Comment author: oge 07 August 2015 01:35:49AM 0 points [-]

Clarity, you can find more bioparts at the ICE public registry:

https://public-registry.jbei.org/login

(full disclosure: this is software written and maintained by my employer)

Comment author: oge 04 August 2015 01:09:59AM 1 point [-]

CronoDAS, I'm glad you brought up this issue. Sadly, I don't think there's good evidence that cryo, as practiced today, works. I think it is reasonable (but of course, not ideal) for people to dismiss things which are only theoretically possible but not practically possible.

If we had verifiably working cryo today, it might be easier to change people's minds.

Comment author: oge 05 July 2015 01:17:27AM 2 points [-]

Hey Alexvermeer, could you give more details on the opportunities for advancement?

Comment author: oge 28 June 2015 06:51:14PM *  0 points [-]

Hey lululu, this was a great article! I found it very useful in dealing with rejection by a long-standing crush. Thanks for writing this.

I'm curious: what was your process for determining the best way to get over a relationship? Did you just search for that term in Google Scholar?

Comment author: RobFack 26 June 2015 10:49:31PM *  5 points [-]

I get the sense that many of the people who have signed up have done it less for the increased survival chances or the sense of comfort, but as a sort of flag waving. It is pretty good signalling that you are opposed to death and part of the ingroup that is opposed to death. Those little medallions are badges of a refusal to submit to the awful thing.

Comment author: oge 27 June 2015 02:51:30AM 2 points [-]

Whoa! If that's true then Alcor should offer necklaces (different looking from thereal ones) that say something like "I stand against death!". That way people can signal allegiance without having to go through all the cryo paperworks.

Comment author: advancedatheist 24 June 2015 03:29:57PM *  12 points [-]

Cryonics will definitely fail if the peace-of-mind cryonicists dominate it instead of the serious adults who want to survive. 

You can see most cryonicists' fundamental lack of seriousness from the fact that they talk a good game about how much they believe in scientific, technological and medical progress. So what happens when you try to draw their attention to the many correctible shortcomings in the real, existing practice of cryonics? They usually shrug those off as if these problems don't matter.

Uh, hello?

This fundamental lack of an evidence- and reality-orientation in many cryonicists goes a long way towards explaining why mainstream people don't find the cryonics idea credible, much less its haphazard implementation. I just have no patience these days with cryonicists who invoke Eric Drexler's discredited fantasies from the 1980's, or who make fallacious comparisons between cryonicists and the Wright brothers. Cryonics falls into the overlap between neuroscience and cryobiology, and progress in it will have to come from the application of those real sciences.

Comment author: oge 25 June 2015 06:27:59AM 1 point [-]

I absolutely agree with you that there are correctible shortcomings in today's cryonics practice; I also agree that we'll need a whole lot of neuroscience and cryobio to make further progress.

The Mikula paper linked in the article shows one possible avenue to verifiable cryo. The technology exists today: getting the engineering right so that it can be rolled out to paying customers seems to be the difficulty.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 24 June 2015 08:15:43AM 3 points [-]

I don't understand the distinction being made. The chance of revival and peace of mind aren't separate things: it is the former that causes the latter.

If you are not a cryonics member, what would make you decide that it is a good idea?

I don't think it's a crazy idea, but I'm not signed up. I might reconsider after some leaps and bounds in the technology, like successful short-term freezing and revival of humans. I am not expecting to see that within my expected lifespan.

Comment author: oge 25 June 2015 06:22:32AM 0 points [-]

Would you reconsider if you saw successful revival of a small organism? C. Elegans? A mouse?

Comment author: jacob_cannell 21 June 2015 08:28:51PM 2 points [-]

Hey oge - thanks for the feedback. I tried to summarize the article in the intro, but maybe that didnt work. Do you think an a short abstract at the top would help? Or perhaps an outline?

Comment author: oge 22 June 2015 12:27:56AM 0 points [-]

An abstract as the very first thing would help. An outline would be better.

Here are the paragraphs that I thought were the main point of the article (please correct this if I'm wrong):

"These two conceptions of the brain - the universal learning machine hypothesis and the evolved modularity hypothesis - lead to very different predictions for the likely route to AGI, the expected differences between AGI and humans, and thus any consequent safety issues and strategies."

and

"Current ANN engines can already train and run models with around 10 million neurons and 10 billion (compressed/shared) synapses on a single GPU, which suggests that the goal could soon be within the reach of a large organization. Furthermore, Moore's Law for GPUs still has some steam left, and software advances are currently improving simulation performance at a faster rate than hardware. These trends implies that Anthropomorphic/Neuromorphic AGI could be surprisingly close, and may appear suddenly.

What kind of leverage can we exert on a short timescale?"

Comment author: oge 21 June 2015 08:21:30PM 1 point [-]

Hi jacob_cannell, this article looks really interesting but it is a LOT to consume at once. Could you please put a summary at the top with the main points so that it makes the post easier to navigate?

Comment author: oge 29 May 2015 08:26:32PM 0 points [-]

Hi Jonah, this article is very intriguing since I might be going through a similar phase as you. Please add me to any list of collaborators you're drawing up.

View more: Prev | Next