Too often I see people basing their now-decisions on the now-technology, rather than the now-measured rate of advancement of the technology.
The rate of advancement of cryopreservation technology that occurred in the past is already an ill-defined concept, very difficult to measure in a sensible way. Making extrapolations to the future is basically a random guess. Anyway, if you think there is a chance that viable cryopreservation technology may appear within your lifetime, it seems that the best course of action would be to start investing money in low-risk assets and then sign up for cryonics if and when the technology become available, rather than making a blind commitment right now.
If you are confident that you will be able to pay for cryo out of pocket whenever that time comes, then waiting would be the best course of action.
However, most people fund cryo by making the cryo provider the beneficiary of their life insurance policy. For them, it is better to sign up as soon as possible so that they lock in lower insurance rates (which go up the older you are obviously) and to limit the risk that they will have developed a health condition that will make them uninsurable by the time they do try to sign up.
Does a life insurance pay off more than a low-risk investment over your expected lifespan? If it does, you might get a life insurance policy but delay signing up for cryonics until and if you are confident that it works. This way you also save on the membership fees.
Does a life insurance pay off more than a low-risk investment over your expected lifespan?
It pays off less.
The insurance companies actually take your premiums and put them into low-risk investment portfolios. The expected payout of the insurance policy is less than the expected value of the portfolio—that’s how insurance companies make a profit.
Also, insurance companies often front-load the premium payments relative to actuarial risk: at first you pay more than the actuarially fair amount, and less later. The insurance companies know that many people will eventually let the coverage drop due to financial trouble, error, etc so there is a cross-subsidy to those who make use of the whole policy (similar to the way one can get free loans from credit card companies by always paying the monthly bill, which the companies accept as a cost of acquiring customers who will take out high-interest balances).
This makes life insurance more desirable for someone unusually likely to keep the coverage for its whole term, and less so for the typical person.
Well, we’re talking about cryonicists, not typical people. Typical people might be better off with term insurance. Cryonicists might be better off with whole life insurance.
If an insurance company screws up and loses money on what it thought was a low-risk investment, is it still obligated to pay out your beneficiaries?
Do you believe you are less likely to screw up in this manner than a professional fund manager hired by a multi-million dollar company whose existence depends on accurate forecasts?
Will your heirs and/or creditors find it easier to grab your portfolio or an insurance policy of which they are neither the owners nor the beneficiaries?
If an insurance company screws up and loses money on what it thought was a low-risk investment, is it still obligated to pay out your beneficiaries?
Sure, but if it screws up in a sufficiently epic fashion it won’t have any money to pay to your beneficiaries.
Do you believe you are less likely to screw up in this manner than a professional fund manager hired by a multi-million dollar company whose existence depends on accurate forecasts?
Me? Why, yes, I do.
Will your heirs and/or creditors find it easier to grab your portfolio or an insurance policy of which they are neither the owners nor the beneficiaries?
I don’t know enough of bankruptcy/probate law to answer.
I might also point out that I had said nothing about the wisdom of buying term life insurance. I suspect that, as usual, it depends. For some people it’s a good deal, for others not so much.
Naive measurements are still measurements. Personally, I would like to see more research into prediction as a science. It is difficult because you want to jump ahead decades, and five-year-out predictions have only so much value, but I (naively) predict that we’ll get better at prediction the more we practice concretely doing so. I would (naively) expect that the data used to calibrate predictions would come from interviews with researchers paired with advanced psychology.
Plotting your personal rate of advancement against the team and the field, we predict a breakthrough in April of next year.
Personally, I would like to see more research into prediction as a science.
You could try reading up on what is already known. Silver’s Signal and the Noise is not a bad start if you know nothing at all; if you already have some expertise in the area, the anthology Principles of Forecasting edited by Armstrong (available in Google & Libgen IIRC) covers a lot of topics.
More domain-specific, invention specific, plotting events with ever-narrower error bands. If you could isolate the specific month that news media gets in a buzz about uploading three years in advance, that would be a significant increase in prediction usefulness.
It may be impossible even with significant effort, but it’s certainly impossible without having first tried. I want to know, if nothing else, the limits of reasonable prediction. That itself would be useful information. Even if we can never get past 50% accuracy for predictions, knowing that all such predictions can only be 50% likely is actionable in the presence of any such prediction.
I’m afraid that the only methods I can think up require vast collection of many different types of data, far beyond what I can currently manage myself.
Actually, there are prediction markets. Unfortunately the most useful one, Intrade got closed (maybe the three-letter-agencies felt threatened?) but hopefully there will be others. Oh, far from accurate, don’t get me wrong.
But at least if you wanted to have some kind of starting estimate for something you knew nothing about, you could sometimes find one at Intrade.
I suspect it closed because it wasn’t giving the kind of powerful results necessary to get funding-type attention. I suppose to start off, a prediction agency should predict its own success. :P
Now I’m curious about any self-referential predictions Intrade made...
Well then, I can only assure you that I’m certain such research is being actively conducted. I’m pretty sure the Three-Letter Agencies are very much interested in prediction. Any political organisation is very much interested in prediction. Anyone who plays in the financial markets is very much interested in prediction. So no, it doesn’t look like there are too few resources committed to this problem.
Unfortunately, the problem seems to be really hard.
The rate of advancement of cryopreservation technology that occurred in the past is already an ill-defined concept, very difficult to measure in a sensible way. Making extrapolations to the future is basically a random guess.
Anyway, if you think there is a chance that viable cryopreservation technology may appear within your lifetime, it seems that the best course of action would be to start investing money in low-risk assets and then sign up for cryonics if and when the technology become available, rather than making a blind commitment right now.
If you are confident that you will be able to pay for cryo out of pocket whenever that time comes, then waiting would be the best course of action.
However, most people fund cryo by making the cryo provider the beneficiary of their life insurance policy. For them, it is better to sign up as soon as possible so that they lock in lower insurance rates (which go up the older you are obviously) and to limit the risk that they will have developed a health condition that will make them uninsurable by the time they do try to sign up.
Does a life insurance pay off more than a low-risk investment over your expected lifespan?
If it does, you might get a life insurance policy but delay signing up for cryonics until and if you are confident that it works. This way you also save on the membership fees.
It pays off less.
The insurance companies actually take your premiums and put them into low-risk investment portfolios. The expected payout of the insurance policy is less than the expected value of the portfolio—that’s how insurance companies make a profit.
Also, insurance companies often front-load the premium payments relative to actuarial risk: at first you pay more than the actuarially fair amount, and less later. The insurance companies know that many people will eventually let the coverage drop due to financial trouble, error, etc so there is a cross-subsidy to those who make use of the whole policy (similar to the way one can get free loans from credit card companies by always paying the monthly bill, which the companies accept as a cost of acquiring customers who will take out high-interest balances).
This makes life insurance more desirable for someone unusually likely to keep the coverage for its whole term, and less so for the typical person.
Well, we’re talking about cryonicists, not typical people. Typical people might be better off with term insurance. Cryonicists might be better off with whole life insurance.
Insurance is not an investment, it’s insurance.
Of course whether someone will actually keep the coverage for the whole term is uncertain and calculating a reasonable forecast seems rather hard.
If an insurance company screws up and loses money on what it thought was a low-risk investment, is it still obligated to pay out your beneficiaries?
Do you believe you are less likely to screw up in this manner than a professional fund manager hired by a multi-million dollar company whose existence depends on accurate forecasts?
Will your heirs and/or creditors find it easier to grab your portfolio or an insurance policy of which they are neither the owners nor the beneficiaries?
Sure, but if it screws up in a sufficiently epic fashion it won’t have any money to pay to your beneficiaries.
Me? Why, yes, I do.
I don’t know enough of bankruptcy/probate law to answer.
I might also point out that I had said nothing about the wisdom of buying term life insurance. I suspect that, as usual, it depends. For some people it’s a good deal, for others not so much.
That’s what I thought.
Naive measurements are still measurements. Personally, I would like to see more research into prediction as a science. It is difficult because you want to jump ahead decades, and five-year-out predictions have only so much value, but I (naively) predict that we’ll get better at prediction the more we practice concretely doing so. I would (naively) expect that the data used to calibrate predictions would come from interviews with researchers paired with advanced psychology.
You could try reading up on what is already known. Silver’s Signal and the Noise is not a bad start if you know nothing at all; if you already have some expertise in the area, the anthology Principles of Forecasting edited by Armstrong (available in Google & Libgen IIRC) covers a lot of topics.
If you want non-domain-specific, that’s called statistics, specifically statistical modeling.
I specifically want it to be more specific.
Do you mean more confidence in the prediction? Narrower error bands?
More domain-specific, invention specific, plotting events with ever-narrower error bands. If you could isolate the specific month that news media gets in a buzz about uploading three years in advance, that would be a significant increase in prediction usefulness.
That doesn’t sound realistic to me. It sounds impossible.
It may be impossible even with significant effort, but it’s certainly impossible without having first tried. I want to know, if nothing else, the limits of reasonable prediction. That itself would be useful information. Even if we can never get past 50% accuracy for predictions, knowing that all such predictions can only be 50% likely is actionable in the presence of any such prediction.
These are very much domain-specific plus are the function of available technology.
You seem to want psychohistory—unfortunately it’s entirely fiction.
I want exactly as I’ve stated: Research into a method.
So, um… go for it?
I’m afraid that the only methods I can think up require vast collection of many different types of data, far beyond what I can currently manage myself.
Actually, there are prediction markets. Unfortunately the most useful one, Intrade got closed (maybe the three-letter-agencies felt threatened?) but hopefully there will be others. Oh, far from accurate, don’t get me wrong.
But at least if you wanted to have some kind of starting estimate for something you knew nothing about, you could sometimes find one at Intrade.
I suspect it closed because it wasn’t giving the kind of powerful results necessary to get funding-type attention. I suppose to start off, a prediction agency should predict its own success. :P
Now I’m curious about any self-referential predictions Intrade made...
Well then, I can only assure you that I’m certain such research is being actively conducted. I’m pretty sure the Three-Letter Agencies are very much interested in prediction. Any political organisation is very much interested in prediction. Anyone who plays in the financial markets is very much interested in prediction. So no, it doesn’t look like there are too few resources committed to this problem.
Unfortunately, the problem seems to be really hard.
Maybe, but until then we still have to carry on with what we have got.