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Emile comments on Suspended Animation Inc. accused of incompetence - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (127)
'FUD' seems unwarranted here - she seems better informed on the subject than the average LessWronger.
You may disagree with her conclusions, but I don't see any reason to think she's motivated by fear.
If Alcor and the like are a bunch of incompetent on-artists squeezing money out of gullible con-artists, then any rational critic with inside experience will start screaming bloody murder about them - and thus, won't sound impartial at all. Would you only listen to criticism of say Josef Mengele if it sounded "impartial"? Taking sides isn't evidence of irrationality.
Now, I don't know nearly enough about Alcor and the like to know whether they are con artists or not, and even if they are they might still be the best chance for today's 70-year-old to see what the 30th century looks like.
Fear, uncertainty, and doubt would be the feelings I think Melody is trying to instill, not necessarily the ones motivating her. She seems motivated by anger.
This does not necessarily mean that fear, uncertainty or doubt are irrational feelings about the prospect of trusting one's infinite future to apparent organisational incompetents. Especially sincere ones, as sincere ones are much harder to convince they're doing anything wrong. Organisational robustness is actually really really important.
Wouldn't insincere ones be harder to really convince they're doing anything wrong (in terms of actions taken, not words spoken), since they don't care whether or not they're doing it right? Insincere ones might accept criticism and then not make any changes, whereas sincere ones might fight harder against criticism but actually make real changes if convinced. There may be some usefulness in contacting cryonics organizations about criticisms against them and eliciting responses, as well as eliciting evidence to back up responses.
Not in my experience - the insincere can be convinced to fall back to a different not-necessarily-sincere position, whereas the sincere tend to take an attack on their beliefs or actions as an attack on themselves.
The apposite consideration here is Dumas' razor, "I prefer rogues to imbeciles, because rogues sometimes rest."
(In the original French, "J'aime mieux les méchants que les imbéciles, parce qu'ils se reposent." Or various other renderings, e.g. "Je préfère le méchant à l'imbécile, parce que l'imbécile ne se repose jamais" ["... because the imbecile never rests"] or "Si je devais faire un choix, entre les méchants et les imbéciles, ce serait les méchants, parce qu'ils se reposent." It appears to be something Dumas fils said in response to Victor Hugo saying "Les méchants envient et haïssent; c'est leur manière d'admirer" ["The wicked envy and hate; it's their form of admiration"] and others liked and wrote down, not something he wrote, but it's a popular quote for a reason.)