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kilobug comments on Inverse cryonics: one weird trick to persuade anyone to sign up for cryonics today! - Less Wrong Discussion
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Hum, first I find you numbers very unlikely - cryonics costs more than $1/day, and definitely have less than 10% of chance of working (between the brain damage done by the freezing, the chances that the freezing can't be done in time, disaster striking the storage place before resurrection, risk of society collapse, unwillingness of future people to resurrect you, ...).
Then, the "bullet" scenario isn't comparable to cryonics, because it completely forgets all the context and social network. A significant part of why I don't want to die (not the only reason, by far, but definitely not a minor on either) is that there are people I care about and who either enjoy me being around them, and/or depend on me financially at least partially, and I enjoy spending time with them. If I were to die tomorrow of a bullet in the head, it'll deprive me of time with them and them of time with me. If I were to die of whatever other cause, and then be resurrected centuries in the future, it wouldn't change anything for them (unless they sign up to cryonics too, but that's a wholly different issue).
That doesn't mean cryonics isn't worth it at all - but the two scenarios are far from being mathematically equivalent. And I would definitely pay more than $1 a day to not have the "I'm cut from all the people I care about" scenario to happen.
TBH I think this works out fairly heavily in favour of the future, I expect that the utility per unit time of future life is significantly higher than what we have today, even taking into account loss of social network. Of course this asymmetry goes away if you persuade your friends and family to sign up too.
I suppose your mileage may reasonably vary depending on how much of a nerd you are and how good your present day relationships are.
Personally, if cryonics was 100% and a positive future to wake up in was also 100% (both of which are false by a large margin), I would go to the future right now and start enjoying the delights it has to offer. I have spent some time thinking about how good the best possible human life is. It's somewhat hard to tell as it is an underresearched area, but I think it's probably 2-10 times better in utility than the best we have today.
Perhaps, but that's highly debatable. Anyway, my main point was that the two scenarios (bullet / cryonics) are not anywhere near being mathematically equivalent, there are a lot of differences, both in favor and against cryonics, and pretending they don't exist is not helping. If anything, it just reinforces the Hollywood stereotype of the "vulkan rationalist" who doesn't have any feeling or emotion, and that basically fails to understand what makes life worth being lived. And that's pretty harmful from a PR point of view.
Even then it's not the case, unless everyone dies and is frozen at the same time. If I sign to cryonics, die tomorrow and am resurrected in 200 years, and my 4 yo niece signs to cryonics when she's adult and dies in 80 years and is resurrected too in 200 years, she'll still have grown without her uncle, and I would still have missed her childhood - in fact, she would likely not even remember me, and the 84-yo person she would be wouldn't be much like the one I remembered.
Perhaps. There is a lot of uncertainty about that (which compounds with the odds of cryonics working at all), and while there are possible futures in which it's the case, it's not certain at all - especially from someone from now.
But you also forget a very important point - utility for other people. Perhaps I would be happier in the future than now - but to take the same example, my niece would still miss her uncle (and that would be even much worse if I were a father, not "just" an uncle), and less utility in her childhood because of it. And I value her life more than my own.
Nope:
A term life insurance policy in the amount of the minimum fee often costs around $30 per month for a person starting their policy in good health at middle age.