“If cryonics were widely seen in the same terms as any other medical procedure, economies of scale would considerably diminish the cost”
To what degree are these economies of scale assumed? Is it really viable, both practically and financially, to cryogenically preserve 150,000 people a day?
Is there any particular reason to suspect that investing this sort of funding in to cryonics research is the best social policy? What about other efforts to “cure death” by keeping people from dying in the first place (for instance, those technologies that would be the necessary foundations for restoring people from cryonics in the first place)?
I see cryonics hyped a lot here, and in rationalist / transhuman communities at large, and it seems like an “applause light”, a social signal of “I’m rationalist; see, I even have the Mandatory Transhumanist Cryogenics Policy!”
Liquid nitrogen is cheap, and heat loss scales as the 2⁄3 power of volume. Cryonically preserving 150,000 people per day would, I fully expect, be vastly cheaper than anything else we could do to combat death.
Cost of cryogenic suspension (neuro-suspension only): $18,908.76
Cost of fund to cover all maintenance costs: $6,600
Proportional cost of maintenance: 25.87%
I’d also echo ciphergoth’s request for any sort of actual citation on the numbers in that post; the entire post strikes me as making some absurdly optimistic assumptions (or some utterly trivial ones, if the author was talking about neuro-suspension instead of whole-body...)
Could you tell us what you see in the way that cryonics is “hyped” that you would be less likely to see if people praised it simply because it was a good idea?
I would expect to see a rational discussion of the benefits and trade-offs involved, in such a way as to let me evaluate, based on my utility function, whether this is a good investment for me.
Instead, I primarily see almost a “reversed stupidity” discussion, combined with what seems like in-group signalling: “See all these arguments against cryonics? They are all irrational, as I have now demonstrated. QED cryonics is rational, and you should signal your conformity to the Rationality Tribe by signing up today!”
I can totally understand why it’s presented this way, but it reads off as “hype” because I almost never encounter anything else. It all seems to just naively assume that “preserving my individual life at any cost is a perfectly rational decision.” Maybe that really is all the thought that goes in to it; if your utility function places a suitably high value on self-preservation, then there’s not really a lot of further discussion required.
But I get the sense that there are deeper thoughts that just never get discussed, because everyone is busy fighting against the nay-sayers. There’s a deep absence of arguments for cryonics, especially ones that actually take in to consideration social policy, and what else could be accomplished for $200K.
(Eliezer hinted at it, with his comments about economies of scale, but it was a mere footnote, and quite possibly the first time I’ve seen anyone discuss the issue from that perspective even briefly)
It’s more that all the arguments I see are aimed at a different audience (cryonics skeptics). I do not take this as very strong evidence of irrationality. On the other hand, anyone who posts here, I take that as decent evidence of rationality, especially people like Eliezer. So I assume with a high probability that either the people espousing it have a different utility function than I, or are simply not talking about the other half of the argument. I’m assuming that there is a rational reason, but objecting because I don’t feel anyone is trying to rationally explain it to me :)
Loosely, in my head, there’s the idea of a “negative” argument, which is just rebutting your opponent, or a “positive” argument which actually looks at the advantages of your position. I see hype, in-group signalling, and “negative” arguments. I’m interested in seeing some “positive” ones.
As far as evidence, I did actually just put up a post discussing specifically the “economies of scale” argument. It is thus far the only “positive” argument I’ve heard for it, aside from the (IMO) very weak argument of “who doesn’t want immortality?” (I find it weak specifically because it ignores both availability and price, and glosses over how reliability is affected by those two factors as well)
To what degree are these economies of scale assumed? Is it really viable, both practically and financially, to cryogenically preserve 150,000 people a day?
Is there any particular reason to suspect that investing this sort of funding in to cryonics research is the best social policy? What about other efforts to “cure death” by keeping people from dying in the first place (for instance, those technologies that would be the necessary foundations for restoring people from cryonics in the first place)?
I see cryonics hyped a lot here, and in rationalist / transhuman communities at large, and it seems like an “applause light”, a social signal of “I’m rationalist; see, I even have the Mandatory Transhumanist Cryogenics Policy!”
Liquid nitrogen is cheap, and heat loss scales as the 2⁄3 power of volume. Cryonically preserving 150,000 people per day would, I fully expect, be vastly cheaper than anything else we could do to combat death.
Mandatory link on cryonics scaling that basically agrees with Eliezer:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/2f5/cryonics_wants_to_be_big/
Unless modern figures have drifted dramatically, free storage would give you a whopping 25% off coupon.
This is based on the 1990 rates I found for Alcor. And based on Alcor’s commentary on those prices, this is an optimistic estimate.
Source: http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/CostOfCryonicsTables.txt
Cost of cryogenic suspension (neuro-suspension only): $18,908.76
Cost of fund to cover all maintenance costs: $6,600
Proportional cost of maintenance: 25.87%
I’d also echo ciphergoth’s request for any sort of actual citation on the numbers in that post; the entire post strikes me as making some absurdly optimistic assumptions (or some utterly trivial ones, if the author was talking about neuro-suspension instead of whole-body...)
Could you tell us what you see in the way that cryonics is “hyped” that you would be less likely to see if people praised it simply because it was a good idea?
I would expect to see a rational discussion of the benefits and trade-offs involved, in such a way as to let me evaluate, based on my utility function, whether this is a good investment for me.
Instead, I primarily see almost a “reversed stupidity” discussion, combined with what seems like in-group signalling: “See all these arguments against cryonics? They are all irrational, as I have now demonstrated. QED cryonics is rational, and you should signal your conformity to the Rationality Tribe by signing up today!”
I can totally understand why it’s presented this way, but it reads off as “hype” because I almost never encounter anything else. It all seems to just naively assume that “preserving my individual life at any cost is a perfectly rational decision.” Maybe that really is all the thought that goes in to it; if your utility function places a suitably high value on self-preservation, then there’s not really a lot of further discussion required.
But I get the sense that there are deeper thoughts that just never get discussed, because everyone is busy fighting against the nay-sayers. There’s a deep absence of arguments for cryonics, especially ones that actually take in to consideration social policy, and what else could be accomplished for $200K.
(Eliezer hinted at it, with his comments about economies of scale, but it was a mere footnote, and quite possibly the first time I’ve seen anyone discuss the issue from that perspective even briefly)
Looks like you’ve just found another way of saying “you’re all irrational!” without providing evidence.
It’s more that all the arguments I see are aimed at a different audience (cryonics skeptics). I do not take this as very strong evidence of irrationality. On the other hand, anyone who posts here, I take that as decent evidence of rationality, especially people like Eliezer. So I assume with a high probability that either the people espousing it have a different utility function than I, or are simply not talking about the other half of the argument. I’m assuming that there is a rational reason, but objecting because I don’t feel anyone is trying to rationally explain it to me :)
Loosely, in my head, there’s the idea of a “negative” argument, which is just rebutting your opponent, or a “positive” argument which actually looks at the advantages of your position. I see hype, in-group signalling, and “negative” arguments. I’m interested in seeing some “positive” ones.
As far as evidence, I did actually just put up a post discussing specifically the “economies of scale” argument. It is thus far the only “positive” argument I’ve heard for it, aside from the (IMO) very weak argument of “who doesn’t want immortality?” (I find it weak specifically because it ignores both availability and price, and glosses over how reliability is affected by those two factors as well)
Hopefully that was clearer!