It’s not clear at all that there will be anything remotely resembling “ok, you can crash on my couch” at the point in time when the frozen dead can be reanimated. Will there be a community that would be recognizable to the freshly defrosted?
Enkidu got to crash on Gilgamesh’s couch, at least in a sense. As long as people are still people, it seems reasonable to assume something of the sort will continue. And if people aren’t people anymore, then we’ve passed into the realms of the Singularity, where by definition we can’t make predictions; so we might as well ignore that set of future-branches to focus on the ones we can at least make educated guesses about.
Cryopreservation advocates should not promote ideas that are based on speculation and wishful thinking (“you’ll be enmeshed in a community [… that will fulfill your social needs]”), best not to oversell if you want to appear legitimate.
From what I’ve seen, even suggesting that there may be somewhere around a 5% chance that someone who’s cryo-preserved today will be revived leads to accusations of “overselling”—so if that’s going to happen anyway, then that doesn’t seem to be a very important factor in making organizational plans. A parallel that occurs to me is that no matter how benign the bus-ad or banner, atheist and secularist groups still get complaints and have their ads defaced and torn down… which doesn’t mean that it’s a bad idea to continue putting them up.
Enkidu got to crash on Gilgamesh’s couch, at least in a sense.
Then let’s promote the idea that there will be a community in the sense of “as long as there are multiple agents interacting with each other, they can be seen as part of a community”. That, however, may not alleviate the fears of cut-off social connections.
The concern is that when telling someone “you will be enmeshed in a community”, you may be including Enkidu and Gilgamesh, while they may be thinking Thanksgiving Dinner.
EDIT:
From what I’ve seen, even suggesting that there may be somewhere around a 5% chance that someone who’s cryo-preserved today will be revived leads to accusations of “overselling”—so if that’s going to happen anyway, then that doesn’t seem to be a very important factor in making organizational plans.
“We will be accused of making dubious claims whatever we do, so we might as well make dubious claims.” The difference is that a 0.05 chance of cryo working can and should be defended, while a “and the society you awaken into will be reminiscient of your Thanksgiving experiences” cannot.
The concern is that when telling someone “you will be enmeshed in a community”, you may be including Enkidu and Gilgamesh, while they may be thinking Thanksgiving Dinner.
The most frequent reason humans unfreeze something today is to eat it. If our descentants will resemble humans, this should be our standard expectation.
“Daddytron, I don’t want to eat the ancient humans, it just doesn’t feel right”
- “Don’t worry about it, Alice-ML. It’s what was their standard expectation, here, check that ancient electronic papyrus. In fact, the humans climbed into the freezer voluntarily, and they lived long lives before. These ones only fed themselves organic food, too!”
when telling someone “you will be enmeshed in a community”, you may be including Enkidu and Gilgamesh
I was more trying to use that pair as an example that humans still behave in many recognizably similar ways as they did five thousand years ago; the more “Thanksgiving Dinner” approach you mention is, in fact, what I’m suggesting may be worth considering trying to add to current cryo culture.
Enkidu got to crash on Gilgamesh’s couch, at least in a sense. As long as people are still people, it seems reasonable to assume something of the sort will continue. And if people aren’t people anymore, then we’ve passed into the realms of the Singularity, where by definition we can’t make predictions; so we might as well ignore that set of future-branches to focus on the ones we can at least make educated guesses about.
From what I’ve seen, even suggesting that there may be somewhere around a 5% chance that someone who’s cryo-preserved today will be revived leads to accusations of “overselling”—so if that’s going to happen anyway, then that doesn’t seem to be a very important factor in making organizational plans. A parallel that occurs to me is that no matter how benign the bus-ad or banner, atheist and secularist groups still get complaints and have their ads defaced and torn down… which doesn’t mean that it’s a bad idea to continue putting them up.
Then let’s promote the idea that there will be a community in the sense of “as long as there are multiple agents interacting with each other, they can be seen as part of a community”. That, however, may not alleviate the fears of cut-off social connections.
The concern is that when telling someone “you will be enmeshed in a community”, you may be including Enkidu and Gilgamesh, while they may be thinking Thanksgiving Dinner.
EDIT:
“We will be accused of making dubious claims whatever we do, so we might as well make dubious claims.” The difference is that a 0.05 chance of cryo working can and should be defended, while a “and the society you awaken into will be reminiscient of your Thanksgiving experiences” cannot.
WIth themselves as the turkey, do you mean?
The most frequent reason humans unfreeze something today is to eat it. If our descentants will resemble humans, this should be our standard expectation.
“Daddytron, I don’t want to eat the ancient humans, it just doesn’t feel right”
- “Don’t worry about it, Alice-ML. It’s what was their standard expectation, here, check that ancient electronic papyrus. In fact, the humans climbed into the freezer voluntarily, and they lived long lives before. These ones only fed themselves organic food, too!”
I was more trying to use that pair as an example that humans still behave in many recognizably similar ways as they did five thousand years ago; the more “Thanksgiving Dinner” approach you mention is, in fact, what I’m suggesting may be worth considering trying to add to current cryo culture.