= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
DataPacRat comments on Cryo and Social Obligations - Less Wrong Discussion
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 (74)
Assuming that you count the subculture as being those people who have a membership with one of the cryo providers: Yep. Reference: http://www.cryonics.org/comparisons.html , as of a few months ago, Alcor has 975 members, and Cryonics Institute has 1033, including those who haven't made full cryo-preservation arrangements.
Not at all - it's as accurate a breakdown as I could ask for.
(I'm noticeable! Yay! <ahem>)
That tendency likely stems from my background with SF and RPG world-building, where much of the fun comes from doing just that with any given premise.
Depending on how you look at it, I've already wasted a lot of productive hours on just that - I have a pet SF setting I've put together specifically to try thinking up the consequences of a few premises about some minor technological advancements... and to try to find any contradictions in the ideas I end up coming up with. Fortunately, I seem to have a good deal of time compared to the number of ideas I come up with that have any significant potential... so as long as I do keep in mind that any particular idea I try following could end up being a dud, one way to think of the whole exercise is summarized by an entry from my quotefile:
"On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow. "
Any thoughts? :)
Those figures surprise me.
Aside from noting smiley faces seem to have the power to compel compliance, I will try to follow my own advice.
In which direction, and to what degree?
I thought them low, and was mildly surprised. Partly because the cryonics subculture is briefly mentioned in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and I assumed that the subculture has persisted since at least 1997 (when Stephenson was writing the novel), I concluded that two thousand was a low estimation - simply because a subculture that could not accrue more members is in my eyes a pitiable thing (evoking of pathos). Considering how long Cryonics has been possible, I had thought more than a couple thousand of people would have ever been cryo-preserved. Although I doubt those figures represent all cryo-preserved persons.
Taking my prior advice into account, that's a lot of assumptions, I know. I have not researched cryonics thoroughly, as I'd like to understand enough of the neuroscience to form my own opinion. With my current level of knowledge I have low confidence in cryonics; the degree to which extreme cold destroys brain matter (on a molecular level) is one issue.
I seem to have described my numbers a bit off, so I'll try again to try to make sure the confusion is cleared up:
There are currently around 2,000 living people who are members of cryo organizations.
There are currently around 200 dead (or 'dead') people who have been cryo-preserved.
I don't disagree with you about that. However, given the range of options currently available on the table, if I have a lethal heart attack this year... there don't seem to really be any other options I /can/ make arrangements for. It's possible that the damage you describe will, one day, eventually be able to be repaired; in which case, no worries. Or, it's possible the damage you describe will never be able to be repaired; in which case, in another sense, no worries.
(Part of my current consultations with my lawyer about my will, is to arrange for as much of my personal writing and similar data to be stored with me - and at least part of the reasoning for my doing that, is to provide another set of data about the way my brain functions in case it might help with future repair efforts. It's even more of a longshot than cryo itself, but since I'd like to have that data with me anyway if I'm revived, it doesn't seem to be a negative.)