When I ran the math, the QALY expected value of the two options actually worked out about the same: http://lesswrong.com/lw/6xk/years_saved_cryonics_vs_villagereach/
Given that, it's basically just a matter of personal preferences and signalling - whichever organization you give money to gains credibility and can use that to help attract even more people.
If you just prefer to live forever instead, the math says that's TOTALLY OKAY. Do NOT feel selfish about this decision - you're helping yourself, and you're helping humanity move towards a rationalist, post-death mindset. Even if cryonics doesn't work out, the idea of "ending death" is still an incredibly valuable one to have out there.
My personal opinion is that the cryonics will not become acceptable until there are some major scientific breakthroughs that make it more plausible. I'm waiting until then to sign up, which may very well mean I die first. If you believe the signalling is useful, though, then cryonics probably benefits vastly more. Or if you just think immortality is really cool :)
When I ran the math, the QALY expected value of the two options actually worked out about the same: http://lesswrong.com/lw/6xk/years_saved_cryonics_vs_villagereach/
This calculation was badly wrong. You allowed for the possibility that cryonically suspended people would wind up living very long and happy lives through future technology (which provided the great majority of the QALYs), but not for the possibility that African children saved from malaria would, many of whom would live another 60-70 years and could benefit from any big wave of technologica...
I am not currently signed up for cryonics. I am considering it, but have not yet decided whether it is the right choice. Here's my reasoning.
I am very sure of the following:
1. Life is better than death. For any given finite lifespan, I'd prefer a longer one, at least within the bounds of numbers I can reasonably contemplate.
2. Signing up for cyronics increases the expected value of my lifespan.
But then I also believe the following:
3. I am not particularly exceptional among the set of human beings, and so should not value my lifespan much more than that of other humans. I obviously fail at this in practice, but I think the world would be a much better place if I and others didn't fail so often.
4. The money it would take to sign up for cryonics, though not large, is enough to buy several centuries of healthy life each year if given to givewell's top malaria charities. Since on average I expect to live another 50-60 years without cryonics, the investment would need to increase the expected value of my lifespan by at least 5,000 years at minimum to be morally acceptable to me.
5. There is a chance we'll discover immortality in my lifetime. If so, then if I signed up for cryonics the payout is 0, and the people who died because I bought insurance instead of charity are people I could have saved for far longer.
So, what do you think is the probability that immortality will be discovered in my lifetime? What about the probability that, if signed up for cryonics, I will live into the far future? These priors would seem to be the key for me to decide whether signing up for cryonics is morally acceptable to me.