Has anyone on Less Wrong considered (and answered) an anthropic objection to cryonics? It might go something like this:
"If cryonics works, then the society in which I am revived will be a transhuman/posthuman one with very advanced technology, and a very large number of observer moments. But if such societies existed in the universe, or ever came to exist, then I would expect to find myself already part of one, and I don't. (Note here the use of Bostrom's strong self-selection assumption or SSSA.) Therefore I should judge it unlikely that posthuman/transhuman societies exist or will come to exist. Therefore I should judge it unlikely that cryonics will work."
One counter-argument (which Bostrom himself might use) would be based on reference classes. Perhaps I'm currently in a limited reference class that precludes me being part of a transhuman/posthuman society. But this also has a dubious implication for cryonics, since for cryonics to work it must be possible for me to change that reference class, moving from a very small one to a much larger one. So again, wouldn't I expect to have already done that?
You should provide an argument as to why it would be more likely to be born into a post human society. For a post human society to exist, a human and pre-human world would probably, although perhaps not necessarily, have to exist first. Even if it is more common to exist in transhumance state, there would still be non-transhuman minds.
I heard that women are difficult to convince when it comes to signing up for cryo. In mentioning cryonics to a dying person, there seems to be a consensus that it's not going to happen. I encountered a post: Years saved: Cryonics vs VillageReach, which addressed my main objection (that the amount of money spent on cryo may be better spent on saving starving children, especially considering that you could save multiple children for that amount of money with high probability whereas you save only one life with low probability by paying for cryo). Now I'm open to being persuaded.
My first instinct was to go read a lot about cryo, but it dawned on me that there are a lot of people here who will want to convince family members, some of them female, to sign up - and these people may appreciate the opportunity to practice on somebody. It has been argued that "Brilliant and creative minds have explored the argument territory quite thoroughly." but if we already know all of the objections and have working rebuttals for each, why is it still thought of as extra difficult to get through to women? If there were a solution to this, it would not be seen as difficult. There must be something that pro-cryo people need for persuading women that they either haven't figured out or aren't good enough at yet.
So, I decided to offer myself for experiments in attempting to convince a woman to sign up for cryo and took a poll in an open thread to see whether there was interest. I don't claim to be perfectly representative of the female population, but I assume that I will have at least some objections in common with them and that persuading me would still be good practice for anyone planning to convince family members in the future. Having a study on persuading women would be more scientific but how do you come up with hypotheses to test for such a study if you have no actual experience persuading women?
So, here is your opportunity to try whatever methods of persuasion you feel like with no guilt, explore my full list of objections without worrying about it being socially awkward, (I will even share cached religious thoughts, as annoyed as I am that I still have them.), and I will document as many of my impressions and objections as I can before I forget them.
I am putting each objection / impression into a new comment for organization. Also, I have decided to avoid reading anything further on cryo, until/unless it is suggested by one of my persuaders.
Well, have fun getting inside my head.