Vaniver comments on Rationalists Are Less Credulous But Better At Taking Ideas Seriously - LessWrong

43 Post author: Yvain 21 January 2014 02:18AM

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Comment author: Vaniver 22 January 2014 07:01:54PM 4 points [-]

This breaks apart the combination of contrary traits that forms the headline of this article. We don’t see a single group of people who are simultaneously more cryo-skeptical than the LW newbies, and yet more willing to sign up for cryonics. Instead, we see two groups: one that is more cryo-skeptical and which doesn’t sign up for cryonics; and another which is less cryo-skeptical, and which does sign up for cryonics.

It seems like you should do the same quartile breakdown for the newbies, because I read Yvain's core point as the existence of high-probability newbies who aren't signed up as a failure to act on their beliefs.

I haven't separated out the newbie cryocrastinators from the newbie considerers, though, and it seems that among the experienced the cryocrastinators give higher numbers than those who have signed up, which also seems relevant to a comparison.

Comment author: private_messaging 22 January 2014 10:36:25PM *  3 points [-]

Maybe procrastinators are trying to over-estimate it to get themselves to do it...

The probabilities are nuts though. For the whole thing to be of use,

1: you must die in a right way to get frozen soon enough and well enough. (Rather unlikely for a young person, by the way).

2: cryonics must preserve enough data.

3: no event that causes you to lose cooling

4: the revival technology must arise and become cheap enough (before you are unfrozen)

5: someone should dispose of the frozen head by revival rather than by garbage disposal or something even nastier (someone uses frozen heads as expired-copyright data).

Note that it's the whole combined probability that matters for the decision to sign up. edit: and not just that, but compared to the alternatives - i.e. you can improve your chances by trying harder not to die, and you can use money/time for that instead of cryonics.

edit2: also, just 3 independent-ish components (freezing works, company doesn't bust, revival available) with high ignorance get you down to 12.5%

Comment author: fortyeridania 25 January 2014 06:50:14AM 1 point [-]

You might be interested in reading some other breakdowns of the conditions required for cryonics to work (and their estimates of the relevant probabilities):

Break Cryonics Down (March 2009, at Overcoming Bias)

How Likely Is Cryonics To Work? (September 2011, here at LW)

More Cryonics Probability Estimates (December 2012, also at LW)

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