gwern comments on Stop Using LessWrong: A Practical Interpretation of the 2012 Survey Results - Less Wrong

-37 Post author: aceofspades 30 December 2012 10:00PM

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Comment author: gwern 31 December 2012 02:35:58AM *  7 points [-]

Other people here apparently disagree, but if the rest of the world is undervaluing cryonics at the moment then why do those here with privileged information not invest heavily in the formation of new for-profit cryonics organizations, or start them alone, or invest in technology which will soon develop to make the revival of cryonics patients possible? If the rest of the world is underconfident about these ideas, then these investments would surely have an enormous expected rate of return.

I think you're relying on a whole slew of assumptions here which obviously do not hold.

How many people responding to this survey have actually made significant personal preparations for survival, like a fallout shelter with food and so on which would actually be useful under most of the different scenarios listed? I generously estimate 5% have made any such preparations.

What existential threat would a fallout shelter help with? There's a long list of existential threats which one could be worried about, you know... For someone enamored of economic judgment, you don't seem to be doing it very well.

My judgment of this site as of now is that way too much time is spent discussing subjects of such low expected value (usually because of absurdly low expected probability of occurring) for using this site to be worthwhile.

Possibly, but criticizing people for not doing cryonics startups or digging shelters is not going to prove such assertions.