All of SophiesWorld's Comments + Replies

"You just said that you doubt that "more than a third" of EAs identify as LW-rationalist. Even aside from the fact that you can be one without identifying as one, one third shows a huge influence. I wouldn't find that one third of vegetarians are LW-rationalists, or 1/3 of atheists, for instance, even though those are popular positions here." I feel like you're making a pretty elementary subset error there...

"Ther very fact that you're asking how to reconcile cryonics with EA shows that cryonics is not in the category of psycholog... (read more)

0Jiro
I meant what I said. If 1/3 of X are Y, but X doesn't have anywhere near a 1/3 prevalence in the general population or in other subgroups that are disproportionately Y for separate reasons, then it's fair to say that X has a huge influence on Y. The proper way to end a conversation is to just end it, not to say "this is why I am right, now that I am done saying that, I'll end it".

"then rationality doesn't demand that I stop spending money on myself in order to be good." Well, yes, because whether you're "being" good is somewhat irrelevant. Objective conditions of the world don't change based on what you're "being" ontologically, reality is affected by what you do.

My terminal goals involve the alleviation of suffering, with the minimization of bad habits being an instrumental goal. It so happens that spending money on cryogenics is unlikely to be the best way to solve this goal (or so it appears. No st... (read more)

1Jiro
That's a semantics objection. Pretend that I said a more appropriate phrase instead of "being good", such as "maximizing utility" or "doing what you should do". Normality serves as a sanity check against taking ideas seriously. Sanity checks aren't terminal values. You just said that you doubt that "more than a third" of EAs identify as LW-rationalist. Even aside from the fact that you can be one without identifying as one, one third shows a huge influence. I wouldn't find that one third of vegetarians are LW-rationalists, or 1/3 of atheists, for instance, even though those are popular positions here. Ther very fact that you're asking how to reconcile cryonics with EA shows that cryonics is not in the category of psychologically easy to give up things. Otherwise you'd just avoid cryonics immediately.

"By the same reasoning, the marginal utility of any amount used to improve your health is greater than the marginal utility of using it on malaria nets (except insofar as improving your health lets you survive to produce more money for malaria nets). In fact, the same could be said about any expenditure on yourself whatsoever, whether health-related or not."

Your point being?

"Cryonics is not special in this regard compared to all the other ways of spending money on yourself, which you do do."

I spend money on myself (less than you think, ... (read more)

1Jiro
I am more rational than you on this point in that I conclude that, because EA makes such absurd demands, I should refuse to accept the premises that go into EA.If I don't think it's bad to spend money on myself, then rationality doesn't demand that I stop spending money on myself in order to be good. If you consider spending money on yourself to be a problem in the way you've described, you've ended up considering normal human behavior to be bad and you have a standard which no person can meet (including yourself). This means you have bitten too many bullets. LW tries to get people to support MIRI based on rationality, multiplying utility, and ignoring warm fuzzies. Someone who believes all of that, but doesn't believe the part about the AI being a danger, would end up in EA, so in practice LW is associated with EA. You may not identify as LW-rationalist, but you're acting like a LW-rationalist.

Your double negatives are confusing me. :) Can you clarify?

It's not at all obvious to me that the marginal utility of $120/year (at a time where I'm extremely healthy, as part of a demographic that's exceptionally long-lived) is greater than that of eg. 20 malarial nets (which is an absolute lower bound for any decision, there are ways that I think can leverage my donations significantly further). Can somebody clarify this intuition for me?

0entirelyuseless
The implication of this is that you should just look at cryonics as one possible way to benefit yourself, but realize that there is no reason to criticize someone who doesn't do it, just as you don't criticize someone who doesn't feel like buying himself ice cream.
4Jiro
By the same reasoning, the marginal utility of any amount used to improve your health is greater than the marginal utility of using it on malaria nets (except insofar as improving your health lets you survive to produce more money for malaria nets). In fact, the same could be said about any expenditure on yourself whatsoever, whether health-related or not. I continue to believe that EA is absurd, and it's absurd for reasons like this. No individual alieves in EA; everyone says at some point that they could do more good by buying malaria nets but they're going to spend some money on themselves anyway. Cryonics is not special in this regard compared to all the other ways of spending money on yourself, which you do do. Though it amuses me to see one LW weird idea collide head on with another LW weird idea.

Note that many rationalists/LW'ers have taken the Giving What We Can pledge, the most famous of whom is Scott Alexander (Yvain):

http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/19/nobody-is-perfect-everything-is-commensurable/