I think the main reason for this is that these persons have simply spent more time thinking about cyronics compared to other people.
I don’t think this is obvious at all. If you had asked me before in advance which of the following 4 possible sign-pairs would be true with increasing time spent thinking about cryonics:
less credence, less sign-ups
less credence, more sign-ups
more credence, more sign-ups
more credence, less sign-ups
I would have said ‘obviously #3, since everyone starts from “that won’t ever work” and move up from there, and then one is that much more likely to sign up’
The actual outcome, #2, would be the one I would expect least. (Hence, I am strongly suspicious of anyone claiming to expect or predict it as suffering from hindsight bias.)
It is noted above that those with strong community attachment think that there is more risk of catastrophe. If human civilization collapses or is destroyed, then cryonics patients and facilities will also be destroyed.
I would expect the result to be a more accurate estimation of the success, combined with more sign-ups . 2 is an example of this if, in fact, the more accurate assessment is lower than the assessment of someone with a different level of information.
I don’t it’s true that everyone starts from “that won’t ever work”—we know some people think it might work, and we may be inclined to some wishful thinking or susceptability to hype to inflate our likelihood above the conclusion we’d reach if we invest the time to consider the issue in more depth, It’s also worth noting that we’re not comparing the general public to those who’ve seriously considered signing up, but the lesswrong population, who are probably a lot more exposed to the idea of cryonics.
I’d agree that it’s not what I would have predicted in advance (having no more expectation for the likelihood assigned to go up as down with more research), but it would be predictable for someone proceeding from the premise that the lesswrong community overestimates the likelihood of cryonics success compared to those who have done more research.
Yeah, I think you have a point. However, maybe the following explanation would be better:
Currently cyronics aren’t likely to work. People who sign up into cyronics do research on the subject before or after singing up, and hence become aware that cyronics aren’t likely to work.
I don’t think this is obvious at all. If you had asked me before in advance which of the following 4 possible sign-pairs would be true with increasing time spent thinking about cryonics:
less credence, less sign-ups
less credence, more sign-ups
more credence, more sign-ups
more credence, less sign-ups
I would have said ‘obviously #3, since everyone starts from “that won’t ever work” and move up from there, and then one is that much more likely to sign up’
The actual outcome, #2, would be the one I would expect least. (Hence, I am strongly suspicious of anyone claiming to expect or predict it as suffering from hindsight bias.)
It is noted above that those with strong community attachment think that there is more risk of catastrophe. If human civilization collapses or is destroyed, then cryonics patients and facilities will also be destroyed.
I would expect the result to be a more accurate estimation of the success, combined with more sign-ups . 2 is an example of this if, in fact, the more accurate assessment is lower than the assessment of someone with a different level of information.
I don’t it’s true that everyone starts from “that won’t ever work”—we know some people think it might work, and we may be inclined to some wishful thinking or susceptability to hype to inflate our likelihood above the conclusion we’d reach if we invest the time to consider the issue in more depth, It’s also worth noting that we’re not comparing the general public to those who’ve seriously considered signing up, but the lesswrong population, who are probably a lot more exposed to the idea of cryonics.
I’d agree that it’s not what I would have predicted in advance (having no more expectation for the likelihood assigned to go up as down with more research), but it would be predictable for someone proceeding from the premise that the lesswrong community overestimates the likelihood of cryonics success compared to those who have done more research.
Yeah, I think you have a point. However, maybe the following explanation would be better: Currently cyronics aren’t likely to work. People who sign up into cyronics do research on the subject before or after singing up, and hence become aware that cyronics aren’t likely to work.