eeuuah comments on Stupid Questions April 2015 - Less Wrong

7 Post author: Gondolinian 02 April 2015 09:29PM

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Comment author: DataPacRat 02 April 2015 11:15:55PM 3 points [-]

Which cryonicist to thaw?

Say that, in thirty-plus years, you're still alive and I've been cryonically preserved for a while. What could I have done during my life to convince you to apply your finite resources to resurrect me, rather than someone else?

Would it make a difference if the only potentially available resurrection method was destructive mind uploading, for which a vitrified brain would happen to be an ideal test subject?

Comment author: eeuuah 03 April 2015 01:06:46AM 0 points [-]

You would need to be able to provide value for me - so you would need to have skills (or the ability to gain skills) that are still in expensive and in demand, and society would need to give me an enforceable right to extract that value from you. Slavery or indentured servitude, perhaps.

Comment author: DataPacRat 03 April 2015 04:00:13AM 1 point [-]

Slavery or indentured servitude, perhaps.

If I may ask, are you yourself a cryonicist who might end up facing the question from either side?

Provide value

You seem to be assuming that immediate economic value is the only value worth considering; was this your intent?

enforceable right

Does this criteria apply to present-day questions that are in vaguely the same ballpark? That is, do you choose who to help based on whether or not you can force them to pay you?

Comment author: eeuuah 10 April 2015 12:03:51AM 0 points [-]

Does this criteria apply to present-day questions that are in vaguely the same ballpark? That is, do you choose who to help based on whether or not you can force them to pay you?

Good point here - I don't usually have any mechanism to force people to pay me. I usually to help based on how likely I think it I am to get what I want out of it. A few examples:

  • I help my employer accomplish their goals very often, because I think they will pay me.
  • I help my friends with things because so far they have cooperated and helped me things in return.
  • Sometimes I help strangers with their problems with no expectation to get anything back from them. When I do, it's usually because we're part of a shared community and I am looking after my reputation.
  • If it costs me close enough to nothing, I try to help other people so I can maintain a positive self image.

You seem to be assuming that immediate economic value is the only value worth considering; was this your intent?

I'm not sure what you mean by economic value. If you mean money, no. I think that humans value many things. I could certainly see a respected artist being revived even if the reviver could not directly tax the artist's production.

If I may ask, are you yourself a cryonicist who might end up facing the question from either side?

I'm not a cryonicist at this time. I do think there's a pretty good chance that either cryonics, brain uploading, or something similar will see some people from my lifetime recreated in a form after their deaths.

Comment author: DanielLC 03 April 2015 03:33:38AM 0 points [-]

It's already legal to perform a medical procedure to save someone's life without their consent if they're not capable of consenting, and then demand payment. You could still go bankrupt, but that causes problems so if you're capable of repaying you probably would.

Comment author: eeuuah 10 April 2015 12:04:42AM 0 points [-]

That's slightly terrifying, but I guess makes sense as an incentive to perform life saving medical interventions