Comment on Cryonics priors

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 22:40:27 GMT

If we assume cryonics requires advances within the century, it's still true that those advances are more likely to come LATER than sooner. Cryonics means I survive whether the advance comes tomorrow or the day before the company would have thrown in the towel.

So the odds still favor the cryonaut over the African kids, because the cryonaut has longer for that advance to occur. Also, the cryonaut is someone who has the resources and culture to invest in a long-shot like cryonics DESPITE it being unpopular and fringe, whereas the African kids are unlikely to do any such thing. The African Kids only survive if there's a massive world-wide change like the Singularity or Friendly AI.

Keep in mind, we live in a society where millions die of starvation simply because we're inefficient at distributing food - we have enough to go around, it just doesn't end up where it's needed. We're talking a VERY radical change, and it needs to be before most of the kids are already dead (if it happens in exactly 60 years, statistically most of the kids are probably already dead)

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