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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?
Cryonics: peace of mind vs. immortality
I wrote a blog post arguing that people sign up for cryo more for peace of mind than for immortality. This suggests that cryo organizations should market towards the former desire than the latter (you can think of it as marketing to near mode rather than far mode, in Hansonian terms).
Perhaps we've been selling cryonics wrong. I'm signed up and feel like the reason I should have for signing up is that cryonics buys me a small, but non-zero chance at living forever. However, for years this should didn't actually result in me signing up. Recently, though, after being made aware of this dissonance between my words and actions, I finally signed up. I'm now very glad that I did. But it's not because I now have a shot at everlasting life.
http://specterdefied.blogspot.com/2015/06/a-cryo-membership-buys-peace-of-mind.html
For those signed up already, does peace-of-mind resonate as a benefit of your membership?
If you are not a cryonics member, what would make you decide that it is a good idea?
In response to
Rationality is about pattern recognition, not reasoning
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.
In response to
How my social skills went from horrible to mediocre
Hey Jonah, props on being so honest in writing this article. I can relate to pretty much everything that you wrote.
Plastination is one technology you might be interested in.
Yup! Unfortunately it isn't ready for humans yet
http://blog.brainpreservation.org/2015/04/27/shawn-mikula-on-brain-preservation-protocols/
Calling all Nigerian rationalists and effective altruists
I'm in Lagos, Nigeria till the end of May and I'd like to hold a LessWrong/EA meetup while I'm here. If you'll ever be in the country in the future (or in the subcontinent), please get in touch so we can coordinate a meetup. I'd also appreciate being put in contact with any Nigerians who may not regularly read this list.
My e-mail address is oge@nnadi.org. I hope to hear from you.
In response to
How to sign up for Alcor cryo
Do you have plans for when your term life insurance expires, but you're still alive (which is, actuarially speaking, fairly certain)?
Nope, not yet. I have 30 years to figure out if I want to continue with cryo or if some newer technology is more worth my money.
In response to
How to sign up for Alcor cryo
Is this the generally accepted best cryonics choice, and do they offer a lifetime membership? If memory serves it's something like a quarter million but even if it's half I'd rather just write a check. The stakes are a little higher than a late payment on a credit card or even a mortgage, in that they are literally life or death.
I don't know the answer to either question. I really just picked Alcor since at the time their Website looked far more professional than the alternative (although that has changed since). You can shoot the Alcor folks an email to ask about the membership: they're pretty good at responding.
Shawn Mikula on Brain Preservation Protocols and Extensions
Recently published article in Nature Methods on a new protocol for preserving mouse brains that allows the neurons to be traced across the entire brain, something that wasn't possible before. This is exciting because in as little as 3 years, the method could be extended to larger mammals (like humans), and pave the way for better neuroscience or even brain uploads. From the abstract:
Here we describe a preparation, BROPA (brain-wide reduced-osmium staining with pyrogallol-mediated amplification), that results in the preservation and staining of ultrastructural details throughout the brain at a resolution necessary for tracing neuronal processes and identifying synaptic contacts between them. Using serial block-face electron microscopy (SBEM), we tested human annotator ability to follow neural ‘wires’ reliably and over long distances as well as the ability to detect synaptic contacts. Our results suggest that the BROPA method can produce a preparation suitable for the reconstruction of neural circuits spanning an entire mouse brain
http://blog.brainpreservation.org/2015/04/27/shawn-mikula-on-brain-preservation-protocols/
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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?
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?"