This is not quite right. The justification is that an action leading to certain negative consequences is not equivalent to inaction leading to the same consequences. Inaction is almost always acceptable, morally and legally. There are many obvious and non-obvious pitfalls in changing this attitude.

If you believe in an afterlife, the question that concerns you is still whether there is an afterlife, not whether you believe in an afterlife. So you still should worry about the hypothetical of there being an afterlife, which you'd assign more probability, not about the hypothetical of you believing in an afterlife.

Making small firm steps at a time is easily supported. Taking only a single step for not knowing how to take more is very probably underapplying ones knowledge. If the reasoning can go on with basically a empty reply from another party it's likely thought was suppressed very early. If one strives to take things to their logical conclusion this is a bad thing.

If it's not clear do understand that the post was supportable. I could just convince of ways it could have been awesomer. I could have communicated better what kinds of more sharper thinking could have happened in writing this post or atleast not detract attention (needlessly lenghten) with on topic content from the thinking options available. Instead of just settling for the first step one could say to one say : "I need to go deeper" que inception music. And you propably want to do that in the first place instead of waiting around for a demanding reason to do it.

I have just recently starting to vote what I read and explicitly state my reason for that decision. Not all people want to have every detail rubbed against their face. When asked I can elaborate. I might not be adept enough in rationality foruming to offer a detailed analysis of what went wrong or help what can be done that such shortcomings don't happen in the future. Because of known tendency that people don't tend to cast themselfs as villains in their story, for precaution, I will also mention that this is likely to be a newbie-newbie interaction as discussed on the "eternal september" threads.

But I do vote and say why I vote and I hope that that is more valuable than my explanations being misleading/confusing is detrimental. I don't know, I am experimenting whether it works. I could easily be that the long explanation is just noise with the signal being in those word or phrase like descriptions.

Why this proposal is a bad one :

Cryonics is based upon a working technology, cryogenic freezing of living tissues.

The latest cryonics techiques use M22, an ice crystal growth inhibitor that has been used to preserve small organs and successfully thaw them. More than likely, if you were to rewarm some of the tissues from a cryonics patient frozen today, some of the original cells would still be alive and viable. I don't know if this particular experiment has been performed, however : there is a reason why cryonics has a bad reputation for pseudoscience.

If you dehydrate a mammalian cell and then add water again, it's still dead. If you freeze and rewarm, heating and cooling at a rapid enough rate to prevent ice crystal growth, not only is the cell alive, but it can be more viable than newer cells later. Cryogenically frozen sperm or ova from a young person can be more viable than the same substance obtained from the same person later in life.

There are further improvements to cryonics that have not been made because it lacks the funding and resources it deserves.

Better cryoprotectants are more than likely possible. Better techniques are almost certainly achievable. The method used to preserve a viable rabbit kidney used extremely rapid cooling. Cooling the brain more rapidly might yield better results. There are potentially revolutionary improvements possible.

Allegedly, a Japanese company claims that oscillating magnetic fields prevent orderly crystal growth by water. They have experimental results and succes in preserving human teeth this way. If this method is viable, cryonics could use very large magnets on the human brain and potentially get perfect preservations with demonstrable proof of viability. http://www.teethbank.jp/ http://singularityhub.com/2011/01/23/food-freezing-technology-preserves-human-teeth-organs-next/

The first source I think is a better one : As far as a google search will tell me, this is the only existing human tooth bank in the world. If the teeth weren't viable it seems unlikely that credible dentists would be attempting the transplants and succeeding. (I think the technology being used is a lot better indication of it being legitimate than papers or singularity hub articles)

If you don't believe in an afterlife,

An afterlife doesn't really solve the problems people want it to solve. For one thing, ghost hunters with cable reality series might bother you with inane requests like pushing buttons on flashlights. ; )

But more to the point, why do people assume that an "afterlife," if it exists, has to last forever, or that you have to have one to give this life "meaning"? This shows uncritical, self-centered teleological thinking about human existence.

cryonics or permanent death

False dichotomy: Cryonics may fail (actually, will probably fail) to revive you. Or it may succed, and then you die anyway.

Robin Hanson uses an estimate of 5% here

It seems a quite optimistic estimate. Successful revival depends conjunctively on a large number of events, many of which are highly speculative (no damage from preservation, super duper nanotech) or outright implausible (cryo orgs not succumbing to organizational failure).

If you don't believe in an afterlife, then it seems you currently have two choices...

Believing in afterlife doesn't grant you one more option. This is a statement about ways of mitigating or avoiding death, and beliefs are not part of that subject matter. An improved version of the statement would say, "If there is no afterlife, then...". In this form, it's easier to notice that since it's known with great certainty that there is no afterlife, the hypothetical isn't worth mentioning.

As many of the comments have pointed out the point raised is not the only viewpoint. Running with the new situation from different angles could have produced fruitful thought that could have been applied with the post.

Cryonics has details worked out while the hydronics hasn't. Thus it's somewhat likely that you are comparing the weak points of cryonics to good points of dryonics. Hunting for a better method it's all good but it can make the comparison accidentally better than it would be after a closer investigation. The cryonics side of the comparison is fixed while the new method side works with just what is apparent.

Say that I think of methods to move in space beside rockets. I might think of dropping behind nuclear bombs to improve energy extracted per mass used. This might be all nice while only thinking about pushing a craft forward. However if I stop to think about other implications the situation doesn't seem too rosey: there might be radioactive products left behind, there can be significant forces to nearby other vessels or habitats, it would be trivial to weaponize. These disadvantages might be overcome with some design but it's far from "go faster" kind of magic button. And I don't need high technical abilitity to realise that those sorts of drawbacks are possible.

With dryonics it likely needs some support from cell chemistry. Changing the cell chemistry on a already alive human could be somewhat messy. And even if it would be adjustable it is somewhat likely that human cells do interesting things that conflict with such "design constraints". How much immune system efficiency, alcohol tolerance or metabolism speed would be ok price to pay for the advantage? Even if successfully dried people would require less energy upkeep protecting them from erosion might bring the cost closer to high tech upkeep. At room temperature the surrounding bacteria can be active. Would they be vulnerable to winds, sounds or earthquakes?

If we only want methods that work in principle regardless of details you can always plan for a round trip in the stars to use the twin paradox to be subject to the expertise of future doctors. The question is only whether the details of time dilation, cryonics or dryonics are doable. Thus skipping or being ignorant of the details doesn't help that much. Finding a new preservation mechanism mainly extends the frontier where concrete progress can be made. So eventually before long you have to dig deeper. And doing today what you could do tomorrow ensures you don't get stuck in the past.

My name is Chris Roberts. Professionally, my background is finance, but I have always been fascinated by science and have tried to apply a scientific approach to my thought and discussions. I find far too much thinking dominated by ideology and belief systems without any supporting evidence (let alone testable hypotheses). Most people seem to decide their positions first, then marshal arguments to justify their prejudigments. I have never considered myself a "rationalist", but rather an empiricist. I believe in democracy, the free market and science because they have been demonstrated to be more effective in the real world than the alternatives. But I am not ideologically committed and believe they all can be improved. One common thread in these methods is that they are all self-correcting, able to recover from mistakes, and inclusive, allowing input from all participants (at least in theory). I mention this because it is reflective of my personal philosophy.

I was reading "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality" (which itself I found from TV Tropes). I found it amusing, and the discussion articulate (though Harry himself, as presented there, rather unlikeable), so I decided to find out more about the author and his ideas, which led me here. I have been browsing the site for a few weeks, have found it quite fascinating, and feel I am ready to make some modest contributions. I posted this to the discussions thread as a first attempt. Please feel free to dissect and provide constructive criticism :).

Upvoted for clear setting of a line of reasoning

Pros for Down: Vague logic jump based on surface phenomena, organising rather than executing work

Pros for Up: Acknowledging ignorance, clear explicitation and individualization of stance