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advancedatheist comments on Alcor vs. Cryonics Institute - Less Wrong Discussion

27 Post author: prespectiveCryonaut 09 April 2012 01:49AM

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Comment author: advancedatheist 10 April 2012 12:38:34AM 1 point [-]

Yet, as others have pointed out, CI operates as a "cemetery," and the bureaucratic mind doesn't allow for the removal of bodies in cemeteries to subject them to experimental medical procedures

I don't think that really matters: if revivification works, there will be a way around that.

That doesn't necessarily have to happen. Peter Thiel in his recent debate with George Gilder argues that most forms of engineering since 1970 have become effectively illegal. Some universities might still offer degrees in nuclear engineering, for example, but that field has horrible job prospects, so it might as well have become illegal. It wouldn't take much to add cryonics to the list of prohibited technologies.

Comment author: arundelo 10 April 2012 02:02:58AM *  7 points [-]

I found the Thiel-Gilder debate.

Thiel's list of fields where "innovation in stuff was 'outlawed'":

  • petroleum engineering
  • nuclear engineering
  • electrical engineering
  • chemical engineering
  • mechanical engineering
  • bio-engineering

I can believe that changes in the law and the legal-political climate have hampered innovation in at least some of those fields, but by "outlawed" Thiel seems to mean "a bad career choice", judging from what he says at 42:17.

Edit: Thiel does not just mean "a bad career choice"; he gives some examples of what he does mean at about 9:50 of this July 16 2012 debate with Eric Schmidt:

I think it's because the government has outlawed technology. We're not allowed to develop new drugs with the FDA charging $1.3 billion per new drug. You're not allowed to fly supersonic jets, because they're too noisy. You're not allowed to build nuclear power plants, say nothing of fusion, or thorium, or any of these other new technologies that might really work. So, I think we've basically outlawed everything having to do with the world of stuff, and the only thing you're allowed to do is in the world of bits. And that's why we've had a lot of progress in computers and finance. Those were the two areas where there was enormous innovation in the last 40 years. It looks like finance is in the process of getting outlawed, so the only thing left at this point will be computers [...]

Comment author: TimS 10 April 2012 12:50:49AM 6 points [-]

[nuclear engineering] has horrible job prospects, so it might as well have become illegal.

That's not a very accurate way to think about legal problems. For comparison, PhDs in English Literature have horrible job prospects, but that's not evidence that English Lit is becoming illegal.

Comment author: advancedatheist 10 April 2012 03:05:24PM 1 point [-]

If your field of engineering, despite its productive potentials, faces political moves to shut it down and throw you out of work, that has about the same effect as making it illegal.

Comment author: CarlShulman 12 April 2012 12:07:16AM *  3 points [-]

Facing threats of possibly somewhat lower salaries and job prospects is quantitatively far less severe than being banned. Cutting the expected value of training for a profession by 10% is very different from cutting prospects by 50% or 90%.

Comment author: gwern 10 April 2012 12:49:27AM 0 points [-]

If cryonics is outright prohibited, then the first part of the conditional is very unlikely to obtain...

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