= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
SarahC comments on You Only Live Twice - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (173)
I have a standard answer for cryonics advocates: ask me in 10 years.
In 10 years, I'll be 32, and if all goes well I'll have my life together, I'll be able to point to a few successes, and I'll be able to say that my life isn't a waste. If I like being alive at 32, I'll probably like being alive hundreds of years from now. On the other hand, if I'm 32 and everything has gone wrong, and I'm down and out, and I wake up every morning wishing I hadn't, then I'm probably not going to want to live one more year, let alone hundreds.
In the meantime, I really don't know. I'm in limbo. Sometimes I want to be around to see what happens next, sometimes I really don't. Sometimes I'm crazy excited about planning for my future and how great it's going to be, and sometimes I feel certain that I'll never make it, and all I want is to have never been born, and anyone who thinks well of me must either be lying or must be a loser himself.
So... call me in ten years.
What if your take on life remains just as variable as it is now?
then it probably isn't worth the money.
So, in that case, what would be an appropriate use of that money?
Modulo the specific numbers 10 and 32, this is exactly how I feel about it. I don't think I've ever seen anyone express this point of view before!
That said, if signing up for cryonics were easy (as in a 5-minute form online, say), there's a good chance I would have signed up already during a "good" moment.
Surely one can expect the long-term future to be different enough that one's quality of life 10 years from now isn't a particularly trustworthy estimate?
It isn't the future I'm worried about, it's me. If I don't like me then I'm not looking forward to any future; if I like me, then I want to stick around and see how the future turns out (except perhaps the most horrible possible futures.)
Future will change you as well.
Perhaps happy you and sad you should be considered separate entities. Sad you wants to die, happy you wants to live. So your goal should be to kill sad you without killing happy you. Antidepressants maybe?
From my perspective, I think you've set too high a bar for yourself. I'm 51, with no very notable successes. I find just the ability to enjoy a sunset and a good meal sufficient reason to want to go on living, and were sufficient to motivate me to join Alcor. (Now the odds of being successfully revived are quite another matter, and subject to much disagreement.)
In 10 years, I'll be 32 as well. My main reason for trying to put off procrastinating is because I know I'd be kicking myself (metaphorically) if I died when I was 31 due to some stupid accident.
I'm in the process now of trying to figure out how to spend my first few decades in a way that will be most conducive to making the future an even better place to live.
For me, I really can't see the downside to signing up. Life insurance is something most people sign up for anyway and the additional ~120 bucks for cryonics is pocket change. I mean, common people; That's like the cost of Netflix!
Life rocks and I want to go on living for as long as I want. If I get bored in 2 million years, I'll reserve the option to check myself out. Or, more likely, I'll just change what I'm doing.
As far as I'm concerned, if it only costs twice as much as an X-Box live subscription and it might (with varying degrees of hopefulness - I'm at the high end) procure my immortality, worst case scenario it's money well wasted.