Otherwise, they would also include the happiness of family and friends after the frozen person is cured.
That only works if their family and friends are cryopreserved themselves, or live until it becomes possible to wake them up.
That being said, I don't think the pain of grief is comparable to death.
Technically, by following this argument, we also should stop curing cancer, because that money could also be used for Givewell charities and animal welfare.
And that's exactly why I'm against donating to cancer research. If I had the opportunity to funnel all that money to something useful, I would. If I had the opportunity to choose between cancer, cyronics, or the government using the money in another fairly useless manner, I don't know which I'd pick.
And that's exactly why I'm against donating to cancer research.
I think opposition to donating to cancer research (as opposed to donating to more cost efficient options) is obvious and accepted (here). Still, I'm selfish enough that if I had cancer I would treat it, which is what was actually being considered/compared to cryonics.
I'm sure this has come up before, but I think there are some cases in which cancer research donations make sense. Often donations geared towards the curing of specific diseases is prompted by some personal emotional connectio...
So I recently found myself in a bit of an awkward position.
I frequent several Facebook discussion groups, several of which are about LW-related issues. In one of these groups, a discussion about identity/cryonics led to one about the end Massimo Piglucci's recent post (the bit where he says that the idea of uploading is a form of dualism), which turned into a discussion of LW views in general, at which point I revealed that I was, in fact, a LWer.
This put me in the awkward position of defending/explicating the views of the entirety of LW. Now, I've only been reading LessWrong for <10 months, and I've only recently become a more active part of the community. I've been a transhumanist for less time than that, seriously thinking about cryonics and identity for even less, and I suddenly found myself speaking for the intersection of all those groups
The discussion was crossposted to Felicifia a few days ago, and I realized that I was possibly out of my depth. I'm hoping I haven't grossly misrepresented anyone, but rereading the comments, I'm no longer sure.
Felicifia:
http://www.felicifia.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=801
Original FB Group :
https://www.facebook.com/groups/utilitarianism/permalink/318563281580856/
EDIT: If you're commenting on the topic, please state whether or not you'd mind me quoting you at felicifia (If you have a felicifia account, and you'd prefer to post it there yourself, be my guest.)