Susskind’s Rule of Thumb seems worthwhile here. The actionable question doesn’t seem to be so much “Does Bostrom publicly say he thinks cryonics could work?” as “Is Bostrom signed up for cryonics?” (Hanson, for example, is signed up, despite concerns that it most likely won’t work.)
I’d say it’s more that a rich person not signing up is expressing a strong preference against. For people who believe rich people are smarter than average this should constitute a substantial piece of evidence.
Imagine people buying a car where it costs $1,000,000 to change the colour. We conclude that anyone who pays cares strongly about the colour; anyone who doesn’t pay we can only say their feelings aren’t enormously strong. Conversely imagine it costs $100 to change the colour. Then for anyone who pays we can only conclude they care a bit about the colour, while anyone who doesn’t pay must be quite strongly indifferent to the car’s colour.
Susskind’s Rule of Thumb seems worthwhile here. The actionable question doesn’t seem to be so much “Does Bostrom publicly say he thinks cryonics could work?” as “Is Bostrom signed up for cryonics?” (Hanson, for example, is signed up, despite concerns that it most likely won’t work.)
Good point. In fact, Sandberg, Bostrom, and Armstrong are all signed up for cryonics.
As is Peter Thiel.
Peter Thiel is incredibly rich, so signing up for cryonics is not necessarily expressing a strong preference.
It may be considering how few similarly rich people are signed up.
I’d say it’s more that a rich person not signing up is expressing a strong preference against. For people who believe rich people are smarter than average this should constitute a substantial piece of evidence.
Imagine people buying a car where it costs $1,000,000 to change the colour. We conclude that anyone who pays cares strongly about the colour; anyone who doesn’t pay we can only say their feelings aren’t enormously strong. Conversely imagine it costs $100 to change the colour. Then for anyone who pays we can only conclude they care a bit about the colour, while anyone who doesn’t pay must be quite strongly indifferent to the car’s colour.
Plus the fact that even if it’s unlikely to work, the expected value can be ridiculously high.