is suggesting it be covered by health insurance, and it's just an option that some people pay out of pocket for. Even so, the "health care is a right, not a privilege" sentiment will mean that if it was shown to work, everyone would want it, and (in my estimation) society would go completely haywire in an unpleasant way.
Now, the substance of the above has probably been discussed elsewhere at length; I raise it is an example because when I was 21 I would have thought of it very differently than I do now.