Cryonics is a good bet if the expected utility from being restored in the future exceeds the expected utility you lose from funding it in the present, modulo any discounting you may choose to perform. As best I can tell, there are two free variables in that equation: first, the probability of being restored; and second, the expected utility of your future life given restoration.
I don’t think we can put firm bounds on either of these, but I’d be very surprised if the latter isn’t positive. Your slavery hypothesis strikes me as unlikely: if a society capable of resuscitating cryonics patients found itself in need of cheap labor, it would almost certainly have cheaper sources of it. Ideological reasons for resuscitating cryonics patients and making their new lives unpleasant seem somewhat more likely (perhaps the future finds some aspect of our behavior repugnant and demands retribution?), but I can’t think of many that don’t require several things to go wrong at once.
Cryonics is a good bet if the expected utility from being restored in the future exceeds the expected utility you lose from funding it in the present, modulo any discounting you may choose to perform. As best I can tell, there are two free variables in that equation: first, the probability of being restored; and second, the expected utility of your future life given restoration.
I don’t think we can put firm bounds on either of these, but I’d be very surprised if the latter isn’t positive. Your slavery hypothesis strikes me as unlikely: if a society capable of resuscitating cryonics patients found itself in need of cheap labor, it would almost certainly have cheaper sources of it. Ideological reasons for resuscitating cryonics patients and making their new lives unpleasant seem somewhat more likely (perhaps the future finds some aspect of our behavior repugnant and demands retribution?), but I can’t think of many that don’t require several things to go wrong at once.