Great post Epiphany. I'd like to volunteer myself as another guinea pig, but with one caveat. Rather than having this experiment end with just two people's opinions being changed, I'd like to create an argument map for the best arguments on cryonics so that more people can be persuaded by the best arguments that we can aggregate into an argument map.
There are a lot of argument mapping tools out there, but my favorite one isn't actually intended to be used as an argument map. I created a rough sketch of an argument map on cryonics.
I am planning to put a list of my objections with links and whether they're resolved into the OP. So there will be some organization to it.
I'm not sure that LW wants more guinea pigs, some feel that this is a waste of time - you can tell by the karma on my thread that this isn't really popular. Thanks for the compliment, though.
Also, I am not expecting to be convinced. I'm actually leaning toward "no" right now, as surprising as I bet some think that is. I'll explain that when I make my next run of responding to comments again.
You know, I thi...
I heard that women are difficult to convince when it comes to signing up for cryo. In mentioning cryonics to a dying person, there seems to be a consensus that it's not going to happen. I encountered a post: Years saved: Cryonics vs VillageReach, which addressed my main objection (that the amount of money spent on cryo may be better spent on saving starving children, especially considering that you could save multiple children for that amount of money with high probability whereas you save only one life with low probability by paying for cryo). Now I'm open to being persuaded.
My first instinct was to go read a lot about cryo, but it dawned on me that there are a lot of people here who will want to convince family members, some of them female, to sign up - and these people may appreciate the opportunity to practice on somebody. It has been argued that "Brilliant and creative minds have explored the argument territory quite thoroughly." but if we already know all of the objections and have working rebuttals for each, why is it still thought of as extra difficult to get through to women? If there were a solution to this, it would not be seen as difficult. There must be something that pro-cryo people need for persuading women that they either haven't figured out or aren't good enough at yet.
So, I decided to offer myself for experiments in attempting to convince a woman to sign up for cryo and took a poll in an open thread to see whether there was interest. I don't claim to be perfectly representative of the female population, but I assume that I will have at least some objections in common with them and that persuading me would still be good practice for anyone planning to convince family members in the future. Having a study on persuading women would be more scientific but how do you come up with hypotheses to test for such a study if you have no actual experience persuading women?
So, here is your opportunity to try whatever methods of persuasion you feel like with no guilt, explore my full list of objections without worrying about it being socially awkward, (I will even share cached religious thoughts, as annoyed as I am that I still have them.), and I will document as many of my impressions and objections as I can before I forget them.
I am putting each objection / impression into a new comment for organization. Also, I have decided to avoid reading anything further on cryo, until/unless it is suggested by one of my persuaders.
Well, have fun getting inside my head.